Probation Service: Staff
(asked on 7th November 2023) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of probation officers that have workloads that are too high in each region.
HMIP report Caseloads, Workloads and Staffing Levels in Probation Services, March 2021 is publicly available. This indicates a recommendation that caseloads should not exceed 50.
Region by region analysis is shown below. As of 8th November 2023, 98% of Probation Officers hold less than 50 cases.
Region | Total number of Band 4 Probation Officers | No. of Band 4 Probation Officers with under 50 cases (= | % of Probation Officers with under 50 cases (= | No. of Probation Officers with over 50 cases (>50) | % of Probation Officers with over 50 cases (>50) |
East Midlands Region | 217 | 215 | 99.08 | 2 | 0.92 |
East of England | 277 | 260 | 93.86 | 17 | 6.14 |
Greater Manchester | 213 | 213 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
Kent Surrey Sussex Region | 177 | 172 | 97.18 | 5 | 2.82 |
London | 459 | 436 | 94.99 | 23 | 5.01 |
North East Region | 225 | 225 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
North West Region | 335 | 335 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
South Central | 176 | 174 | 98.86 | 2 | 1.14 |
South West | 233 | 232 | 99.57 | 1 | 0.43 |
Wales | 275 | 275 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
West Midlands Region | 371 | 370 | 99.73 | 1 | 0.27 |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 394 | 391 | 99.24 | 3 | 0.76 |
Grand Total | 3352 | 3298 | 98.39 | 54 | 1.61 |
Individual officers will hold a mixture of cases corresponding to their available capacity at the time, their experience and specific expertise. The Probation Service is committed to providing a quality service in order to achieve its mission of protecting the public, supporting victims and reducing reoffending.
We have implemented a Prioritisation Framework to support demand management on priority areas of delivery where there are workload and staffing challenges. We continue to run centralised recruitment campaigns in priority regions to help bolster the number of applications and improve time to hire for key operational roles. We have also offered financial support to incentivise staff to move permanently to areas with the most significant staffing challenges.