Member

Speaker after speaker at the conference, including Chief Inspector Martin Jones, warned that probation officers are under unprecedented pressure and simply cannot cope with their current workload. Staff are genuinely worried that the Bill will make that already acute problem worse and will risk destabilising the service further, which will lead to a greater risk to public protection. That is why, as is proposed in new clause 4, an independent assessment of whether the Probation Service has the capability and the capacity to take on additional work is vital.