Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what the average caseload of probation officers in England and Wales was in each year of the last decade.

The average caseload of Probation Officers has been presented from the period July 2021 to February 2025. This is because the Probation Service unified in June 2021, with some Probation Officers and caseload held by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) prior to this point. The Probation Service does not have access to data for caseload held by CRCs .

Table One: Probation Officer average annual caseload across England and Wales

*Data presented based on an eight-month period rather than a full year.

Notes:

• The data within the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) are manually entered by Senior Probation Officers (SPOs) for the purposes of ensuring that contracted hours and adjustments are accurate. These data are subject to inaccuracy as a result of the manual nature with which data are submitted.

• Annual average caseload per Probation Officer has been calculated by taking the average caseload on the last day of each month in that period.

• Even if staff do not have contracted hours, they can still have cases allocated to them by SPOs.

• There may be cases where staff who have left the Probation Service still appear to hold caseload on the WMT and so the data should be treated with caution. Furthermore, some staff on long-term absences (e.g. career breaks / long-term sickness) may still have a caseload allocated to them.

• Data have not been presented for the period prior to June 2021, the point at which unification of the Probation Service took place. Prior to June 2021, some Probation Officers and caseload were held by CRCs, data for which is not included in the WMT. It would not be consistent to present a time series of caseload per Probation Officer before and after unification.