- Conference
- 2022 Police & Justice Service Group Conference
- Date
- 27 June 2022
- Decision
- Carried
Conference was dismayed to learn about the proposed cuts to civil service jobs, the proposals of which are anything between 20% and 40%. Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked his Ministerial team and Permanent Secretaries to develop proposals to return the civil service to the size it was in 2016. It is noted that the Probation Service was not wholly part of the Civil Service in 2016 so therefore we believe we should not be part of this job cutting exercise.
The Probation Service as was, suffered significant job losses as a result of Transforming Rehabilitation
and the redundancies that were made through the process of privatisation therefore, significant vacancies exist in all areas and we have never fully recovered.
The reunification of the service in June 2021 has failed to deal with several systemic issues such as pay, workload and vetting, which has meant that the service is now at crisis point in terms of staffing in both recruitment and retention.
To suggest that the Probation Service could tolerate any sort of staffing cuts is unthinkable. The result of these proposed cuts could be truly damaging to our communities with the cost being further victims of crime, more Serious Further Offences and the vicious cycle of re-offending continuing unabated.
We call on the SGE to launch a visible and sustained campaign to resist any suggestion of job cuts in the Probation Service.