Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 5
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 satisfied that HMPPS’s new programme will free up sufficient capacity to improve performance. HMPPS aims to close the current shortfall of 3,150 probation staff by March 2027, by freeing up operational capacity by 25% through its ‘Our Future Probation Service’ (OFPS) programme. However, we are sceptical that HMPPS has a real understanding of how many staff it needs to sufficiently improve performance. While its estimates of the staffing shortfall are based on its updated activity timings, it reduced these timings down from staff-reported 5 averages in many cases. HMPPS reduced these averages because it judged staff could complete tasks more quickly with additional training. It also later dismissed its own internal review which suggested that it needed to go beyond its planned 25% reduction in workloads to allow staff sufficient time for the learning needed to improve performance. Its estimate of the shortfall takes into account the Sentencing Bill, but does not account for the impact of some wider policy changes, for example, the Independent Review of Criminal Courts, which is likely to create additional demands on probation staff. It will also be important for HMPPS to develop a contingency plan if the OFPS programme does not reduce workloads as planned recommendation HMPPS should, in its Treasury Minute response, set out: a. how it plans to keep the scale of the staffing shortfall in view following future policy decisions which may further increase demands on the service; b. how it will ensure that staff will have capacity to undertake sufficient training to improve performance, including the number of training days factored into its modelling of staffing shortfalls; and c. its contingency plans, if its programme does not reduce workloads sufficiently
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).