Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 11
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 ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
MoJ estimates that the economic and social cost of reoffending by adult offenders was £20.9 billion in 2024–25.21 The Probation Service aims to reduce reoffending and protect the public. However, offender outcomes, such as reoffending rates, have deteriorated since unification of the service in 2021. The reoffending rate for adults supervised by the Probation Service, either released from custody or starting a court order, was 36% for the cohorts supervised in July to September 2023 (latest data available), five percentage points higher than 31% for the cohorts supervised in April to June 2021. The average number of reoffences per reoffender also increased from 3.8 to 5.0 reoffences across the same period. There were 770 offenders charged with a Serious Further Offence while under probation in 2023–24, 55% more than in 2020–21. And the number of prisoners recalled to prison is at an all-time high. At the end of March 2025, the recall prison population was 13,583, accounting for 15% of the prison population, a 49% increase since June 2021.22
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).