Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential for a role for the voluntary sector in helping support the Probation Service during the period after release.

We recognise the valuable role played by the thousands of voluntary sector organisations that work in partnership with prisons and the Probation Service to provide vital support to people serving their sentences in prison and on returning to the community.

We welcome the Independent Sentencing Review’s recommendations on how we can better harness the value the Third Sector can add to probation work, building even stronger partnerships to enable better targeting of resources and improve outcomes for offenders.

The Ministry of Justice and H M Prison and Probation Service are continuing to work with voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to define the role that they can play in the Probation Service of the future.