Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of probation officer salaries in the context of the (a) workload and (b) level of stress associated with this role.

The Probation Service this Government inherited was burdened with a workload which often exceeded what staff should be expected to handle. Probation staff are drawn to the profession because it is a vocation, it is right that we recognise the resilience and dedication of our staff.

To achieve this and support our hardworking probation staff, in October, we brought forward planned increases to pay, impacting the majority of staff by six months enabling access to improved pay earlier than planned.

We shortly intend to engage with Trade Union colleagues about a new pay deal effective April 2025, following the current multi-year deal coming to an end in March 2025.