Remote Check-in

News of this coupled with rapid advances in AI means we can cut out the human element completely rather quicker than previously thought! 

MoJ: Check-In with your probation officer (E-Supervision)

AWS Rekognition is used within the Check-In with your probation officer service to support identity verification by performing facial comparison between user-submitted video and a photo held on file.

2.1 - Detailed description

"The Check-In with your probation officer (E-Supervision) service uses AWS Rekognition to support identity verification for individuals on probation completing remote check-ins. The tool is integrated into a digital service that allows users to submit a short video as part of their check-in process.

From this submission, a still image is captured and compared against a reference image held on record. AWS Rekognition performs facial comparison and generates a similarity score indicating the likelihood that the images belong to the same individual. This output is used to support practitioners in assessing whether the correct person is completing the check-in.

The tool is intended for use by probation practitioners and service staff responsible for managing and monitoring compliance with supervision requirements. It is designed to operate as a decision-support tool and does not make autonomous decisions. Practitioners review the output alongside other available information and retain responsibility for the final determination.

The scope of the tool is limited to identity verification within the Check-In with your probation officer service. It is not used for broader surveillance, profiling, or automated enforcement decisions.

The performance of the tool may be affected by factors such as image quality, lighting conditions, and camera positioning. As with many facial recognition technologies, there may be variations in accuracy across different demographic groups. Where results are uncertain or confidence scores are low, additional checks or manual review are required."

2.2 - Benefits

The use of AWS Rekognition within the Check-In with your probation officer service supports the Ministry of Justice’s ambition to deliver more flexible, digital-first public services. It enables individuals on probation to complete check-ins remotely, providing greater accessibility and convenience while maintaining appropriate safeguards.

The tool supports practitioners by providing an additional source of information to help verify identity, contributing to more efficient and consistent decision-making. It also reduces reliance on in-person appointments, helping to optimise resource use and support service scalability.

2.3 - Previous process

Prior to the introduction of this tool, identity verification was conducted through in-person appointments or manual checks carried out by practitioners.

2.4 - Alternatives considered

A non-algorithmic alternative was considered to continue relying on in-person, face-to-face appointments for identity verification, without introducing the Check-In with your probation officer service. While this approach reduces reliance on automated tools, it is more resource-intensive, less flexible for service users, and limits the ability to deliver check-ins remotely at scale.

Algorithmic alternatives included other facial recognition and identity verification providers. These tools offer capabilities such as liveness detection and spoofing protection. AWS Rekognition was selected as it provides facial comparison capabilities, alongside features such as liveness detection and spoofing protection, and integrates effectively with existing infrastructure. It also allows similarity scoring to support human decision-making.

The chosen approach balances operational efficiency, scalability, and system integration, while maintaining practitioner oversight in final decisions.

Probation Has Leverage

Probation probably has more leverage now than it has had for years. The Government’s entire current strategy depends on probation.

• Earlier release depends on probation.
• Community sentences replacing short custody depend on probation.
• Electronic monitoring, restriction zones, curfews and tighter licence conditions depend on probation.
• Recall decisions depend on probation.
• OFPS depends on probation.
• Public reassurance that people released earlier can be “safely managed in the community” depends on probation.

So perhaps the question is no longer whether probation staff are angry enough to strike. It is whether the unions are prepared to use the leverage that is sitting right in front of them.

We have been here before. There was industrial action during TR, but the Government still pushed the reforms through. Whatever view people take of what happened then, the lesson surely has to be that symbolic action is not enough.

If industrial action happens this time, it needs to have a clear objective and it needs to matter operationally. There is little point in a protest that allows the machinery of the system to continue almost unaffected while everybody congratulates themselves for having “made their voice heard”.

The Government needs probation functioning. That is the bargaining power. And this cannot be reduced to “staff want more money”. Pay matters because retention matters, but the dispute is much bigger than that: workload, professional judgement, staffing, experience, safety, OFPS, the removal of workload visibility and the expectation that probation will absorb every consequence of the prison crisis.

Practitioners have spent years being told that they are essential, valued and the “hidden heroes” of the justice system. Fine. Then perhaps it is time to discover exactly how essential probation really is. Because if the Government genuinely cannot deliver its sentencing reforms, early-release programme and community supervision model without probation, then “without probation none of this can happen” should not just be a slogan in a press release. It should be the starting point for negotiations.

And if ever there were a moment for the unions to stop asking politely, stop “urging”, stop accepting warm words and actually use the collective power of the workforce they represent, surely this is it. The Government has built its solution to the prison crisis on the assumption that probation will somehow absorb the consequences. Perhaps probation should finally stop making that assumption safe for them.

Anon

Whatever the Question: £700m

"Pull a string and they mention the £700m.".

 ****

"Actually, "The Irony Of It" is that the £700m that is being banded about in every other sentence from the Government, is roughly only about the amount that was stripped out of the service through austerity and TR. £700m could really be seen only as a refund?

The real investment that probation needs is in all the things that went as a consequence of that financial stripping. Identity, experience, independence, autonomy, training etc etc. Good investment is not always about looking for a financial fix."

******

I am absolutely sick to death of hearing about the £700 million. Every single time practitioners raise a legitimate concern about workload, staffing, experience, public protection or what is coming down the line, somebody at the MoJ presses the same bloody button:

£700 million. 1,400 recruits. More tagging.

We know. We’ve heard it. Repeatedly. What we are telling you is that IT ISN’T FIXING THE PROBLEM.

I don’t manage £700 million. I manage people. Real people, with complicated lives, changing circumstances and risks that don’t conveniently fit into a tier, an actuarial score or a bloody dashboard.

A trainee isn’t an experienced PO because you’ve counted them in a recruitment figure. A GPS tag isn’t supervision. AI isn’t professional judgement. An exclusion-zone alert isn’t risk management. And reducing contact with people doesn’t magically create a safer probation service simply because somebody in HMPPS has labelled the missing hours “released capacity”.

Meanwhile those of us actually carrying the cases are expected to absorb OFPS, new tiering, sentencing reform, early releases, more electronic monitoring, more information, more potential breaches and recalls, and whatever else arrives next — while being told the answer is to spend less professional time with some of the people we’re responsible for. And:

When we tell you we’re worried? Thank you for your resilience.

When we tell you we’re exhausted? Here’s a wellbeing webinar.

When we tell you workloads are unsafe? We’re taking away your ability to see the WMT.

When we tell you we’re frightened something will be missed? £700 million.

And now practitioners apparently have to speak anonymously to Channel 4 because shouting inside the organisation isn’t working. That should shame HMPPS.

These aren’t disgruntled staff moaning because they’re busy. These are professionals warning before the event that they do not believe they have sufficient capacity to safely deliver what Government is promising the public. So record it. Date it. Remember it. We told you.

If this goes wrong and somebody is seriously harmed, don’t you dare come back afterwards with an SFO review, work backwards through an individual practitioner’s records and ask what they should have done differently. Ask what you did when the workforce warned you. Ask why you kept piling work into probation while reducing meaningful supervision. Ask why recruitment headlines mattered more than retaining experience. Ask why you removed workload visibility.

Ask why every warning was answered with investment figures and corporate platitudes rather than evidence that the service could safely cope. And please, spare us the inevitable “lessons will be learned.” The lesson is being handed to you right now.

You’re just not bloody listening.

*****

And there, buried underneath all the recruitment headlines, are the figures that actually matter.

Qualified Band 4 POs: DOWN 2%.
Band 3 PSOs: UP 13.6%.

Yet apparently we’re supposed to hear “1,400 new probation officers recruited” and conclude that the staffing crisis is being fixed. It isn’t.

You can recruit thousands of trainees, increase PSO numbers and issue endless press releases about recruitment targets, but none of that changes the number of qualified, experienced practitioners actually available today to carry the work and the risk.

And this little gem deserves translating:

“The shortfall in probation officers has increased relative to the March release mainly due to an increase in probation officer target staffing.”

In plain English: we’ve finally admitted we need more POs than we previously said we did, so the hole is even bigger than we were admitting. Meanwhile the Government is shifting thousands more people into community supervision, massively expanding electronic monitoring and telling probation to absorb the consequences of sentencing reform. And their answer?

“We’ve recruited 1,400.”

No. You’ve recruited people towards becoming probation officers while the number of actual Band 4 POs has fallen. There is a difference. Stop pretending there isn’t.

Getafix is also absolutely right about the £700m. Investment isn’t just money. What probation has lost over successive “reforms” is experience, professional identity, autonomy, confidence, continuity and institutional knowledge. You cannot buy 25 years of practitioner experience with a recruitment campaign. You certainly can’t replace it with a tag, an algorithm or AI.

Perhaps instead of endlessly telling us how much money you’re putting into probation, somebody could finally explain what sort of Probation Service we’re actually getting for it. 
Because from where I’m sitting, we’re getting fewer qualified POs just as Government expects probation to do more. That’s not investment. That’s deprofessionalisation with a press release attached.

*****

Then factor in the leaving rates:

Band 4 @ 5% That's 275 POs gone.

Band 3 @ 10% So, recruit 1,400 at band 3 (which is where trainees start), but lose 592.

Staff loss: (592+275) = 867

Claims about recruitment:

1. "In the past year, 1,622 probation services officers were appointed, some of whom will be training to become qualified probation officers."

2. "The Probation Service onboarded 1,389 new Trainee Probation Officers (PQiP) across the 2025/26 financial year"

Yeah, but more than half that number have left..

net staffing (depending on which figure is used):
= (1622 - 867) = +755... or...
= (1389-867) = +522

Neither of those figures gives 1,300 net increase. Whilst the lies fall from their mouths, it would be preferable that the scales fell from their eyes.

Burnham Doesn't Get It

Just as we thought, Andy knows nothing about the Criminal Justice System and the proof comes in his new government's announcement last night:-

Fixing the prison and probation crisis

The Government is taking action to keep the most dangerous offenders locked up, expand prison capacity and strengthen protections for victims and the public.

This Government inherited a prison system in crisis, putting the public at grave risk. Prisons were on the brink of collapse, with capacity dangerously close to being exceeded. That’s why the Government is taking decisive action.

1. The Government is building new prison places. By 2031, there will be more prison places than ever before

• This Government has already built around 3,200 new prison places and aims to create 14,000 by 2031, giving communities confidence that those who pose the greatest risk will be locked up.

• We are also speeding up the deportation of foreign criminals, saving money for taxpayers and protecting the public from dangerous offenders. Over 11,700 foreign criminals including murderers and rapists have been removed since July 2024.

2. The Government is making changes to sentencing so that prison places are used for the most dangerous criminals

• The most dangerous offenders must be locked up for a long time. That will not change.

• We are introducing reforms to prison release arrangements through the Sentencing Act 2026 which change the amount of time offenders will spend in prison. However, over 18,000 offenders serving life and extended sentences, murderers and those serving sentences for rape and serious sexual child and grooming offences, are completely excluded from these changes.

• For offences with sentences of 12 months or less, there will be a presumption against custodial sentences in favour of community sentences – including unpaid work, electronic monitoring tags, curfews and exclusion zones. Courts will still be able to send offenders to prison when there is significant risk of harm to the victim or public.

3. The Government is improving the monitoring of offenders when they are released from prison

• Prisoners who are released will not be free and can be recalled to prison at any time if they step out of line. Victims will have a say over tough new restrictions on offenders leaving prison.

• A record £700m investment going into probation by 2028/29, which has already helped us hire 1,000 new trainee probation officers, will enable 1,300 more to be added by March 2027.

• It also means we can ramp up the electronic tagging of offenders on release from prison, with nearly all offenders tagged and subject to curfews and exclusion zones to keep victims safe.

• Rape and certain child sex offenders will now face tighter controls than ever before after leaving prison, with more intensive probation supervision and a mandatory condition that will give constant access to their location via a GPS tag.

• We are also expanding other protections including chemical suppression for sex offenders, random drug testing, and bans from driving, pubs and events such as football matches.

4. The Government is improving support for victims

• The Government is introducing a stronger package of support for victims, including increased and improved contact to all affected victims.

• This will be supported by a £10m boost for victim support to fund extra local frontline services for victims to get trauma-focussed support.

• This is on top of the largest ever investment into specialist services that offer practical and emotional support to victims and witnesses. Over half a billion pounds of funding over the next three years will help charities and others deliver support like counselling and advice on attending court.

• A dedicated victim helpline will be available by October for all those affected by the reforms to provide emotional support and practical guidance.

--oo00oo--

The future appears to be already written. Published a few hours ago, here's the answer, here's the fix! I personally struggle with the logic of creating more routes to recall people back to prison whilst at the same time trying to free up space. Available capacity stands at around 1800 places. Early release scheme hopes to free up a further 1500 places. Recall figures however exceed 50,000 in the last year. My maths are not great, but I just can't see how they hope to achieve anything.

'Getafix

*****
The order of priority & language is essential to understand that nothing has changed in downing street or whitehall for decades & decades:

"As Home Secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s government from 1979 to 1983, Willie Whitelaw pursued a hard-line law and order agenda. He is best known for introducing the "short, sharp shock" policy for young offenders and embarking on major prison-building programs to tackle rising street crime."

Michael Howard: "Prison Works": Argued that keeping serious and persistent criminals behind bars reduces crime rates through incapacitation and deterrence.

Deterrence and Detection: Advocated for an across-the-board approach focusing heavily on measures to catch and punish lawbreakers rather than relying solely on social or economic explanations for crime.

Rejection of Fatalism: Maintained that rising crime is not an inevitable fact of modern life and can be reversed with political will.

The bliarweasel project: "Tony Blair famously defined his approach to law and order with the 1993 political slogan: "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." This dual strategy balanced strict enforcement and punishment for offenders alongside social interventions addressing poverty, lack of opportunity, and family breakdown" - sadly he unleashed tough on criminals but failed to deliver when it came to "the causes of crime", viz- "The government policy under Tony Blair has been one of relentless attack on our civil liberties; the expansion of new police powers, the introduction of new offences, and harsher penalties with longer custodial sentences – all of which has been matched by an increased weakening of the safeguards in the criminal justice process."

Now we have burn'em & co:

1. The Government is building new prison places. By 2031, there will be more prison places than ever before "HUZZAHH!"
2. The Government is making changes to sentencing so that prison places are used for the most dangerous criminals "LOCK 'EM'UP"
3. The Government is improving the monitoring of offenders when they are released from prison "MAKE THE PUNISHMENT LAST AS LONG AS POSSIBLE"
4. The Government is improving support for victims

A serious point can be made here whereby prioritising & elevating the victim's status whilst confabulating it with the means or severity of the punishment is not healthy. It runs the risk of making the victim a 'legitimate' target (in the eyes of the perpetrator) & potentially places the victim in greater peril, e.g. if the victim can be silenced then the punishment might be less harsh. The victim's voice is undoubtedly important, but the justice system should be the arbiter of punishment, not the volume, articulation or skill of the victim's opinion. Similarly I would argue that the imposition of victim work upon the probation service was, again, a big mistake. It has led to some terrible conflicts of interest.

*****
And there it is again.

The Government’s shiny new “Fixing the prison and probation crisis” page tells the public that prisoners released under these reforms “can be recalled to prison at any time if they step out of line”, that nearly all offenders will be electronically tagged, and that short sentences will increasingly be replaced by community sentences.

Who exactly does Government think is going to manage all of this? Because every one of those policies creates work for probation. More people managed in the community. More licence supervision. More electronic monitoring information. More curfews and exclusion zones. More potential breaches. More decisions about whether behaviour represents escalating risk. And, inevitably, more recall decision-making.

Then comes the reassurance: £700m and recruitment. Except read the Government’s own words carefully. The investment has apparently helped recruit 1,000 new TRAINEE probation officers, with another 1,300 to be added by March 2027.

We have literally just been discussing Millsike, where the Government accepts that having physical capacity isn’t enough because inexperienced staff require time to develop the skills and confidence to operate safely. Apparently probation works differently. And Getafix raises another rather obvious problem. Government is desperately trying to create prison capacity while simultaneously creating more routes through which people in the community can be recalled back into those same prisons.

Meanwhile OFPS is supposed to release 25% of probation capacity by reducing the amount of professional supervision some people receive. Which part of this is the coherent strategy?

More people in the community. More tagging. More surveillance. More potential breaches. More recalls. Less practitioner contact. An inexperienced workforce being recruited at pace. And a WMT that’s about to disappear. Yet the Government page presents all of this under the wonderfully reassuring heading:

“Fixing the prison and probation crisis.”

From the frontline it looks rather more like moving the crisis out of the prison gate and expecting probation to carry it. And when that doesn’t work, I suspect we’ll hear the same thing we always hear: “Lessons will be learned.” Perhaps somebody could try learning them before this time.

Listen to the Front Line!

What did HMPPS and the MoJ formally learn from TR about large-scale transformation, modelling risk, implementation at pace and listening to practitioners? And where can we see those lessons reflected in the design and implementation of OFPS today? And perhaps that question now needs putting directly to ministers, including the Probation Minister who we've heard nothing from since her appointment.

What lessons from TR have you personally satisfied yourself have been learned before another fundamental redesign of probation is implemented? Because this isn’t some interesting historical comparison. TR had an enormous financial cost, but it also had a human one. Experienced staff left. Professional identity was damaged. Services were fragmented. Practitioners spent years working through successive restructures before reunification attempted to put the service back together again.

And now, barely having recovered from one transformation, probation is being transformed again. Once again staff are being told about efficiency, technology, new models and releasing capacity. Once again the centre appears remarkably confident about what can be achieved. And once again the people expected to make it work will undoubtedly be thanked for their “hard work”, their “commitment” and their “resilience” when the reality on the ground becomes difficult.

Frankly, those words are wearing very thin. Resilience should not mean repeatedly asking a workforce to absorb the consequences of organisational decisions and then congratulating them for surviving them. Nor should “listening to the frontline” mean thanking staff for raising concerns before proceeding regardless.

This is why ministerial silence on probation is becoming increasingly difficult to understand. Probation is apparently important enough to carry a substantial part of the government’s answer to prison overcrowding and sentencing reform, but where is the political voice explaining what is happening to the service expected to deliver it?

Where is the Probation Minister explaining OFPS to the workforce and the public? Where is the acknowledgement of what happened under TR? Where is the assurance - backed by evidence rather than another set of comforting phrases - that the same mistakes are not being repeated? Because if an organisation can experience a failure on the scale of TR and, little more than a decade later, find itself using eerily similar language while embarking upon another fundamental redesign of probation, asking “what did you learn?” is hardly unreasonable.

Romeo was absolutely right about one thing in 2014: there are no prizes for believing your own hype. The financial and human cost of getting probation reform wrong doesn’t disappear simply because Whitehall has moved on to the next transformation programme.

So perhaps the question for HMPPS, the MoJ and the minister responsible for probation is no longer where is the institutional memory? It’s: what evidence is there that you learned anything at all?

*****
"Nor should “listening to the frontline” mean thanking staff for raising concerns before proceeding regardless."

That perfectly describes the attitude & approach in 1999 when, as the sun was eclipsed by the moon, a group met in London to discuss the findings of the first OASys paper-based pilot. Staff from prisons & probation sat around a large table while civil servants asked for their feedback. A number of legitimate &/or worrying concerns were raised by the staff. Those comments were acknowledged &, for the most part, immediately dismissed. There was an agenda.

The 'centre' had a plan & they were merely going through the motions so they could say they had consulted & piloted the project before imposing it across the board. It was cumbersome, it was repetitive, it was judgemental. It was a crude stick used to beat the person being 'assessed' into shape such that they would fit into the round or square hole. And so began a series of carefully choreographed impostions - NPSv.1, NOMS, Trusts, TR, HMPPS, reunification, reset, OFPS.

*****
I couldn't agree more that, looking back, OASYS signalled the beginning of the end for probation. We spend our lives servicing a badly designed system. The unrelenting lists of standards, feedback, audits, QDOs, shows me it isn't staff who are "doing it wrong" but the system itself is fundamentally flawed. And yet management have spent years of wasted time on this ridiculous endeavour, ultimately blaming the staff for incompetence rather than admitting it was their own for enabling such poor use of our time and resources filling it out with an ever increasing list of requirements and quality audit tools.

What I don't know is whether ARNS will sort this out...has anyone used it or seen it that can give us some reassurance that there is light at the end of the assessment tunnel?

*****

I don't think OFPS was based on staff consultation. Are we really saying that staff have genuinely supported and asked for reduced contact with people on probation as the key to unlocking the 25% workload reduction? Certainly if someone had asked me, I would have pointed to the duplication and unnecessary time spent completing OASYS...how easily could 25% of my time be saved if that system was completely redesigned and the unrelenting impossible standards underpinning it wripped up.

Think about the targets, the data, the measurement, the monitoring, the duplication and unnecessary tasks we are forced to complete on a daily basis. All this has been left completely intact while probation supervision has been diluted, reducing contact and cancelling any contact at all through a push for early termination motivated not by success but convenience, with one to one work replaced with a preset list of "conversations". Is this really what staff have said when asked for ideas about reducing unnecessary workload?

And are we now going to be passively brow beaten once again to bring in yet another "model" we don't support, or am i wrong and staff are really supportive of a probation service that spends the vast majority of its time "assessing" in the most unimaginably laborious and ineffective way possible while implementing absolutely nothing at the end of it? Are staff not as angry as I am that out of all the things that could have been cut, contact was seen as the most unnecessary and dispensible element of our role?

******
And once again probation/government have increased punitive control measures by applying them to all, whether they are needed, worthwhile or necessary. In my mind this (inadvertently) changes the culture of probation officers by both seeing all as more dangerous than they really are, and diluting any remaining critical analysis or professionalism that used to be needed to determine who needs these monitoring tools at all or for whom they are necessary and proportionate.

Romeo Special

From Daily Mail:-
Andy Burnham's top mandarin is facing questions over her own role in the prison overcrowding crisis that is leading to thousands of criminals being released early.

Dame Antonia Romeo, now Cabinet Secretary, was in charge of the Ministry of Justice for four years as problems mounted with the plan to build more cells. She was accused by MPs of presiding over a 'ticking timebomb' as her department knew that existing jails were rapidly running out of space yet the construction of new sites was delayed.

On her watch the MoJ built just 6,518 new places were built out of a promised 20,000, and the target will only be reached five years late according to the National Audit Office. When grilled by the Public Accounts Committee last year, Dame Antonia admitted there had been a 'degree of slippage in the delivery' but blamed unexpected developments including planning hold-ups.

She was also challenged over the MoJ's decision to sign a 10-year lease on HMP Dartmoor despite knowing the site had high levels of radon gas, meaning that hundreds of much-needed cells cannot be used.

Former prison governor John Podmore told the Daily Mail: 'She dug a big hole and Andy Burnham jumped right into it. 'While she was at the Ministry of Justice she watched it all go wrong. I didn't see any intervention that she did. 'The overcrowding crisis has been around for a long time but they haven't taken any responsibility.'

He said the department could have created more room by stopping so many suspects being held in jail on remand ahead of long-delayed trials, or by reducing the large number of released prisoners being recalled to jail for minor licence breaches.

Instead, the Prime Minister is now having to consider more radical proposals to free up space - in order to prevent the killers of PC Andrew Harper being included in the looming early release scheme - such as putting men in women's jails.

Another ex governor, Prof Ian Acheson, pointed out that Dame Antonia was previously responsible for the disastrous £4billion part-privatisation of the probation service, which later had to be reversed. He said: 'The connected upper class of the Senior Civil Service giving the PM advice on this political crisis bear some of the blame for the mess the criminal justice system is in.

'Romeo now sits at the side of the Prime Minister and represents continuity of the administrative class who have presided over chaos with no answers apart from 'No, Prime Minister'.

'The Ministry of Justice in a tight field is one of the worst departments in Whitehall. When the dust settles on this latest debacle, Andy Burnham would do well to consider a wholesale clear out of officials who have served him so poorly.'

But a Government source insisted: 'It is totally ridiculous to claim that anyone is responsible for the prisons crisis Labour inherited other than the Tory ministers who ignored repeated warnings from officials and refused to take action.'

Insiders said that key decisions that led to the overcrowding crisis, including increasing prison sentences as well as failing to provide enough funding, were taken by Tory-era ministers rather than officials.

A Government spokesman added: 'As Permanent Secretary at the MoJ, Antonia led the programme for new prison places, which included opening three new prisons with over 4,500 new prison places and plans to deliver 14,000 by 2031.

'She and her team consistently worked to prevent the prison system reaching maximum capacity, including during the summer riots in 2024 where she led the response of the Criminal Justice System to bring offenders swiftly to justice.'

*******
A significant Twitter thread:-

I've absolutely avoided the tittle tattle around Romeo's previous conduct mainly because of my own experience of being a pushy outsider in CS. I've focused on aspects of her performance which have been effectively memory holed. 'Transforming Rehabilitation' is exhibit A.

Romeo while DG at the MoJ was Senior Responsible Officer for this part privatisation of the probation service which was a total disaster from start to finish. Government ideological vandalism certainly but implemented by her.

She assured parliament the doomed transformation programme “is going to work and isn’t taking on any unnecessary risk” It was a total fuck up from start to finish when Probation was returned to public sector after wastage of £467 million underestimated costs and bail outs.

The probation union said the process was a “shambles” with “zero communication”, increased paperwork, fragmented risk management, deskilling and demoralisation of staff, and poorer outcomes for offenders being supervised. In other words it put the community at greater risk.

£9 million alone was spent on consultancy trying to gild this turd while probation officers had their pay frozen. The National Audit Office demolished the programme finding 'systemic failings' in design and implementation, aspects she was fully responsible for as SRO.

So it's for this reason and this alone I have serious reservations about the spin that says she's equal to the task of 'rewiring government.' It doesn't matter that she's a women and ambitious (oh no!) or all the fluff around her media profile. What matters is *delivery*.

But airbrushing serious failures won't cut it either. The systemic rot in the senior lanyard class in public service is a 'mediocracy' - people promoted up to and well beyond their level of competence. Not sure she's the best exemplar of how to tackle that. We shall see.

Ian Acheson

*******
"The systemic rot in the senior lanyard class in public service is a 'mediocracy'"

After all of the failures & waste of public money la romeo has been responsible for, someone with media clout has finally said it out loud.

John Podmore also alluded to it last week on R4 (referred to on this blog previously), but without going as far as Ian (possible bbc editing? possibly being cautious?). But la romeo has been at the heart of the destruction of justice for a long time, at least 8 years' at the helm in varying roles:

2011-13, Director General, Transformation.
2013 -15, Director General, Criminal Justice
2021-25, Ministry of Justice as permanent secretary

Dame Antonia Romeo (Jan 2021 – Mar 2025)
Sir Richard Heaton KCB (Aug 2015 – Aug 2020)
Ursula Brennan (July 2012 – July 2015) – Retired
Sir Suma Chakrabarti (May 2007 – 2012)

There's also this motley crew from noms/hmpps who aided & abetted the catastrophe:

Martin Narey (2004 to 2005)
Helen Edwards (2005 to 2008)
Phil Wheatley as Director-General (2008 to 2010)
Michael Spurr (2010 to 2019)
Jo Farrar (2019 to 2022)
Amy Rees (2022 to 2025)
Phil Copple as interim (2025)
James McEwen (2025 to present)

And any assortment of shadowy senior civil servants who shun the limelight but happily impose stupid, uninformed policies upon the minions.

******
There is an interesting contrast between the discussion about Antonia Romeo and the SFO discussion above. When accountability reaches senior organisational level, suddenly context matters enormously: political decisions, funding constraints, planning delays, competing pressures and decisions made elsewhere in the system.

And actually, context should matter. Complex systems fail for complex reasons. But surely the same principle has to apply when examining the actions of an individual PP.

If a practitioner was carrying an excessive workload, covering sickness, working within an organisational supervision model, unable to access accommodation or treatment, dealing with poor information sharing and making decisions within the time and resources available, those aren’t excuses to be stripped away before examining their practice. They are part of the evidence.

Perhaps genuine organisational learning starts when we become as interested in the context surrounding frontline decisions as we apparently are in the context surrounding decisions made at the top.

******
When there's glory to be grasped, Alpha Romeo is more than happy to be in the spotlight.

“To get large transformation programmes working, you’ve got to have really good assurance in place so that you know you’re not believing your own hype”

“My job as senior responsible officer is to make sure we deliver the benefits of the programme. We need to really understand what’s going on – and there are no prizes for not listening.”

Most offenders, she points out, have “a very complex and intractable set of problems that need to be looked at holistically.”

As the new system is established, these will be identified using what Romeo calls an “actuarial tool”: a piece of software that “looks at all the indicators and does something rather complicated and determines what level of risk someone is.” ... Romeo emphasises that the final decision will be made by NPS professionals – as will decisions over whether to recategorise offenders once the system is up and running.

There is clearly a political timetable behind the pace at which the MoJ is moving... Romeo acknowledges that the ministry hasn’t trialled its final proposals anywhere. “You have to turn on the statute once nationally,” she says.

“The Cabinet Office has a very clear process for awarding contracts.”

"I personally listen very carefully to what people tell me; and I go out all the time and talk to trusts, and to local authorities, and to police and crime commissioners.”

******
Powerful friends are useful, especially when you share a longstanding agenda.

"The Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team broke into a safe and destroyed the department’s copy of a historic bullying investigation into the new head of the civil service. In 2022 Darren Tierney, the then director-general of the government standards watchdog, asked maintenance staff to force open the vault. Reports surfaced that the department's copy of the Romeo file was disposed of following the vault breach... He later said he had wanted access to a confidential report about Dame Antonia Romeo. The Cabinet Office stated that the manual opening of the broken safe was routine due to a mechanical failure" - The Times/Telegraph & others

* Darren Tierney previously worked under Antonia Romeo when she headed the Department for International Trade (DIT) before later becoming the Director-General for Propriety and Ethics in the Cabinet Office

It seems there's a strong link between Romeo & the Cabinet Office...

"In July 2022, Francis Maude launched an independent review of UK civil service governance and accountability... Antonia Romeo—acting then as the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Justice—officially sponsored and supported the review alongside Maude.. Romeo later advanced to become Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, putting her at the head of the department where Maude previously drove major structural reforms as Minister for the Cabinet Office" civil service world & others.

"News of the government’s intention to reform the civil service began to emerge in 2020. At the time, the agenda was being pushed by then-Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, the former chief adviser of PM Boris Johnson. Maude will chair the latest review, with the support of Ministry of Justice permanent secretary Antonia Romeo"

2010: Romeo transferred to the Cabinet Office as the Executive Director in the new Efficiency and Reform Group under Francis Maude.

But not everyone's in thrall to alpha romeo:

"Antonia did not arrive in the senior civil service by the usual route of decades in a single department. She arrived through the coordination layer, the place where the various arms of the British state meet and agree their stories.

[romeo's] is not the career of a specialist. It is the career of a fixer. Intelligence liaison, efficiency reform, transformation, implementation, delivery. Every job title is a verb dressed up as a noun, and none of them leaves a paper trail you can scrutinise in a newspaper.

There was a reason for the trajectory, and his name was Jeremy Heywood, later Lord Heywood of Whitehall, who was Cabinet Secretary from 2012 until his death in 2018... Heywood was Romeo's mentor. He personally asked her to stay in the civil service when she was considering leaving, and sent her to New York. He smoothed her path to DIT, reportedly striking a "trade-off" with Theresa May, according to the Mail on Sunday's 2020 reporting, to secure her appointment despite the New York investigation.

Past performance is the best predictor of future performance. On past performance, Antonia Romeo is precisely what a failing administrative state produces, elevates, and protects. Not despite the record. Because of it.

She will also, we are told, rewrite the Civil Service Code, which is a bit like asking the fox to redraft the henhouse security policy."

*****
Reading that old interview alongside this discussion is quite sobering. Forget personalities for a moment because the more important issue is institutional memory. We have been here before.

A major transformation programme. Pressure to release capacity. Increasing reliance on actuarial tools. Assurances that professional judgement will remain with practitioners. A nationally implemented model accompanied by confidence from the centre that the risks are understood and appropriately managed.

TR subsequently failed, at enormous financial and human cost. So surely one of the most important questions for OFPS is: what has HMPPS actually learned from that experience? Because the line from that 2014 interview that really stands out now is: “You’ve got to have really good assurance in place so that you know you’re not believing your own hype.”

Quite.

If OFPS is deliberately attempting to release 25% of practitioner capacity through new tiering and supervision arrangements, where is the independent assurance that the model can safely do that? What happens if the assumptions underpinning the actuarial tools prove wrong? How will unintended consequences be identified once implemented? And crucially, who owns that risk?

That’s why this connects directly with SFO accountability. It cannot be acceptable for the organisation to design the model, determine the available resource and set the parameters of supervision, but for the individual practitioner to inherit the consequences if those assumptions subsequently prove wrong.

TR should have taught HMPPS that organisational optimism is not evidence. The question is whether anyone retained the lesson.

Guest Blog 110

When the System Sets the Risk, Who Carries the Blame?

Excellent piece, particularly the acknowledgement that sometimes the difference between becoming the subject of an SFO review and never experiencing one is not necessarily professional competence, but luck.

Risk assessment is not clairvoyance. Practitioners make judgements using the information, resources and time available to them at that moment. Yet after an SFO almost every action of the individual PP [Probation Practitioner] can be reconstructed: what was recorded, what wasn’t, whether an assessment was updated, whether information was acted upon and whether recall should have been considered.

The question is whether the organisation is examined with anything approaching the same forensic intensity.

And that question becomes even more important with everything now being introduced through OFPS, [Our Future Probation Service].

HMPPS is attempting to release around 25% of practitioner capacity. A new tiering model will determine how supervision is targeted, with seven tiers and maximum rather than minimum contacts. Practitioners will have to review all of their cases as the new arrangements are implemented, including ensuring the relevant risk indicators are captured. At the same time there are changes to supervision packages, increasing reliance on actuarial tools, the removal of practitioner access to the WMT and the additional pressures coming from sentencing reform and electronic monitoring.

These aren’t simply administrative changes. They are organisational decisions about risk.

If HMPPS determines through OFPS that a particular category of case should receive less practitioner resource, and a PP manages that person within the supervision framework HMPPS has designed, what happens if that person subsequently commits an SFO?

Will the review ask whether the model itself allocated sufficient professional time to that case? Will it examine whether the tier was appropriate, whether the supervision package was sufficient, what workload the PP was carrying and what other work they had been instructed to deprioritise?

Or will we once again work backwards through the individual practitioner’s records looking for something they might have done differently?

There is a particularly uncomfortable contradiction here. HMPPS is redesigning probation specifically because it accepts there isn’t sufficient capacity to continue doing everything currently expected of practitioners. Yet practitioner access to the WMT is disappearing just as these changes arrive.

Potentially, therefore, the individual PP becomes more retrospectively measurable while the organisational constraints around their practice become less objectively measurable.

That is exactly how defensive practice is created.

And perhaps this is the real test of whether SFO reviews are genuinely about learning. If HMPPS wants practitioners to embrace a new model that deliberately targets finite professional resource according to assessed need and risk, then HMPPS must be prepared to own the consequences of that model too.

Accountability cannot stop at the practitioner when the parameters within which that practitioner was working were designed much further up the organisation.

Anon

Without Probation None of This Can Happen

“Promises of extra investment are starting to sound like snake oil... Napo is urging government to listen to probation professionals... HMPPS has previously been issued with seven key demands, with deadlines for implementation"

Probation's been spoon-fed snake oil for decades. Local, regional & national management have been collectively holding the noses of probation staff & pouring it down their throats. No matter how its been disguised & delivered - Choreographed, Trusted, Transformed or Reset - it still tastes like shit.

Difficulty is that the unions (plural) have no authority, no gracvitas, no meaningful presence... just wobbly words of if's, but's, maybe's, wild claims & empty promises. They do a lot of "urging", so much so its a wonder they haven't had a prolapse. They do a lot of "demanding", but from a position of subservience & learned helplessness.

The "indicative" ballot is, as [has been pointed out] above, not exactly overwhelming when 9% of however many of the 6,135 members (no AR21 for 2025 yet, so this remains the 2024 membership figure) do not vote for it.

IF *all* members voted (I doubt they did) that's over 550 union members who, in this current climate of ever-worsening shitstorm, did NOT vote for "potential industrial action over workloads". If the current & impending situation isn't enough to make you fear the worst, what will it take?

Severally & individually you're in a position of extreme jeopardy, with the current dangerous levels of workload about to be ramped up beyond what is imaginable. The govt & hmpps haven't a fucking clue what they're doing & as an ex-prison governonr said on R4 yesterday, the PM is getting shit advice from a pack of inexperienced blowhards & his cabinet sec - ***who used to be the DG of HMPPS***. What he didn't go on to say was she was responsible for so much of the catastrophe that's been brewing for the last decade at least.

The whole Sentencing Act is about to be re-written - again - and it aint going to be pretty. Its already been rebranded as The New Progression Model ... one where the loudest cries of "foul" result in failure to release because hmpps will find some means of keeping the chosen ones in gaol for a few more weeks or months.

Meanwhile those moderate rightwingers wanting to 'reform' the country are having a ball, with ex-prison governor flakey frake signalling the return of the death penalty wouldn't go amiss. And 9% of however many voted (will we ever know?) think there's nothing to fret about?

Anon

*****

Whatever anyone thinks of Napo, 90.76% of those voting in an indicative ballot supporting potential industrial action should be impossible for HMPPS to dismiss as a few disgruntled staff.

I agree that Napo should publish the turnout and actual voting figures because transparency matters. But perhaps the bigger question is what happens next.

Probation has an unusual amount of public attention at the moment. Channel 4 is actively asking frontline staff to describe what is happening. Early release is dominating the news. Government is relying on “tougher community supervision” to reassure the public, while simultaneously expecting an already overstretched service to deliver it.

If ever there were a moment for probation staff to stop being the invisible part of the criminal justice system, surely this is it.

And this cannot be allowed to become simply an argument about wanting more pay or doing less work. Workloads, retention, experience, training, professional autonomy and yes, pay, all ultimately lead back to the same thing: public protection.

The government cannot tell the public that probation will provide the safety net for its sentencing and early-release policies while ignoring warnings from the people expected to provide that safety net.

The really interesting question now is whether Napo is prepared to use the leverage its members currently have, or whether we get another round of strongly worded statements, meetings, “urging” HMPPS to act and then watch the moment pass.

Because “without probation none of this can happen” is only a powerful statement if probation is finally prepared to act like it believes it.

Anon

Memo to Andy

Dear Prime Minister, Andy

I've just watched your unscripted speech this morning in Enfield, the home of my formative years, and I believe you must earn considerable praise for your obvious determination to at last address the shame social care has become and deliver a solution. Well done for bringing forward Dame Louise Casey's Review, even though I've personally never forgiven her for further stigmatising offenders on Community Service by making them wear orange high vis jackets.

You clearly speak passionately on the subject of social care and this is to be welcomed, but seeing as we are still awaiting the appointment of a Probation Minister, one is left pondering firstly regarding your knowledge of the criminal justice system, and secondly your appetite for addressing a topic that the public has come to regard as requiring 'reform' by means of locking more people up, for longer?

You quite rightly highlighted the wisdom of trying to work collaboratively with other political parties in the hope of finding common ground rather than resorting to irritating point-scoring, but you are going to have to have rather more 'bottle' to tackle criminal justice which is equally crying out for reform, but with little or no hope for political consensus or indeed public understanding. But the cost savings and benefits to society could be enormous as our European neighbours have discovered with prison numbers significantly falling. Yes, falling!

May I be so bold as to suggest now would be a very good time to fulfill the Labour manifesto pedge of a thorough Review of the role, organisation and functioning of the once gold standard Probation Service and ensuring it returns to being part of a solution rather than part of the problem it's become under centralised HMPPS command and control. It has to break free of HM Prison Service subjugation and the civil service and return to local control as it was prior to part-privatisation. The current model is utterly failed and long-past regarded by many informed commentators as unfit for purpose.

Unlike social care, you may not have personal experience of the criminal justice system, but I urge you to appoint a suitably experienced person to undertake a Review of probation at the earliest opportunity because this vital public service is close to collapse.

I will end by applauding your Downing Street words on assuming office and particularly the pledge to treat people with decency and end rough sleeping. Of course these should be honourable aims of any government, but is particularly striking because you chose to 'say it out loud'. One of the main routes to rough sleeping is of course via the criminal justice system, so this should fit perfectly with your core belief and of course desire for devolution.

Burnham Causes Chaos

It didn't take long did it for the new Prime Minister to plunge prison and probation into chaos. This from the Guardian:-

Prisoner early release scheme paused by Andy Burnham may still go ahead

Probation union and crime victims had raised doubts over plan to free 6,000 offenders across England and Wales

An early release scheme for thousands of prisoners paused by Andy Burnham after an outcry from victims could still take place this autumn, despite warnings by probation officers of potential chaos.

The prime minister ordered an urgent review into the proposed early release of about 6,000 prisoners, due to begin in September with an initial group of about 700, saying he wanted to “minimise risk to the public” and would not hesitate to make changes.

But with government officials accepting that the prison system remains near capacity, and no appetite to use alternatives such as police cells beyond emergencies, it is unclear what options exist beyond continuing with the plan, even in a different form.

Victims groups had objected to the proposal for 6,000 people to be freed early under the new Sentencing Act, with Debbie Adlam, the mother of the police officer Andrew Harper, saying the proposed inclusion of two of her son’s killers – Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers – was “another letdown” for their family.

In the latest of a flurry of policy announcements since he took over in No 10 on Monday, Burnham said: “I am working closely with the new justice secretary and have instructed my team to put a pause on the changes that were due to start in September.

“No prisoners will be let out under this policy until we have conducted an urgent review and done everything we can to minimise risk to the public. Where changes are needed, we will not hesitate to make them.”

With officials warning that without the scheme, prisons in England and Wales will run out of capacity by November, the most likely outcome appears to be a tweak to the early release system, with some offenders held back.

Officials have refused to say if the plan could be amended to block early release for people convicted of offences against emergency workers, such as Harper’s killers, or against women and girls.

Alex Norris, the new justice secretary, told reporters on Thursday the government needed “time to get it right”. He said: “We’ve put an important pause on this policy. It gives us a little bit of time to look at this, to make sure we do our best by you.”

Probation officers have warned that a “sense of chaos” had descended across the Prison Service, with staff unable to make preparations for the mass release. Tania Bassett, Napo’s national officer, said that after the trade union asked the Prisons Service if staff should continue with preparations for the early release scheme, it was now informing them it has been paused.

She said: “Napo’s concern is this will mean probation staff stop doing pre-release work. Whatever the prime minister’s final decision is, he has created a delay as well as confusion amongst the staff tasked with dealing with this.

“He needs to be more decisive about critical public protection issues and we urge him to treat this situation with the upmost urgency.”

According to the union, preparations for release require probation staff to carry out extensive work that usually takes at least six to eight weeks.

This includes reviewing risk assessments, making referrals for accommodation, carrying out home visits, coordinating with victim liaison officers and domestic abuse support officers and developing multi-agency safeguarding plans.

It can also take several weeks to ensure that tagging measures are in place before an offender is placed in accommodation. Unless probation staff received “imminent, concrete direction” about who will be considered, established release plans could collapse, a union official said.

The review has caused chaos in prisons, where managers are responsible for calculating release dates over several weeks from 2 September.

The Sentencing Act 2026 introduced an “earned progression model” that replaces automatic halfway release for prisoners serving standard determinate sentences in England and Wales with a tiered, behaviour-based system.

It will allow most prisoners to be released after serving a third of their sentence behind bars rather than 50%, with the rest of their sentence served under strict supervision in the community with the help of electronic tagging.

Prisoners serving time for sexual or violent offences where the automatic release stage is set at two-thirds will become eligible for release at the halfway point, provided they have not committed serious breaches of prison rules.

This applies to Bowers and Cole, two of Harper’s killers who were jailed for 13 years in 2020 for manslaughter. Burnham confirmed that Henry Long, the main perpetrator, “will not be subject to any early release” under the scheme.

After news of the pause emerged, Debbie Adlam told ITV News that this was “not enough”. She said: “It’s a good start, and it really is a good basis to begin working on some sensible alternatives and looking at options for going forward, because there’s so many people this affects, it’s not just us.”

An Impossible Job

I think the following two contributions sum the situation up neatly:-

So who thought that justice would be a priority?

https://www.gov.uk/government/people/alex-norris

Minister of State (Minister for Border Security and Asylum) and Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice - Alex Norris MP

Biography

Alex Norris was appointed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice on 20 July 2026. He was previously Minister of State at the Home Office between 6 September 2025 and July 20 2026.

He was previously Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government between 9 July 2024 and 6 September 2025.

He has been the MP for Nottingham North and Kimberley (and its predecessor Nottingham North) since June 2017.

Minister of State (Minister for Border Security and Asylum) - The Minister’s responsibilities are:

Border Security Command: reducing small boat arrivals and organised immigration crime
reducing the asylum caseload, exiting hotels and reducing the supported population
Immigration Enforcement: Increasing returns (including FNOs), immigration detention estate expansion, illegal working
asylum, illegal migration and returns policy, safe and legal policy and refugee resettlement policy
reducing net migration: legal migration policy
tackling visa abuse
innovative solutions
Immigration White Paper implementation
European Entry Exit System
modern slavery policy as it relates to immigration status

Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

Oversight of all justice portfolios, policy, and Ministry of Justice strategy
Oversight of cross-cutting emergency issues, responses supported by other ministers according to portfolio
Oversight of international business and future relations with the EU
MOJ support for the Union
Resourcing of the department

Functions of the Lord Chancellor

Judicial policy including pay, pensions and diversity (these and other operational decisions affecting the judiciary are reserved to the Lord Chancellor)

--oo00oo--

I’m not going to write Alex Norris off before he’s even started. Every minister deserves the chance to prove themselves. But I do wonder how anyone without a substantial justice background can fully appreciate the scale of what they’re inheriting. Probation isn’t something you understand from a briefing paper. It sits at the intersection of housing, mental health, addiction, domestic abuse, children’s services, employment, policing, prisons and the courts. It is where the consequences of policy decisions made across government all arrive at once.

Andy Burnham has rightly spoken about ending rough sleeping. That’s an admirable ambition. But this is where I think governments often miss something fundamental.

They talk about the “golden thread” running through assessments. What probation sees every day is the golden thread running through society.

Housing affects employment.

Employment affects offending.

Mental health affects addiction.

Addiction affects family stability.

Family breakdown affects children.

Children become tomorrow’s adults entering the criminal justice system. None of these things exists in isolation, yet government too often organises itself as if they do.

Probation doesn’t have the luxury of seeing only one department’s problem. We deal with the whole person and the cumulative effect of every public service that has either succeeded or failed them. So I genuinely hope the new Justice Secretary spends less time asking, “What does justice need?” and more time asking, “How does justice fit into everything else?”

Because until government starts seeing the same golden thread that frontline probation staff see every day, we’ll keep treating symptoms while wondering why the causes never seem to go away.

Time to say 'no'!

Some recent contributions:-

There's growing disconnect between the wellbeing message coming from HMPPS nationally and the day-to-day experience being described by many frontline staff. If people consistently feel that targets take precedence over wellbeing, then the issue isn’t the message, it’s whether that message is translating into practice.On the removal of the WMT, the FAQs repeatedly refer to line management discussions, professional judgement and management oversight. In principle, there’s nothing wrong with that. The WMT was never perfect. But it did provide a shared reference point. PP and SPO could both see the same information and have a discussion based on objective evidence.

From September, the emphasis appears to shift much more towards SPO judgement informed by dashboards, operational data and discussion. That inevitably changes the power dynamic.

Im sure a lot of SPOs will continue to act fairly and professionally. But good systems should be designed to protect people when relationships become difficult, not only when they are good. If a PP believes their workload is unsafe and their SPO disagrees, what independent evidence is there to resolve that disagreement? A good governance system shouldn’t rely solely on trust between individuals; it should provide transparent evidence that both parties can rely upon.

For me, that’s the real concern. We seem to be moving from an evidence-based conversation about workload to a relationship-based one. If trust is high, that may work well. But if trust has already been eroded, it risks creating inconsistency, discouraging challenge and leaving some staff feeling they have little objective basis on which to question workload decisions. That, more than the removal of a percentage figure, feels like the real cultural shift taking place.

--oo00oo--

HMPPS has completely lost touch with what it feels like to be a frontline PP. Every answer seems to be another dashboard, another AI tool, another restructure, another “holistic approach”, another management conversation. What nobody ever seems willing to acknowledge is the obvious: there is simply too much work.

No amount of dashboards will create more hours in the day.
No amount of management discussion will reduce an impossible caseload.
No amount of corporate wellbeing rhetoric will undo the damage of years of relentless pressure.

We’re expected to carry more risk, more responsibility, more bureaucracy and now, apparently, accept that if we feel we’re at capacity we’ll just have a conversation about it. What happens when that conversation ends with “I think you can take another case”? That’s not workload management. That’s asking PPs to negotiate their own breaking point. And let’s stop pretending this is about modernising the service. It’s about normalising overload.

The WMT may have been flawed, but at least it gave practitioners something objective to point to. Now even that is disappearing, replaced by assurances that everything will be fair because managers will use their judgement. Forgive me if I don’t find that reassuring.

Every year we’re told the next reform will fix things. Every year workloads increase, experienced colleagues leave, sickness rises and the people left behind are expected to absorb even more.

At some point HMPPS needs to stop telling us to be resilient and start admitting the truth: the system only functions because frontline staff are sacrificing their own health, family life and professional wellbeing to keep it afloat. That isn’t leadership. It’s exploitation.

--oo00oo--

Good points, all the things that we try to as POs such as building trust, discussions, focus and understanding the offenders we work with has unfortunately not only reduced in that work but also relationships between frontline POs and the SPO’s who sit in their offices dishing out work to those they know can take pressure and on the other hand protecting their friends with the easier cases. 

Possibly a delicate subject but how many of us are holding extremely high caseloads because others cannot cope? I am sick to death of people receiving a full wage when they are on a reduced caseload because they are ‘stressed’ we are all stressed and adding to my caseload stresses me more and more especially when so many people appear to be working from home more than they should be and those of us in the office have to deal with the fallout from their cases. 

How many times do you see your SPO out of their office? How many times is the SPO in after you and left before you? A lot of the new SPO’s are freshly qualified can make up a good story for interviews but never asked the basic leadership questions and that is why there is no leadership in the NPS just a full on ‘do as I say, not do as I do’. 

I no longer can have serious risk based conversations with the SPOs in my team as they are hardly there and so inexperienced, what happened to the five year post qualification rule? I hear you ask why don’t I get an SPO role, well it is because it does not pay enough for me to listen to moans, record sick and holidays and at the same time make life easier for some and not others.I also enjoy working with people who need my support and guidance and I am good at that and dealing with the violent ones who other people will not work with. 

However, a warning for those further up the greasy pole, people like me are now rare in probation a dying breed, a dinosaur some may say, however with three months left to go, I can already hear the voices, 'I cannot take that case', 'I won’t be taking that' and just the other day, ‘miserable bast*rd why are they taking early retirement, how can they do this to us.‘ 

I say, time to pick up the gauntlet, baton or the reins and get on with it, time to stand up and be counted and it is alright to say no, which is a lot harder than saying yes. What does the future hold, I don’t know but will be watching the next episodes from outside.

Dawn of MoJ Enlightenment?

Tomorrow is a significant day for the UK as yet another Labour leader 'kisses hands' and is invited to form a new government by HM King Charles III. Many of us hope dearly that almost certainly we will get a new Justice Minister, as well as a rowing back of the drive for digitisation at the MoJ and HMPPS. Lets hope that this, coupled with a drive for devolution and shifting of power may give support to a better-informed approach to the Probation Service and the chance of re-gaining its identity and function away from the dead hand of Civil Service command and control.

As always, staunch reader and contributor 'Getafix helps us focus on things and points us in the direction of a recent speech by HMI Martin Jones. Lets hope he has the ear of Andy Burnham and the new Administration:-   

Martin Jones’ keynote speech for StandOut
Published: 13 July 2026

On 08 July 2026 the Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, gave the keynote speech at an event for StandOut, a charity that provides coaching and support to bridge the transition between prison and the community.

“I am delighted to be here for this event and would like to start by congratulating and thanking you for the brilliant work you are doing.

Your work is making a difference every day for people preparing for release and ensuring they have a better chance of succeeding when they reach the community.

This success means better outcomes for people on release, their families and their communities and it is in all of our interests to ensure more people are supported to succeed.

I was appointed Chief Inspector of Probation in the Spring of 2024, having now spent well over three decades working in justice – including latterly time in charge of the Parole Board.

Much public and political attention is focused on prison. I would argue too much.

Traditionally public discourse has focused on whether prison sentences are long enough and the size of our prison population.

But too little attention is focused on the community. How do we avoid sending people to prison and break destructive cycles of reoffending? How do we better prepare people for release?

The numbers are stark: According to the last published figures:

• 87,342 people in prison
• 248,568 people on caseload of probation (70 per cent of whom are in the community)
• 56,923 releases in last twelve months as early release schemes and changes to fix term recall have started to impact.
• 48,327 recalls in latest period.

In essence there is massive change moving pressure from our overstretched prisons to our equally overstretched probation service – where we have too few staff, with too little experience, managing too many cases.

As Chief Inspector it is important I maintain a critical eye on the problems facing the service.

I am pleased that the Government is investing more in probation – and there have been some successes. But it needs care and attention. I might even say TLC.

The service still bears the scars of change over the last 10-12 years.

According to the Public Accounts Committee the service has a staffing gap of c 25 per cent, we have a workforce that has lost too many experienced staff, and new probation staff often have a full or excessive caseload far too soon.

There is a sense that some probation “craft” has been lost.

Does the service understand enough about the people they are working with? Do they understand their lives, their problems, their worries, their needs, their risks? Our inspections tell us they do not.

There are problems with information exchange and there is, in my assessment, an excessive fear of SFOs – but despite this fear, there is a shortfall in the quality of work taking place on public protection.

It is against that difficult backdrop that the sentencing review brings further changes. In essence more people will be dealt with in the community.

How well prepared is it for that change?

Huge efforts are being made to ensure the service is as well prepared as it can be and there have been some improvements in recruitment and retention rates.

There have been changes to reduce workload, so the resources better match the demand, and new initiatives – such as justice transcribe – are freeing up probation officers to spend more of their time with people on probation rather than form filling and stuck behind computer screens.

However, more is still needed – that is why I am delighted to be here today.

In reality, we need to better harness the expertise, innovation and resources within the third sector to ensure we provide better support and services for people.

We know that most people in prison have huge unmet need that contributes to reoffending and poor outcomes. Working with organisations like Stand Out we can surely better prepare people for their release from custody.

It has always been true that if we have the right plan, we massively increase success rates.

• Support with substance misuse and mental health.
• Somewhere to live
• Something worthwhile to do.
• Support in the community – (family/friends/a mentor) someone who wants you to succeed…

Unless we get that right we see predictable failure.

• Recall because of a lack of support with problems.
• Reoffending because we have not tackled the underlying causes.
• Harm to the community and to people on probation because people are not safeguarded.

I do however see a pathway to improvement.

Despite the pressure facing probation, I still see professionals who want to do a good job. I see so much determination (maybe with some frustration) in the third sector to achieve better outcomes. And I am seeing signs that probation performance is improving. Public protection scores are up in every reinspected region. Desistance and engagement scores are better.

But the gap in delivery? That is now the task.

Can we free probation up to deliver better results, with greater local autonomy and accountability, and better join up?

How do we build to deliver this at a greater scale. Surely the answer must be for a continued realignment and investment in community provision and support.

If we can do that, we can – perhaps achieve a virtuous circle – less failure in the community, lower reoffending rates, fewer victims, safer communities.

That must surely be a driving ambition of the next steps of reform.”

Martin Jones 

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

--oo00oo--

Our mission

StandOut's mission is to empower people leaving prison to transform their lives, realise their potential, and leave the criminal justice system behind - for good.

Our values

At StandOut, we’re led by our values: Champions, Connected, Committed, First Class, and Courageous. They are at the heart of everything we do – from how we work with our participants, to how we relate to each other, our partners and stakeholders. We don't believe in quick fixes, nor that life runs in straight lines, especially if someone has experienced prison. Our values keep us focused and remind us of the things that matter most.

Our history

StandOut is the vision of our founders Penny Parker and Jo Fellows.

Penny’s background was in running the highly regarded Sycamore Tree restorative justice course, which she was involved in setting up in HMPs Wandsworth, Bronzefield and Pentonville. Too often she saw that having unlocked a motivation to change in people, the practical steps to prepare for the transition out of prison were missing. When she found Resurgo’s award-winning Spear Programme, Penny thought it could be adapted to work very effectively with people leaving prison. Working with Jo, whose background was in working with young people facing barriers to employment through the Spear Programme, they brought their shared vision to reality in 2017 as they piloted StandOut in HMP Wandsworth.

Having successfully established the programme in HMP Wandsworth, in 2019 StandOut launched in HMP Pentonville, and in 2023 we launched in our third prison - HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

Cause For Hope?

From a contributor:-

Strong indications now that Lammy, not regarded by anyone as the sharpest tool in the box, is heading towards the back benches or even out of government entirely. Game over. Will the Justice shakeup see ministers such as Kiers buddy Timpson also ousted? Very likely. It is currently unconfirmed who will replace Lammy, or if he will be retained in Burnham's government at all. While some say he’ll be one of the first to get his marching orders on 20/07 others say his future at the Ministry of Justice is a subject of heavy speculation regarding how fast he is removed so he may be left hanging about whilst negotiations regarding his replacement proceed or policies are scrapped as a fall guy. Burnham is reportedly planning to scrap some of Lammy's recent policies, including the curbs on the right to trial by jury and the early release scheme aimed at easing prison capacity. Better to remove him rather than force him into humiliating U-turns.

Given these policy clashes, a change in leadership at the Ministry of Justice seems highly likely. The incoming cabinet appointments will be critical to watch, as they will undoubtedly signal a significant shift in the department's strategic and operational direction. The approach to AI and technology may see significant changes with much hyped MoJ Justice Digital and Justice AI being seen as expensive failed centralised projects the very opposite of the new decentralised approach. Burnham is for example is said to favour devolved more locally accountable Probation Services developing their own initiatives as appropriate that may see prison and probation regions playing more of a role. What is certain is that he will want to get a firmer grip on Justice with Thornberry rumoured to be first among several people being considered as a smarter upgrade who will want to have a good clear out. Streeting and Jarvis also mentioned as possible options if they do not land plum jobs elsewhere. You heard it here first.

Blimey! Tags Not Being Fitted

Thousands of offenders not wearing electronic tags, report says

Almost 9,000 people in England and Wales required to have an electronic monitoring tag did not have one, a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found. They are likely to include violent offenders and prisoners released from jail who need to be checked on. The NAO said, as of March 2026, prison authorities were reviewing around 8,900 cases of individuals recorded as having an active monitoring order but no tag.

However, the Ministry of Justice has disputed the figure, saying its own review puts the number of unmonitored individuals at 5,450. It said the NAO figure referred to the total number of cases they are checking to see if they need monitoring.

The NAO called the current system "inefficient".

Electronic monitoring, also known as tagging, is used in England and Wales as a way of monitoring curfews and conditions of a court or prison order.

Criminals and people deemed to pose a potential risk are sometimes fitted with an ankle tag so that their movements can be monitored. These individuals can include serious offenders such as rapists and murderers. There are three types of tags: curfew tags, location tags, and alcohol tags.

A total of 28,700 people were recorded as being tagged in England and Wales as of March 2026. The NAO said some of the 8,900 cases in its report would include people who were registered as being tagged by mistake. But it also said the real number of those slipping through the system could be "significant".

People can be identified as being "unmonitored" for a number of reasons. These can include errors in the system, refusal to wear a tag, a delay in the fitting of the tag, or an arrest where the tag is removed. But it can also include people who haven't been tagged when they should have been.

Responding to the NAO's report, the Ministry of Justice said: "Public protection is our priority, which is why we're investing £100m in electronic monitoring, tagging offenders before release for the first time and strengthening victim protections via new alert systems – all of which will help cut the number of unmonitored offenders."

The National Audit Office argues the current monitoring system is not fit for purpose.

"Electronic monitoring is central to managing pressures on prisons, but it is not working effectively, creating risks to public protection," NAO chief Gareth Davies said. "Improvements are required to ensure that those who should be monitored are monitored and that breaches are responded to effectively," he added. The report also says police and probation staff often lack information or capacity to respond quickly to breaches.

People tagged are placed under strict conditions as part of their punishment. This can include having to remain in a specific area or sticking to a curfew. If someone breaches their conditions, it can result in a formal warning, being taken back to court, or an immediate return to prison.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice announced plans to significantly expand electronic monitoring as part of the Sentencing Act 2026, which aims to ease prison pressures by managing more offenders in the community.

Thousands more prisoners may be released early from autumn this year as part of the new law. Reports suggest killers, rapists and sex offenders could be among them. Most will require tagging.

Several probation officers have told the BBC they are worried about how they will cope.

Probation officers are responsible for checking offenders are following the terms of their release from prison. This could include things such as wearing ankle tags or not taking drugs.

"The report makes clear we're overworked. And it's only going to get worse with more people set to do their punishment in the community," one probation officer said. "There aren't enough of us, and we have no idea how the government is going to make it work so that nobody is at risk. Because something bad will happen, someone who is dangerous and isn't monitored will kill someone," the probation officer added.

The NAO says that part of the problem is a shortfall of around 2,200 full time probation officers, which the government expects to reduce to around 1,500 by September of this year.

The watchdog also says even though the security contractor Serco - which manages the tagging system for the government - met its 95% timeliness target for tag fitting visits, "it was only successful in fitting tags on 62% of the individuals it visited within its two attempts".

In a statement, Serco told the BBC it had made "significant improvements" and was "tagging a record number of people" and "consistently" meeting key contractual measures, as recognised by the Ministry of Justice and NAO report. It added that efforts to fit tags "rely on us receiving the correct information" from relevant authorities and partners. "We attempt to fit a tag to every person who should be wearing one. Where, for reasons beyond our control, we are unable to do so, we report those breaches to the relevant authorities."

The NAO is calling on the government to improve data quality and management of the monitoring system. It added the government had been working with Serco to improve performance and reduce the backlog in fitting tags. Ministers estimate a further 22,000 people per year will need to be tagged from 2027.

"The government needs to improve the service's resilience and efficiency, otherwise expanding electronic monitoring risks wasting public money and puts public safety at risk", said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Committee of Public Accounts.

The Ministry of Justice said the government inherited "a failing tagging system with record backlogs". "As this report shows we have worked hard to fix this, with install rates up by nearly 50% since 2024," it said. "This is in addition to our record £700m investment in probation, recruiting 2,300 trainee probation officers over the last two years, and recruiting a further 1,300 this year - making sure the Probation Service has the resource it needs to keep dangerous offenders under closer surveillance than ever before."