Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many vacancies in the probation service there were in each region on 1 January 2024.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The workforce position, at 31 December 2023, was 20,806 full-time equivalent (FTE) Staff in Post working in Probation Service grades (including those working in Approved Premises). This is an increase of 1,856 FTE (9.8%) since 31 December 2022.
Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service and we have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to deliver more robust supervision, recruit more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.
We have recruited a record 4,039 trainee Probation Officers between 2020/21 and 2022/23 and we expect these intakes to qualify by the end of 2024 and begin to take on Probation Officer caseloads.
Trainee Probation Officers are onboarded twice annually (including this March which will not be counted in the figures below), and this can lead to fluctuations in staffing levels across the year.
We will continue to run centralised recruitment campaigns in priority regions to help bolster the number of applications.
Table One: Vacancies across Probation Service Regions, December 2023, all Probation Service grades.
Probation Service Region | Vacancies (FTE) |
PS East Midlands | 21 |
PS East of England | 277 |
PS Greater Manchester | 15 |
PS Kent, Surrey & Sussex | 121 |
PS London | 463 |
PS North East | 50 |
PS North West | 128 |
PS South Central | 154 |
PS South West | 85 |
PS Wales | 0 |
PS West Midlands | 82 |
PS Yorkshire & the Humber | 45 |
PS Approved Premises | 0 |
Notes
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of FTE (a) fully qualified grade 1 adult rheumatology consultants and (b) fully qualified grade 1 paediatric rheumatology consultant vacancies and shortages in England.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No specific estimate has been made of adult or paediatric consultant rheumatologist vacancies.
Asked by: Sarah Edwards (Labour - Tamworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many vacancies there are in frontline police roles, including Police Community Support Officers, as of 16 April 2024.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold data on vacancies in frontline policing roles.
The Home Office collects and publishes data annually on the function of police workers (officers, staff, designated officers (S.38) and Police Community Support Officers) as at 31 March each year in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.
This includes information on the number and proportion of police workers in frontline policing roles. Data from 31 March 2021 to 31 March 2023, by worker type, can be found in the ‘Functions Open Data Table’ here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64ba635306f78d000d7426aa/open-data-table-police-workforce-functions-260723.ods. Data for previous years, can be found in Tables F1 to F3 of the data tables accompanying each publication.
Data for the ‘as at 31 March 2024’ publication will be published in July 2024 as part of the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many vacancies in the probation service there are as of 16 April 2024, by region.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on Wednesday 20 March to Question 18474. Data was provided on the average number of vacancies for the month of December 2023, in line with our latest published workforce statistics (which present data up to 31 December 2023).
We are unable to provide a more up-to-date number of vacancies at the current time (for periods following December 2023) as this would pre-empt the next set of published data, which will be released on Thursday 16 May 2024. Once updated staffing data have been published in May, including data up to 31 March 2024, we will then be able to respond to questions for vacancy data up to and including March 2024.
Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service and we have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to deliver more robust supervision, recruit more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.
We have recruited a record 4,039 trainee Probation Officers between 2020/21 and 2022/23 and we expect these intakes to qualify by the end of 2024 and begin to take on Probation Officer caseloads.
Nov. 16 2023
Source Page: Heavy Goods Vehicle driver vacancies in the United Kingdom: October 2021 to September 2023Found: Heavy Goods Vehicle driver vacancies in the United Kingdom: October 2021 to September 2023
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help fill job vacancies in Romford constituency.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In the constituency and across the London Borough of Havering, the local Romford Jobcentre team are supporting residents into work and helping those in work to progress to higher paid jobs. We are working with local and national employers to help fill vacancies quickly, delivering Sector-Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs), recruitment days, Job Fairs, and work trials.
The weekly job club in Romford Jobcentre provides support on CV preparation, job applications and interview techniques, along with information sessions on a range of subjects to help customers into work, including information about different employment sectors, advice on childcare, support for those with additional health needs and motivational sessions.
The Jobcentre provides a bespoke service to employers, to match and screen candidates, and offers regular Job Fairs focussed on specific sectors and customer groups, with recent events to coincide with older workers week and national apprenticeship week. The team are also working with the London Borough of Havering to develop local support.
In partnership with the College of North East London we have recently offered SWAPs for local customers to gain skills and enhance their applications for the Logistics and Warehouse sectors. Care Provider Voices deliver a range of adult social care opportunities, with Springboard offering opportunities in the hospitality sector.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department have made a risk assessment of prison officer vacancies in the Long Term High Security Estate.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We closely monitor staffing levels across the estate via a number of internal governance forums, which assess the vacancy levels for individual prisons and across regions and functions, including the Long Term High Security Estate (LTHSE). Vacancies are one of a number of contributory factors that determine HMPPS' assessment of risk and stability within prisons. We will always ensure that prisons are sufficiently staffed to deliver safe and secure regimes. Where establishments feel that their staffing levels will affect stability or regime, including because of vacancies, there are a number of ways they can maximise the use of their own resource and seek support from other establishments in the short term, through processes managed nationally at Agency level. These include overtime payments and support via Detached Duty staff from other prisons.
We are continuing recruitment activity at all sites with a current or future need, including in the LTHSE. Nationally, we have seen a substantial improvement in the national staffing picture within prisons over the past year. The number of Band 3-5 prison officers increased by 1,634 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) between December 2022 and December 2023, and resignation rates have fallen over the same period. This is the result of significant efforts across the agency, including substantial increases in pay for staff, our first-ever nationwide advertising campaign, incentivized recruitment schemes where we incentivised applicants to relocate to ‘harder-to-staff’ sites, and the Prison Officer Alumni Network, where we have fast-tracked former staff back into the service.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officer vacancies there were in England on 31 December 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are doing more than ever to attract and retain the best staff, including boosting salaries and launching our first-ever nationwide advertising campaign. These efforts are working - we have over 4,800 FTE additional officers between March 2017 and December 2023 and retention rates for prison staff are improving.
In December 2023, across the whole of the Public Sector Prison estate in England for Band 3-5 Prison Officers, Staff in Post was 40 FTE below the Target Staffing level.
This figure is a combination of indicative vacancies at prisons with Staff in Post below their Target Staffing level and the indicative number of surplus staff at other prisons where Staff in Post is above their Target Staffing level. Prisons with surplus staff are likely to be sending those staff to work on Detached Duty at prisons with vacancies, and therefore netting vacancies against surpluses is a reasonable reflection of the overall national position.
At times, we have intentionally over-recruited in certain prisons or regions to give the system wider resilience and where prisons are not at their Target Staffing level. Use of Detached Duty, a long-standing mechanism to deploy staff from one prison or region to support another, is also not reflected in the indicative vacancies number.
Notes
Asked by: Liz Kendall (Labour - Leicester West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Office for Budget Responsibility publication entitled Economic and Fiscal Outlook, published in March 2024, whether he has made a comparative assessment of the potential impact of the projected labour participation rate on the number of job vacancies over the next five years.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP is not an economic forecaster. This sits with the OBR who have forecast total hours worked in the economy will increase over the next 5 years.
Nov. 01 2023
Source Page: Employment Vacancies Notified to DfC, Quarter Two 2023/24 Financial YearFound: Employment Vacancies Notified to DfC, Quarter Two 2023/24 Financial Year