Although probation still lacks a convincing champion, might it come from the voluntary sector? I notice this powerful plea from former PO Kelly Grehan at the Revolving Door charity:-
In my 2001 interview to become a trainee probation officer I was asked what part of the job I was most interested in. Without hesitation, I said I was attracted to the role by the promise of being able to help people with their rehabilitation.
Over the next 19 years I spent in the Probation Service, under its many politically-led guises, it sometimes felt that rehabilitation was no longer a key part of its ethos.
We began our training by learning how probation officers originated as police court missionaries in the early 1900s, working under the motto ‘Advise, Assist and Befriend’. Over time, this had resulted in the formation of the official Probation Service.
Fast forward and by the beginning of the 21st century probation was in a strange place. A loss of faith in the service after the ‘nothing works’ era had led to social work being replaced as the route to becoming a probation officer with a new standalone qualification and probation officers being trained in-house. In an effort to show probation was a ‘tough’ option, Probation Orders were rebranded as Community Rehabilitation Orders and community service became known as Community Punishment Orders. Combined Orders were briefly known as Community Rehabilitation and Punishment Order before panic about the acronym of CRAPO saw it abandoned.
Eithne Wallis, the first Director of Probation set out its aim as being: protecting the public, reducing re-offending, proper punishment of offenders in the community and ensuring offenders’ awareness of the consequences of their behaviour.
At the same time Probation was being reshaped by government to focus on risk assessment, public protection, punishment, and law enforcement.
The word ‘rehabilitation’ seemed to be being erased. Still, we carried on with the (proven) notion that the relationship between a Probation Officer and the person they supervised (at this time called ‘the offender’ because ‘client’ was deemed too soft), could be transformative.
In 2004, after the horrific murder of John Moncton and the conviction of Hanson and White drew negative headlines about the faults in the Probation Service’s management. With hindsight this was the beginning of what can now be seen as ‘defensive probation practice which was solidified by the conviction of Danno Sonnex in 2009 for the murders of two men.
With the Probation Service generally only coming to the attention of those supervised by it, most people had only these two awful cases to base their view of the Probation Service upon.
I recall a new feel of panic that – should anyone you supervised go on to commit an awful crime you should not expect any defence from the organisation. Serious Further Offence (SFO) Reviews would be conducted. These were never seen by Probation Officers as being about learning – but were solely about allocating blame. In the worst cases Probation staff might expect their name, address and photo to appear in the newspaper. For a while ‘enforcement, enforcement, enforcement’ was a mantra told to staff and used to govern all probation practice.
It is in this context that recall has gone from there being 3,182in the year 2000/1 to 12,836 people recalled to prison in the three-month period between July and September 2025. Only 23% of recalls concern new offences.
Probation Officers have very strange jobs. On one hand they are expected to build a relationship with those they supervise which acts as a vehicle for that persons change, and at the same time are responsible for breaching and recalling that person when things go wrong. Managing this relationship is a skill, that should not be underestimated.
Then in the 2010s, Chris Grayling’s disastrous Transformative Rehabilitation project split the service in two with high-risk cases supervised by the new state run NPS and other cases supervised by commercial companies known as CRCs (Community Rehabilitation Companies). The problems that followed and led to the two service types being re-amalgamated are well documented. But the damage done was deep and since then only one inspection report has not deemed a local area to be in inadequate or requires improvement.
By the time I left in 2020, the Probation Service was a shadow of its former self.
Today reports continually point to a broken service with high caseloads, high staff turnover and high staff sickness and where staff spend little time with those they supervise and where risk aversion affects all decisions.
So – with the Sentencing Act now in place and many of the changes likely to impact Probation as attempts are made to keep prison numbers down – the time has surely come to decide what the purpose of a modern Probation Service is and what the culture of the organisation should be.
The Probation webpage described the service priorities as being ‘to protect the public by the effective rehabilitation of offenders, by reducing the causes which contribute to offending and enabling offenders to turn their lives around.’
Risk assessment and risk management are important, no one disputes that. But too often Probation practice is defensive – about providing a paper trail that would protect the Service in the event of something bad happening.
Rather than spending time with those they supervise, all too often Officers spend 10 minutes in the room with someone and then hours upon hours writing assessments about them. It’s hardly surprising, in the face of such unsatisfying work the Probation Service has a staff retention problem. Like me – people join to be rehabilitators – not to be dealing with endless forms and assessments.
Recently one of our members told me how he felt he had made a real connection with his new Officer and told her about the trauma that has led to his offending. He came in the next week looking forward to another good session. He was aghast when she began by asking him to remind her of his name. It’s not surprising, with caseloads so high that Probation staff are not able to remember all those they see. But we cannot expect people being supervised to be committing to sessions when this is the situation.
Probation is basically in a doom loop. Staff are miserable. Those on supervision wonder what the point of it is. The culture needs a reset. So, here are my top tips on what needs to happen to reset the culture in the Probation Service.
1. Smaller caseloads (yes, really)
Everyone in Probation knows this one, and everyone also knows how hard it is to achieve. But it’s impossible to talk honestly about culture without talking about caseloads. When officers are carrying too many cases, everything becomes rushed, reactive and defensive. The job turns into ticking boxes rather than working with people. Smaller caseloads would mean better risk management, better relationships, and better outcomes. It would also mean fewer people burning out, going off sick or leaving altogether – which is far more expensive in the long run than fixing the problem properly.
2. Tiny caseloads for trainee officers
Trainees should be learning how to do probation well, not just how to survive it. Giving new officers large caseloads early on almost guarantees stress, anxiety and bad habits. Smaller, protected caseloads would give trainees time to observe experienced staff, reflect on their work and actually develop professional judgement. If we want officers who stick around and feel confident in their role, we must stop treating trainees as a quick fix for staff shortages.
3. SFO reviews need to be about learning, not blame
At the moment, Serious Further Offence reviews are widely seen as something to fear. That’s a problem. When people feel exposed or scapegoated, they practise defensively – over-recording, over-restricting and avoiding professional judgement. That doesn’t protect the public. SFOs should be about understanding what really happened, including system pressures like time, caseloads and resources, and using that learning to improve practice. Until staff feel genuinely protected, honesty and learning just won’t happen.
4. Bring back full Pre-Sentence Reports – written by the supervising officer
Full PSRs should be the norm again, not a luxury. And they should be written by the person who will actually supervise the order. It’s one of the best ways to start a working relationship properly, make sure people are on the right order, and assess risk in a meaningful way. No tool or short report comes close to the depth and understanding that a well-written PSR provides. Losing this has damaged both practice and probation’s voice in court.
5. Talk about what goes well
Probation almost never shouts about its successes. Internally, staff mostly hear about failures and risks. Externally, the public rarely hears about the people who stop offending, rebuild their lives, or the officers who help make that happen. Good practice happens every day – it just doesn’t get noticed. Celebrating it would boost morale, strengthen professional identity and help change the narrative about what probation actually does.
6. Value the time spent in the room
Change doesn’t happen in databases or audits – it happens in conversations. Time spent face-to-face with the person being supervised is the heart of probation work, yet it often feels like the least valued part of the job. If the service genuinely valued that time, it would protect it, reduce unnecessary admin, and trust officers to use their judgement. Relationships are not a “soft” extra – they are central to public protection.
7. Make ‘rehabilitation, rehabilitation, rehabilitation’ the motto of the Probation Service
Probation needs to be clear about what it is for. Public protection matters – but rehabilitation is how you achieve it. Rehabilitation should not be treated as a hopeful add-on or something you get to do if there’s time. It should be the core purpose that everything else flows from: how caseloads are designed, how success is measured, how staff are trained, and how practice is judged. When rehabilitation is genuinely prioritised, probation becomes less about managing failure and more about supporting desistance – which ultimately makes communities safer.
Kelly Grehan is Policy Manager at Revolving Doors. She previously worked as a Probation Officer for 19 years, until 2020.
At Revolving Doors, we believe a better Probation Service will come from combining lived and learned experience. People with direct experience of the system bring insight into what works in practice; professionals bring evidence and structural understanding. Keeping co-production at the heart of reform ensures services are designed with people, not for them.
We urge policymakers, practitioners and partners to commit to meaningful co-production in probation reform to ensure it is meaningful, sustainable and works for those in the system.
