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Open letter from Gerry Sutcliffe to Chiefs and Chairs of Probation Boards

20.11.06

The Under-Secretary for Criminal Justice and Offender Management, Gerry Sutcliffe, has written to all Chiefs and Chairs of Probation Boards in England and Wales.

The open letter clarifies the proposals for offender management legislation as announced in last week’s Queen’s Speech. 

In the letter, the Minister explains the reasoning behind the proposed bill and sets out six guarantees showing the Government’s commitment to a strong public sector probation service.

The guarantees are:

• The guiding principle for all changes to the probation service will be to ensure that the highest quality services are delivered in order to best protect the public.
• Probation will continue to be valued as a profession, reinforced by rigorous national standards and training.
• We want to support probation boards to become part of a network of viable, public sector trusts, working alongside providers from the voluntary and private sectors to deliver high quality services.
• As long as it is meeting the demanding and transparent standards we set, the public sector trust for each area will be awarded the contract to run offender management services in the first instance.
• Where a new provider is asked to run probation services in a particular area, staff who transfer to it will have their terms and conditions protected by law.
• New providers will have to take account of the two-tier workforce regulations which means that have to recruit new staff on terms and conditions which are, overall, no less favourable than those of employees transferred from the public sector.

A full copy of the letter is available here (new window).