Staffing levels in prison and probation services are approaching “dangerously low” levels, the Ministry of Justice has admitted.
The staggering comments were apparently included by mistake in an £8million contract agreed with London-based recruitment firm Peoplescout, published on a Government procurement website last month.
The tender document, published alongside a link to the formal letter of appointment signed on behalf of Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, states: “In the face of a rapidly upturned labour market, staff shortages in many sectors and a private sector that can outmanoeuvre us on pay, prison and probation staffing is approaching dangerously low levels. This is made more acute by government commitments on prison expansion and high staff attrition levels.”
According to the extract, a third of regions in England and Wales had less than 80% of the probation officers they needed at the start of the financial year, and around 15% of prisons lacked more than a fifth of the prison officers or support staff they require.
Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed warned Tory incompetence had left probation services “in tatters” and risked dangerous offenders being allowed to roam the streets. Analysis of official figures has previously revealed a murder is carried out every week by an offender on probation.
Earlier this year, Chief Inspector of Probation Justin Russell published a damning report saying sexual predator Jordan McSweeney was free to murder law graduate Zara Aleena after probation staff missed a catalogue of chances to stop him. McSweeney attacked the 35-year-old as she walked home in Ilford, east London, in June 2022 - only nine days after he was released from prison.
Meanwhile, some 2,452 prisoners escaped, absconded or were released by mistake from prisons in England and Wales in the period from March 2012 to March 2023, including 142 in the past year.
Mr Reed said: “Violent criminals are left to roam the streets without proper supervision, placing the public at serious risk. If a third of the country has ‘dangerously low levels’ of probation officers, we risk seeing even more cases where violent criminals who never should have been released from prison in the first place are allowed to strike again.
“The whole country will be alarmed at that warning, and even more so because we are hearing it not in a formal statement from ministers, but in a contract document which the Ministry of Justice appears to have published by mistake. That is a catastrophic failure on the part of this Government, and shows that they cannot be trusted to give our communities the protection they need.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “We have hired a record 4,000 probation officers since 2021 and will recruit up to 5,000 more prison officers by the mid-2020s to steer offenders away from crime and keep people safe.”
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