Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
65th Report - Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service
Published 4 Feb 2026
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We are not confident that MoJ and HMPPS can successfully manage the risks associated with the new probation programme. Over an 18-month period, HMPPS’s new programme - Our Future Probation Service - aims to introduce new digital tools, changes to probation processes and changes to the level of supervision for some offenders. Its plans include implementing over 30 digital initiatives to help reduce the time probation staff need to spend on tasks. For example, Transcribe is an AI tool to help staff capture meeting notes. However, there is a risk that constant changes can disrupt services, contribute to poor outcomes and staff stress. While HMPPS plans to implement new digital tools incrementally, the short time- frame carries a high level of risk and MoJ does not have a strong history of implementing digital change programmes well. Additionally, MoJ and HMPPS are still deciding on some of the changes they plan to make to the level of supervision some offenders receive, which may pose risks to public protection. Given these risks, we are very concerned that MoJ and HMPPS have not yet set clear thresholds for the level of risk they are willing to accept, to help monitor operational and public protection risks. recommendation HMPPS should set out, in its Treasury Minute response: a. how it will assess when digital tools are sufficiently developed to roll out to staff; b. its risk thresholds for rolling out digital and process changes/scope changes; and c. how it will monitor if thresholds are breached.
From: Public Accounts Committee, 65th Report - Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service (HC 1235), 4 February 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 7 April 2026 (deadline 4 April 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the Committee's recommendations, and sets out timelines, a revised performance framework and reporting commitments.
- On performance, the government "expects the Probation Service to demonstrate measurable and sustained improvements" over the spending review period to March 2029, with a revised performance framework centred on "a smaller number of priority metrics" to be introduced in April 2026.
- On reoffending, it says it is "very challenging to attribute changes in the reoffending measure to individual initiatives", and that evaluation of 'Reset' "will be published by July 2026".
- On workloads, the Our Future Probation Service programme was launched with the "primary objective to reduce workloads by 25% by April 2027", and HMPPS plans to share more detail with staff during March and April 2026.
- It commits to write to the Committee on Serco's performance against its key performance indicators within six months of the report (target August 2026), and on third and private sector support and electronic monitoring capacity (target October 2026).