Latest News

Responding to Transforming Rehabilitation

West Yorkshire Probation currently supervises up to 11,500 offenders at any one time, 5,500 on community orders, 2,200 on licence and 3,800 in custody.

The reoffending rate for community orders in West Yorkshire is 34.9%, a 14% reduction since 2005. 

The government's proposals, Transforming Rehabilitation, will lead to a dismantling of the current infrastructure for supervising adult offenders.

• A smaller national probation service managing high risk offenders will be created.
• The management and rehabilitation of low and medium risk offenders will be competed together. 
• Statutory rehabilitation will be extended to all prisoners serving fewer than 12 months (not currently subject to any supervision). This new work will be included in the competition. This covers 46,000 offenders nationally, 2,250 in West Yorkshire. 
• 21 contract package areas covering England and Wales will be competed, one of which will be for West Yorkshire. The contracts will be based on payment by results.
• Changes to the organisation of prison to ensure most offenders get continuous support from one organisation. 

We estimate that the management of 70% of West Yorkshire Probation's current caseload (approximately 7,700) will be outsourced to a new provider, together with the supervision of 2,250 short term prisoners. 

The timescales for achieving this are demanding with contracts for rehabilitation services to be let by autumn 2014. 

The scale and pace of these proposed changes will fragment the current system with potential risks for public protection.