Permanent Secretary at Ministry of Justice
Adam Bailey
Director, Probation and Reoffending Policy at Ministry of Justice
James McEwen
Director General CEO at HM Prison and Probation Service
Jim Barton
Executive Director, Capacity Implementation at HM Prisons and Probation Service
Kim Thornden-Edwards
Chief Probation Officer at HMPPS
Here's what the Committee were exercised about:-
Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service
The Probation Service is suffering from poor performance and persistent staffing shortages, particularly of qualified probation officers. The National Audit Office in its recent report found a service under significant strain following reforms in 2021, meeting only 26% (seven out of 27) of its performance targets in 2024-25.
While HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has made efforts at recruitment and retention, in 2024 it found it had been underestimating the number of sentence management staff by around 40% (around 6,900 full-time equivalent staff.) This meant it had been operating with only about half the staff needed to manage offenders' sentences.
In an evidence session with senior officials from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMPPS, the PAC will seek answers as to why probation performance has gotten worse, not better, despite past reforms. Other likely topics for questioning include the management of the Our Future Probation Service programme, and how this will achieve its planned aims to reduce workloads by 25%.
Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service
The Probation Service is suffering from poor performance and persistent staffing shortages, particularly of qualified probation officers. The National Audit Office in its recent report found a service under significant strain following reforms in 2021, meeting only 26% (seven out of 27) of its performance targets in 2024-25.
While HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has made efforts at recruitment and retention, in 2024 it found it had been underestimating the number of sentence management staff by around 40% (around 6,900 full-time equivalent staff.) This meant it had been operating with only about half the staff needed to manage offenders' sentences.
In an evidence session with senior officials from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMPPS, the PAC will seek answers as to why probation performance has gotten worse, not better, despite past reforms. Other likely topics for questioning include the management of the Our Future Probation Service programme, and how this will achieve its planned aims to reduce workloads by 25%.
I was alerted to this session by catching a clip on the BBC Radio 4 'Today in Parliament' slot at 11.30 last night, no doubt to be repeated at 5am this morning.The snippet I caught of Clive Betts laying into Jo Farrar and her deeply unimpressive bluster in response confirms in my mind that the whole two hour session will repay close examination and almost certainly will be more shocking and impactful than trying to plough through the transcript when available. As I'm preparing this 'holding' blog post, some early comments
Seems hmpps' perm sec got a kicking about probation staffing today... Tonight's bbcr4 Today in Westminster... I'm sure there's a transcript online somewhere.
Excruciating, embarrassing, dishonest, delusional... Utter bollox from farrar & mcewen: "a situation we inherited"... Fucking liars...
are confirming my suspicion that this car crash of a session just might turn out to be of huge significance for the incompetents in charge at Petty France.
For those that want to leap straight in with either a strong coffee or stiff whisky, here's the link to the excrutiating video:-
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/7de0b0ba-a35c-4337-86f1-4f189810733e
I've now endured the whole session:-
Floundering, bullshitting, waffle. Key bits:-
Data moving in the right direction, not complacent, listening to staff concerns, more complex caseload, recalling for the right reasons, didn't take eye off the ball, inherited difficult situation, fair and manageable workload, we now understand the full picture, £700 million, digital platforms, recruitment, brave decisions, hoping for a virtuous circle, it's why we're here as a service - to protect the public, no big bang changes, impressed with governance, 30 plus initiatives on the way, Our Future Probation Service, (OFPS), Impact, Reset, address 25% capacity gap,£700 million, transcribe will allow higher caseloads, digital tools will help fill capacity gap, review of OMIC, tackling the root causes
Loved this bit:-
Chair "HMPPS have been behind the curve all along because they think they know how long it takes to do a job and the staff keep telling them it takes longer. How can we have any confidence you actually know how many staff you need to do the work?"
Answer "Staff surveys reveal staff are actually doing more than they need to."
What is my take on what I've heard?
1) A deeply, deeply unimpressive management team
2) A total failure to admit Probation is utterly dysfunctional
3) Politicians who don't understand Probation and that it's heading in the wrong direction
4) Probation has no effective voice with a coherent plan for structural reform
5) Public protection is NOT the main purpose of Probation.
6) Rehabilitation should be the main purpose and public protection thus follows
7) Management have no clue what is involved in being a Probation Officer
8) Tagging at prison? What could possibly go wrong?
9) Scope for diverting some people to voluntary sector - social work needs perhaps?
10) Naive belief in tagging answer to everything
Excruciating to watch the lies, but it may actually bring some joy to us to watch the grilling of our illustrious leaders. Not once did they however mention or site the recent attacks on staff. And silence from our ‘leaders’ on the intranet no messages of support, hope or care. Where are they? Something to hide? Or just keeping us quiet. Shame.
ReplyDeleteGood point 05:46. In the days post-attempted murder in Preston, we (rightly) had multiple posts on the Intranet and an all-staff call led by the Chief Probation Officer. It's almost a week since the stabbing in Oxford and it's crickets... They disgust me
ReplyDeleteAgenda Mon 1 Dec 2025
ReplyDeleteAt 3:00pm: Private discussion
Inquiry Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service
At 3:30pm: Oral evidence
Inquiry Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service
Dr Jo Farrar CB OBE - Permanent Secretary at MoJ
Adam Bailey - Director, Probation and Reoffending Policy at MoJ
James McEwen - Director General CEO at HMPPS
Jim Barton - Executive Director, Capacity Implementation at HMPPS
Kim Thornden-Edwards - Chief Probation Officer at HMPPS
(collectively ~ £750,000pa of taxpayer funds, at a guess)
https://committees.parliament.uk/event/25029/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/
Transcript will be uploaded to the above link, probably later today.
"The Probation Service is suffering from poor performance and persistent staffing shortages, particularly of qualified probation officers. The National Audit Office in its recent report found a service under significant strain following reforms in 2021, meeting only 26% (seven out of 27) of its performance targets in 2024-25.
While HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has made efforts at recruitment and retention, in 2024 it found it had been underestimating the number of sentence management staff by around 40% (around 6,900 full-time equivalent staff.) This meant it had been operating with only about half the staff needed to manage offenders' sentences.
In an evidence session with senior officials from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMPPS, the PAC will seek answers as to why probation performance has gotten worse, not better, despite past reforms. Other likely topics for questioning include the management of the Our Future Probation Service programme, and how this will achieve its planned aims to reduce workloads by 25%."
https://hmiprobation.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/document/national-inspection-april-2025/
Ratings
Leadership Requires improvement
Staffing Requires improvement
Services Inadequate
IT and infrastructure Requires improvement
Out of the witnesses its probably only mcewen who had no hand in the systemic disassembly of probation provision over the last decade.
farrar's utterly disingenuous claim of "inheriting" the mess is beyond offensive; she was central to so much until she was finally promoted out of sight, only to return recently.
I haven't dared watch it as yet so have no idea if the anonymous, invisible CPO (the easiest £100k anyone will ever earn) is, in fact, a real person - or just another hmpps infotech project, an AI, hologram... a Ma-m-m-Max Headroom CPO (for those who are o-o-o-old enough - yah).
While we await the transcript to be uploaded, here are the only 3 pieces of evidence submitted to the inquiry (as far as I can see):
Deletehttps://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/151136/html/
submitted to PAC by Professor Matthew Millings, Professor Harry Annison Professor Lol Burke, Professor Nicola Carr and Professor Gwen Robinson
_________________________________________________
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/151683/html/
submitted by Crest Advisory, "a purpose-driven organisation dedicated to improving justice, policing and public safety."
"he probation service faces significant challenges across quality of service, workforce capacity and its critical role in managing prison pressures. These challenges are interconnected: workforce pressures undermine quality of service; quality issues undermine confidence in community sentences; declining use of community sentences increases prison demand; and rising prison populations increase probation workload through extended supervision requirements."
_________________________________________________
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/151749/html/
submitted by Hleb Buziuk, "an independent policy researcher and human rights advocate."
"I submit evidence in a personal capacity to assist the Committee’s scrutiny of value for money and system resilience in community supervision."
So no one asked them why they're incapable of offering a pay rise? I'll watch later, just to note they use to advertise these on the intranet to encourage staff to watch but I didn't see anything this time, might have misses it though
ReplyDeleteApparently, post ‘Unification’‘ the MOJ working on a management tool of 2008 didn’t know staff were struggling or indeed often working well beyond their contactual hours. This blog overtime has consistently evidenced otherwise and indeed via my own contact with staff. The MOJ suggests that they ’deeply believe’ had they known they would have taken action ? I’m glad Lloyd Hatton challenged this thinking on a number of occasion's. Given all the meetings the MOJ were having with Probation Leaders, Napo, visits to Offices and speaking to frontline staff; it’s hugely difficult to understand how it could have been such a surprise. However, they do go on the re-assure Probation that things are a lot better ? IanGould5 Sadly, there was nothing about the recent assaults, staff morale or pay.
ReplyDeleteI watched a regional staff call about the supposed changes coming in 2026, and it was all nonsense, managers clapping and giving thumbs-up while the rest of us sat there thinking, what on earth is this crap, and where’s the pay rise? And not that 2% token increase, either.
ReplyDeleteFarar, Thornden-Edwards, McEwan, Lammy, every one of the probation AEDs and Regional Directors, remains silent. They should be out in probation offices and in front of the media, apologising for the recent incidents, explaining how they intend to improve pay, conditions and security, and asking staff directly what needs to change. Probation is inadequate because of them. And for a start, they could stop obsessing over IT, AI and EM tagging, and redirect that £700 million where it’s actually needed, beginning with pay rises.
The second you make references today rise your points are all lost. Money is not the Panacea the structures are flawed and need a rewrite. The money is a secondary issue. Not for the principled debate. Stop weakening our collective
DeleteI disagree. Rubbish pay = rubbish staff or no staff. The biggest reason probation can’t recruit or retain staff is because of pay.
DeleteAnon 11:51 - "Stop weakening our collective" - Wtf does that mean? And why even post it?? I really do wonder what is genuinely driving some of the posters on this blog. I'd assumed moles or trolls, but hoped a real agitant would at least try to pull together a cogent argument.
DeleteWhat an absolutely shit show by these so called leaders.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, links really well with the comments on blog Saturday, 29 November 2025
ReplyDeleteWhat Probation Has Become!!!
Anon at 10:14 *smile*
DeleteThe Chief Probation Officer, Kim has asked for an ‘all staff’ call today after her disastrous and poor feedback at the public accounts committee lol.
ReplyDeleteIt was embarrassing that when asked if the recent massive increase in recalls was due to incorrect decisions, that she then said no and quoted from a report stating POs generally recalled for good reasons...
DeleteThen had to mumble that the report was written in 2021!!
Incompetent managers/leaders that is where the problem exists.
DeleteThe shameless incompetents will no doubt claim the committee hearing was a great success, that they championed their vision for a new service & the £700million will make everything better. Useless tossers. To have such blinkered, swivel-eyed idiots running the show is far more dangerous for the public. Not a single PDU made the grade per hmip inspections. That's on their conscience, on their watch.
ReplyDeleteGlass screened interview rooms safety barriers and more ai will shut you lot up is their attitudes.
ReplyDeleteyesterday UNISON submitted a pay claim for local government staff in England, Cymru and Northern Ireland. Our key demand is for an increase of at least £3,000 or 10% (whichever is greater) on every pay point – this is based on a one-year settlement. Plus, a minimum p
ReplyDeleteLocal government looking at pay for next year already …
ReplyDeleteI just heard it last night on Today in Parliament but did not have the stamina to play the whole thing through
ReplyDelete- unsurprisingly - probably out of ignorance of the realisties of front line criminal justice work and due to taking for granted the relative stability as we go about our day to day lives enjoyng "The King's Peace" -it is nowhere near the top of the news reports today.
Lunchtime news dominated by proposed ending of most jury trials, the excusing of the Chancellor for misinforming the world financial markets ahead of the budget, with the explanations about numerous failed senior police officers over Hillsborough deaths 1989 - but all retired & so not punished etc. with much else of great importance barely getting a mention - with no time for other serious stuff with long term implications.
Elsewhere I have Tweeted (or should that be Xed? )
"....surely the judicial system has not been made to incrementally collapse along with prison & probation & back to interpreters in the early Grayling era etc., etc. just to lead to promoting the inevitablity of finally ending jury trial ?...."
https://x.com/Andrew_S_Hatton/status/1995871401241461133
News flash probation pay
ReplyDeleteThe PQIP cohort of officers has agreed to a 0% pay and accepted the following alternative
More onerous breach and recall powers
More time tapping in nonsense about risk in the computer
A shiny badge which says offender manager
Sitting in the police station and telling tales
Going out in the tv detector van
Secondments as traffic wardens and litter enforcement officer
Powers to look in pops drawers and under the bed
A 100 page referral form to get support with addiction
Free subscription to the daily mail and hello. Magazine
In defence of the Pquips the ones I know are shocked and often disheartened at the job as advertised and the job once they're training, most, not all, want to help those on there cases but that's not what the training teaches or how SPO's and Heads advocate
DeleteTrain to be a social worker or a teacher bugger bucks
ReplyDeleteBigger !
ReplyDeleteThe blog post and the resulting comments powerfully capture the profound disconnect between the realities of frontline probation work and the leadership tasked with its stewardship. The NAO report laid out the facts of the crisis, but the reaction from staff after the PAC hearing reveals the true depth of the failure: a collapse of trust.
ReplyDeleteThe PAC session wasn't just a poor performance; it was a testament to a leadership culture that seems to prioritise bureaucratic reassurance over honest reckoning. To claim ignorance of the workload crisis, after years of warnings from staff, unions, and inspectors, is not credible—it's insulting. To remain silent on attacks on staff is a dereliction of duty. To offer "digital transcription tools" and "digital platforms" as the primary answer to a crisis of understaffing, burnout, and physical danger is to fundamentally misunderstand the problem.
The comments from readers underscore three irreducible truths that any real solution must address:
1. Leadership must be accountable and present. The "missing in action" critique is damning. Leaders cannot manage a human service by spreadsheet and risk register alone. They must be visible, especially in crisis. They must speak plainly about problems, take responsibility for their role in creating them, and fight unambiguously for the resources staff need—starting with pay that reflects the complexity and risk of the job.
2. Safety and morale are prerequisites, not afterthoughts. A service where staff feel unsafe, unheard, and disposable cannot function effectively. The silence following the Oxford incident speaks volumes. Investing in staff wellbeing, security, and professional respect isn't a cost—it's the foundation of any resilient service.
3. Probation's soul is at stake. The managerial shift towards a narrow, risk-averse model of "public protection" is stripping probation of its rehabilitative heart. As noted, this is backwards. Effective public protection flows from successful rehabilitation. A service that sees its clients only as risks to be managed has already failed in its broader social purpose.
The £700 million announced in the Spending Review is a recognition of the scale of the problem, but money alone is not a solution. It will be wasted if spent on technological sticking plasters or to sustain the same failing structures and leadership approaches.
The path forward requires humility: listening to frontline staff who know where the system is broken. It requires courage: making bold decisions about pay, workload, and the purpose of supervision. And it requires integrity: leaders who can say, "We got this wrong, and here is how we will fix it, with you."
Until then, the "virtuous circle" promised by officials will remain a cruel parody. The real work of rebuilding probation must start from the ground up, with the people who have been holding the service together despite it all.
ANARCHIST PO 🇵🇸
There's no "with you" anymore.
DeleteIts all done "to you".
US marine vets use the phrase "with you" meaning true solidarity; forever; regardless.
Person-centred counsellors utilise congruity & unconditional positive regard, meaning they are "with you" throughout the work you do together.
Managerialism is a system of using structural power to do to others - to get other people to do any number of things using any available means of leverage, e.g. greed, fear, desperation, emotional manipulation. Its the monster that feeds on everyone for its own ends. It has no concept of a 'virtuous circle', just a voracious appetite for power - authority, dominance, wealth... anything shiny & glistening & new that makes it feel important.
Not one of those witnesses will have a clue what posters on this blog site have said; not what IanGould or Anarchist PO or getafix or anyone.
Nor will they give a flying fuck. Their egos (& all their eggs, including the basket) are jammed so far up their own fundaments all they can hear, see, taste & smell is the shyte they regurgitate to themselves in their desperately sad, lonely, shiny worlds.
you could smell their fear coming from inside the video; you could hear it, feel it... the stammering & lying & backpedalling & backsliding & umming & ahhing.
DeleteThey KNOW they're wrong, but they can't afford to be wrong. So they'll make sure everyone else is wrong so they can be proved right.
Except... its all a big fucking lie. A well paid one. One which begets luxurious lifestyles, no worries about heating bills, lots of yummy food & drink, fabulous trips here there & everywhere at others' expense, pretty baubles to hang your neck...
But its still a big fucking lie.
The political class, with the lapdog eagerness & yes-please-assistance of MoJ/NOMS/HMPPS, have collectively dismantled the Probation Service & turned it into a half-assed network of community monitoring, bangle-fitters & recall clerks who are exposed to the raw rage & violence of those they have to face each day & say "sorry, computer says... off you go".
Anarchist po I am not a fan of everything your saying or some of the symbolism however it's a statement your making and that's respectable. Have you considered running for a union role even general secretary if we could oust the incumbent cretin.
DeleteI'm only 15 minutes in and am shocked...to say that the problems identified in the report have no correlation with huge increases in recall (50% increases since 2021 if I understood correctly) is shocking. People are overworked, overwhelmed and the pressure on performance over actual probation work has of course led to deterioration in practice leading to people being less likely to benefit from the service or to comply. To say "we dont have evidence other than knowing that individual recall decisions are correct" ignores the bigger picture and the evidence staring them in their face i.e. what staff have been saying for years about the deterioration of relational practice which they themselves mandated and positively encouraged.
ReplyDeleteIt's disingenuous as since 'consider a recall' was introduced It's SPOs and Deps who make all the recall decisions not officers. Personally I think the rise in recalls correlates with this...SPOs are the ones who have covered there backs by deciding to recall everyone.
DeleteEarlier commenters have put their finger on the key issues - politicians and senior managers seem not to understand the realities of frontline probation work and the disciplines and philosophies that underpin the work that, as has recently been requoted was explained by Winston Churchill in his great prison speech as Home Secretary in 1910 just three years after the Probation of Offenders Act was passed.
DeleteAs for committees of MPs - I pretty much gave up with them 10 years or more ago when I saw John McDonnell, very understandably completely lose his temper with then probation minister Jeremy Wright over the absolute nonsense he was spouting about Transforming Rehabilitation. Select and Bill Committees of Parliament rarely work effectively despite all the ranting and grand statements, because they are dominated, when it comes to action, by the party political balance of the parliament at that time - which means the governing party almost always holds sway.
Thus we need something better - ideally it should be trade unionism but as far as I can tell Napo has been ineffective since my former Camden House Office colleague Jonathan Ledger was general secretary and even more so since the retirement of Assistant General Secretary Harry Fletcher. Ultimately the members (including me as an associate retired member since 2003) did not challenge the status quo as happened in the late 1970s which brought us Bill Beaumont as general secretary.
Similar has happened through other trades and professions -consider the state of the medical profession with even hospital doctors needing to repeatedly strike to get attention.
We need a parliamentary reset; as it is from parliament that all government flows. I saw it coming from the 1991 legislation that instituted "Offender Management" and "National Standards" but lacked the wider understanding needed and preserved my own career and mental well being rather than becoming an extreme campaigner like some in the Napo Members Action Group (the late Jeremy Cameron and others I will not name) who successfully overturned the "reign" of Donald Bell. Current probation service employees need to create an effective union and simultaneously we need to engage with political groups to preserve what we have of a Judicial System that is being destroyed by those who follow Sir Kier Starmer, Ms Kemi Badenoch and Sir Ed Davey.
Extract from Churchill's prison speech as part of a wider debate on the costs of government 20th July 1910 - I became familiar with it as the then Governor of Pentonville Prison read it out at the start of every all staff meeting in the late 1990s when there was some marking of the place of Pentonville as The New Model Prison from 1842.
Delete"I am glad to be able to tell the House that no evil results of any kind have followed from this. It is not at all true to say that a number of the men released have already returned to gaol. We must not allow optimism, or hope, or benevolence in these matters to carry us too far. We must not forget that when every material improvement has been effected in prisons, when the temperature has been rightly adjusted, when the proper food to maintain health and strength has been given, when the doctors, chaplains, and prison visitors have come and gone, the convict stands deprived of everything that a free man calls life. We must not forget that all these improvements, which are sometimes salves to our consciences, do not change that position. The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even of convicted criminals against the State, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it. "
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1910/jul/20/class-iii#column_1354
Action group perhaps it's too late the problem with Napo is has been cursed with a low brow mouthpiece. Mr Lawrence has served himself well . Least effort low work ethic plenty of absence. He believes no resistence to management allows him to operate at their level enhancing his own status. He fails to appreciate they care not a jot if he's on side with the message or not. Lawrence has lost his real collegiate group the members but he knows procedure will lock him in place until he chooses to go or funds dry up. The hand picked top table are neither capable strong enough or willing to remove the canka.
DeleteA managed decline which leads to the problem/reaction/ solution equation………goodby probation and let me introduce you to UK Correctional services !
ReplyDelete