Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve probation services.

In May, we announced plans to strengthen probation by ending Community Rehabilitation Company contracts early and streamlining responsibilities for public, private and voluntary sector partners.

This means the National Probation Service taking on supervision of all offenders, the private sector continuing to drive innovation in interventions, and greater voluntary sector involvement in rehabilitation.

In July we published a Draft Operating Blueprint setting out further detail on our plans. We are continuing to test and refine the design for the future model with partners and stakeholders as plans for the transition take shape. In Wales we are proceeding with plans to move the responsibility for supervision of all offenders into the NPS by the end of 2019. Our experience there will help inform the approach to transition in England.

We continue to drive improvements in service delivery under existing arrangements, including investing £22m per year to support an additional 500 CRC staff in prisons delivering sustained support for offenders to find accommodation and employment on release.