To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the (a) number and (b) cost of agency staff working in the Probation Service was in the most recent period for which data is available.
Answered on
27 May 2022
The table below shows figures for the number and cost of contingent labour (agency staff) working in the Probation Service between April 2021 and March 2022. The total cost and numbers relate to the National Probation Service from 01 April 2021 to 26 June 2021, and then for the Probation Service thereafter.
It has been broken down by the number of Operational and admin/clerical agency staff workers. It should be noted that the figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Probation England, Wales and Probation Reform Programme
FY 2021-22 | Number of Agency Staff | |
Operational Agency Staff | £23,069,614 | 734 |
Admin/Clerical Agency Staff | £6,020,447 | 541 |
The Probation Service is actively recruiting to all vacancies. The Probation Service has recruited an additional 1,007 against a target of 1,000 trainee Probation Officers in 2020-21, and an additional 1,518 against a target of 1,500 in 2021/22. A further 1,500 trainees will be recruited in 2022/23 in order to reduce the use of agency staff.