Recommendation 3

Longstanding staff shortages have left probation staff dealing with excessive and unmanageable workloads. At March 2025, there were 5,636 full-time equivalent probation officers in post, 79% of target staffing. According to HMPPS’s data, probation officers have been working on average at 118% capacity for several years, with highs of 126% in some regions, including London. However, actual workloads will have been higher than this as HMPPS’s recent refresh of probation activity timings showed it had seriously underestimated the time needed for staff to complete tasks. This underestimation, on top of existing staff vacancies, meant that it had been operating the service with just half the number of sentence management staff required. Probation staff have also had to deal with a high level of change to probation processes, which adds to their workloads. Researchers told us that probation staff have felt alienated by frequent changes and that the Probation Service’s culture is built on ‘emotional strain’ and ‘trauma’. Staff sickness and staff turnover has risen or remained high - in the year ending March 2025, the leaving rate for probation staff was 9.3% (6.2% in 2021) and sickness rate was 13.2 working days (8.9 in 2021). The most common cause of staff sickness is mental ill health. 4 recommendation HMPPS should, in its Treasury Minute response, set out: a. when and how it expects to be able to provide clarity to staff on when their workloads will reduce to acceptable levels; and b. the volume of changes it expects staff will need to introduce and how it plans to make this manageable for staff.