National Probation Service for England and Wales

(asked on 8th October 2018) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many probation officers are attached to a specific (a) prison, (b) young offenders institution, (c) secure treatment centre and (d) other penal establishment.


Answered by
 Portrait
Rory Stewart
This question was answered on 15th October 2018

As at 30 June 2018 there are 465 National Probation Service Probation Officers located at specific prisons, 94 at young offenders institutions. This includes both Probation Officers and Senior Probation Officers.

Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) also have staff located in prisons but, as CRC contracts do not specify that CRCs must maintain staffing numbers at a prescribed level, we do not hold the information that you have requested in relation to CRC staff. The contracts do require each CRC to maintain a sufficient level of staff, and ensure that its workforce is competent and adequately trained. We are currently undergoing commercial discussions with providers regarding a new Through the Gate delivery specification, which includes resettlement services being delivered in prisons and by whom. We closely monitor and robustly manage providers to make sure they fulfil their contractual commitments to reduce reoffending, protect the public and provide value for money to the taxpayer.

There are no Probation Officers at Secure Training Centres or Secure Treatment Centres and other penal establishments. This is because all offenders given custodial sentences below the age of 18 are supported by Youth Offending Teams rather than the Probation Service.

As with all HR databases, extracts are taken at a fixed point in time, to ensure consistency of reporting. However, the database itself is dynamic and where updates to the database are made late, subsequent to the taking of the extract, these updates will not be reflected in figures produced by the extract. For this reason, HR data are unlikely to be precisely accurate. It should also be noted that as we do not hold the data in the format requested the figures given for NPS staff does not include those working at Privately Managed Prisons.

With the Offender Management in Custody model also being implemented across the estate, prisons will be better able to run fuller regimes with more opportunities for purposeful activity. This will have a positive effect on reducing the levels of violence in prisons, which still remain too high and impairs prisoner rehabilitation.

Reticulating Splines