This week over 200 staff from Surrey and Sussex Probation Trust would have taken strike action in protest against the Government’s plans to outsource 70% of Probation Services.

This was not a decision we took lightly but we felt we were left with little choice. Mr Grayling the Justice Secretary was not listening to probation staff and is pressing ahead with plans that are untried, untested and in our view unnecessary.

Mr Grayling is proposing that probation trusts in England and Wales will be abolished and the supervision of offenders transferred to “community rehabilitation companies” on a payment-by-results basis by next October.


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The contracts are likely to be won by big companies such as G4S and Serco. A much smaller national probation service will manage high-risk offenders and public protection cases.

These plans ignore the dynamic nature of risk which can change in hours, and professionally trained staff need to react very quickly to protect the public from harm. The plans also ignore the success of innovative schemes.

Research by Sheffield Hallam University, published this year by the Sussex Criminal Justice Board, demonstrates the benefits of integrating the work of probation, police, local authorities and other agencies, to provide a high level of monitoring, supervision and support to offenders. Over a two-year period, the proportion of offenders reconvicted in Sussex was reduced by 57 per cent and the frequency by 69 per cent.

In consequence, this also reduces the number of people who are likely to be victims of crime.

The research is available at: http://www.sussexcriminaljustice board.org.uk/news/iom.

In his reasons for bringing in these changes Mr Grayling argues about the high reoffending rates among those serving less than 12 months in prison.

This is the only group of offenders that probation staff do not supervise.

Probation staff have serious concerns about these plans and the potentially disastrous consequences they could have on public safety.

The people of Surrey and Sussex deserve to know the truth about reckless and dangerous plans being forced through by this Government.

We urge this Government to think again and if it insists on pushing this through it should at the very least be piloted to test it out before taking serious risks with public safety.

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