National Probation Service

The National Probation Service for England and Wales is a statutory criminal justice service, mainly responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community and the provision of reports to the criminal courts to assist them in their sentencing duties. It was established in its current form by the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act in April 2001, but has existed since 1907 as a set of area based services interacting at arms-length with central government.

Northern Ireland has its own probation service, whilst in Scotland criminal justice social work services are managed within the social work departments of local authorities.

The service is part of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), which transferred to the Ministry of Justice from the Home Office on 9 May 2007. It comprises 42 probation areas which are coterminous with police force area boundaries, served by 35 probation trusts. Trusts are funded by NOMS and employ all staff except the chief officer; they are accountable to their boards (comprising up to fifteen members appointed by the Secretary of State) for day-to-day operations and financial management, and to NOMS via a Regional Offender Manager, with whom they have service level agreements, for performance against the targets for the offender management and interventions services for which they have been funded.

The work of probation trusts is scrutinised by NOMS, which reports independently to UK government ministers; and by HM Inspectorate of Probation. There are concerns that staff shortages, failure in communication and privatisation may be weakening the probation service and putting the public at risk.

The Church of England Temperance Society and other voluntary societies appointed missionaries to the London police courts during the late nineteenth century. From this developed the system of releasing offenders on the condition that they kept in touch with the missionary and accepted guidance. In 1907 this supervision was given a statutory basis which allowed courts to appoint and employ probation officers.

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