Probation Services
Philip Dunne challenges the Justice Secretary over the withdrawal of the probation service budgets for the next two years as set out in the comprehensive spending review leaving the service in a state of uncertainty.
Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con): What assessment he has made of the likely effect on probation services in the period up to 2011 of reductions in probation service budgets.
The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw): Probation funding has increased since 1997 by 70 per cent. in real terms, a faster rate than the increase in case load and almost twice the growth rate of the prison service. Staff numbers have increased by 50 per cent., with a 54 per cent. increase in front-line staff.
The budget for this year is £894 million. Taking account of a £17 million underspend in 2008-09, the required efficiency savings will be less than half of 1 per cent. No final decisions have been made about the budgets for 2010-11.
Mr. Dunne: The Justice Secretary seems to be in denial. He keeps harking back to what has happened since 1997, but people involved in the probation service are worried about what is happening this year and next. The budgets for next year and the year after that were set out in the comprehensive spending review have now been withdrawn, and probation trusts do not know what they are dealing with. In my area, West Mercia probation trust, 30 out of 390 posts are being lost. None of the trainees due to complete their training period this year, or of those expected to do so next year, can be sure that there will be a job to go to. What sort of service is the right hon. Gentleman running?
Mr. Straw: I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what sort of service we are running. In his area, funding has increased by 70 per cent. in cash terms, whereas prices have gone up by less than 25 per cent. The probation service across the country is worried not about stable funding under Labour, but about a 10 per cent. cut under the Conservatives. Moreover, I have heard the shadow Chancellor say time and again that spending would have been much less this year and in previous years. There would have been a lower platform, and lower spending now.
