Review will look at how to return crisis-ridden probation to public sector under Labour

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A former chief inspector of prisons will chair the Labour party’s review into the future of the probation service, amid claims by some within the sector it is in crisis.

As part of the review, Lord Ramsbotham, a crossbench peer with experience of the criminal justice system, will outline options for how to return all of the probation service to the public sector under a Labour government.

The review comes after MPs and probation inspectors have criticised reforms introduced by Chris Grayling when he was justice secretary to part-privatise the probation sector.

Most recently, the cross-party justice committee published a damning report on Grayling’s “transforming rehabilitation” overhaul, saying the reforms were unlikely to work.

Ramsbotham, who previously served on the advisory board of the International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College London, said: “The unpiloted transforming rehabilitation changes to the way probation is delivered are clearly not working, as reports from the chief inspector of probation, and the public accounts and justice committees of the House of Commons demonstrate.

“This matters because, if community sentences are to be a viable alternative to expensive and failing imprisonment, they must enjoy the trust of both sentencers and the public. I welcome this opportunity to review the current situation, during which I will make maximum use of probation experts around the country.”

The probation sector in England and Wales was overhauled in 2014 by Grayling, who broke up existing probation trusts and replaced them with a public sector service dealing with high-risk offenders and 21 privately run companies that manage low- to medium-risk offenders.

He introduced a “payment by results” system based on reducing rates of reoffending and a “through the gate service” for all offenders, regardless of length of sentence.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Grayling’s changes to the sector in 2014 have been widely criticised. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

In its report last month, the justice committee highlighted disappointing reductions in reoffending, complicated delivery of services, a failure to open up the probation services to charities and volunteer organisations, low morale among staff and remote contact between probation workers.

The criticism echoes that from the chief inspector of probation, Dame Glenys Stacey, who in December revealed Grayling’s reforms had led to tens of thousands of offenders – up to 40% of the total – being supervised by telephone calls every six weeks instead of face-to-face meetings.

Stacey warned that the changes had created a “two-tier and fragmented” probation system, with most private rehabilitation companies struggling to deliver.

Labour’s 2017 manifesto committed to undertaking a review into the privatisation of much of the probation service.

The shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon, said: “The Conservatives’ reckless part-privatisation of probation has been the costly failure that many warned it would be. The next Labour government will put an end to this failed experiment and return the probation sector to the award-winning public service it was before this disastrous privatisation.”

The prisons and probation minister, Rory Stewart, previously said the transforming rehabilitation overhaul was a “significant programme of reform”, but the government accepted that “there have been challenges”.