Probation: Disciplinary Proceedings

(asked on 24th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases of alleged (a) misconduct and (b) gross misconduct by probation officers that reached proceedings were (i) not proven, (ii) resolved by the issuing of management advice, (iii) resolved with a written warning and (iv) concluded with dismissal in each of the last three years.


Answered by
Robert Buckland Portrait
Robert Buckland
This question was answered on 1st July 2019

Table 1: Conduct & discipline cases1 for misconduct and gross misconduct by probation officers2, by outcome3, 2015/16 to 2017/18

2015/16

2016/17

2017/18

Misconduct

Not been proven

0

~

~

Management advice & guidance

0

0

0

Written warning

5

10

9

Dismissal

0

0

0

Other outcomes4

3

~

~

Gross Misconduct

Not been proven

0

0

0

Management advice & guidance

0

0

0

Written warning

6

3

~

Dismissal

4

4

3

Other outcomes4

~

~

~

Notes:

1. A case is defined as a unique combination of case and individual member of staff. Where more than one member of staff is involved in a single case these are counted separately in this table. Equally staff involved in more than one case during the year are counted multiple times.

2. Qualified band 4 probation officers only. Figures exclude Senior Probation Officers.

3. Information on the outcomes of any appeal is not included.

4. Includes where cases have been withdrawn/closed or where other disciplinary action was taken, such as financial penalties, regrades/downgrades, verbal warnings.

'~ denotes suppressed values of 2 or fewer or other values which would allow values of 2 or fewer to be derived by subtraction. Low numbers are suppressed to prevent disclosure in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 1998.

Conduct and discipline cases provide a range of options for dealing with staff employed who fail to meet the required standards of behaviour.

Both investigations and conduct cases may involve multiple charges and may have multiple outcomes for the different parts of the case.

Dismissals are appropriate in cases of gross misconduct where any further relationship and trust between HMPPS and the member of staff concerned is impossible

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