National findings: Dynamic Inspection of Public Protection in the Probation Service
Chief Inspector’s judgement (Back to top)
The national dynamic inspection of public protection found that probation regions were led by committed leaders who were establishing a clearer strategic focus on public protection and had invested significantly in improvement activity. Strengthened governance, enhanced quality assurance, targeted workforce development and improving partnership arrangements provided a credible foundation for progress. Staff were largely dedicated to protecting the public and understood the importance of this priority.
However, these efforts had not yet translated into consistently effective service delivery. The quality of public protection work remained too variable and, in too many cases, fell short of the standard required to keep people safe. Practitioners did not consistently demonstrate the professional curiosity, analytical thinking or confidence needed to identify, understand and manage risk effectively. Opportunities to recognise patterns of harmful behaviour, safeguard children, protect victims and respond to escalating concerns were too often missed.
Shortfalls in practice were not due to frontline staff, who were generally trying their best. Workforce instability continued to undermine progress. Staffing shortages, turnover, sickness absence, vetting delays and high levels of inexperience among practitioners and middle managers put considerable pressure on delivery. Combined with the pace of organisational and policy change, these challenges contributed to an over-reliance on procedural compliance at the expense of confident professional judgement, critical analysis and purposeful risk management.
Although leaders had introduced a range of oversight, learning and quality improvement mechanisms, management oversight remained inconsistent. Deficits in public protection work were not always identified or addressed with sufficient rigour, and there was insufficient evidence that learning activity had translated into sustained improvements in practice. A key challenge remained ensuring that strategic ambition was consistently reflected in the quality of day-to-day supervision of people on probation.
Strategic relationships with key agencies were generally positive and improving, and inspectors saw examples of effective multi-agency collaboration in several areas. However, looking through a national lens, operational information-sharing remained inconsistent, limiting practitioners’ ability to maintain an accurate and timely understanding of risk. Child safeguarding arrangements required further strengthening, while multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) practice was too variable overall, with some practitioners relying on process rather than proactive engagement and professional judgement.
The implementation and delivery of services was the weakest aspect of practice across the regions. Inspectors found insufficient delivery of interventions and services specifically focused on reducing the risk of harm. Workforce pressures, delays in accessing programmes and limited practitioner confidence in undertaking offence-focused work reduced the effectiveness of both rehabilitation and risk management activity.
Overall, there was clear evidence of commitment, investment and emerging improvement across the regions inspected. However, public protection work was not being delivered consistently well enough to provide the assurance that victims, communities and partner agencies were entitled to expect. Sustained progress depended on stabilising the workforce, strengthening practitioners’ capability and confidence, improving the quality and use of information, and ensuring that leadership, oversight and partnership arrangements led to consistently effective risk management practice. If our recommendations are adopted, the foundations for improvement will be in place.
Executive summary (Back to top)
Inspectors found committed regional leadership, improving partnership arrangements and examples of innovative local practice that were beginning to strengthen public protection outcomes. However, these strengths were repeatedly undermined by systemic workforce instability, inconsistent information-sharing, gaps in practitioners’ capability, and performance frameworks that prioritised compliance with process ahead of the quality of practice. Collectively, the findings indicated that while regions had demonstrated considerable resilience and innovation, progress remained constrained by national barriers that limited their ability to deliver consistently effective public protection.
Workforce instability emerged as one of the most significant factors affecting service delivery. Prolonged vetting delays and inflexible recruitment processes hindered the timely filling of vacancies, extended workforce shortages and increased pressure on existing staff. Regions were consequently more reliant on inexperienced practitioners and less able to sustain improvement activity. Inspectors concluded that this was a national rather than local issue, with direct implications for organisational capacity, workforce resilience and the quality of risk management.
Relationships and information exchange with the police had improved considerably since previous inspections, supported by stronger partnerships, co-location arrangements and greater access to intelligence. However, these improvements had not translated consistently into high-quality service delivery. Information remained variable in quality, timeliness and completeness, and in 18 per cent of inspected cases information on domestic abuse received from the police was insufficiently detailed to support meaningful risk assessment. More significantly, practitioners frequently failed to interrogate and analyse effectively all of the available information in a case, with critical information not adequately used in 54 per cent of cases.
Information-sharing with children’s services remained a more substantial and persistent weakness. Although strategic relationships had improved, operational arrangements were inconsistent and often unreliable. In nearly a third of relevant cases information received from children’s services was of insufficient quality to inform assessment and risk management effectively. Practitioners did not consistently demonstrate the confidence, professional curiosity or safeguarding expertise required to challenge inadequate responses or fully assess risks to children, weaknesses that were evident in just over half of inspected cases. There needed to be a clear, shared recognition that improved, timely information flow improves risk management and helps keep children safer. Inspectors concluded that stronger national leadership and a coherent cross-agency strategy were required to improve consistency, compliance and effectiveness in safeguarding arrangements.
Across all regions, leaders had invested significantly in learning, development and quality improvement activity. Mentoring, coaching, reflective practice, specialist support and locally tailored development initiatives demonstrated a clear commitment to strengthening professional capability. Nevertheless, the impact of this work was limited by workforce shortages, high workloads and organisational instability. Persistent weaknesses in risk assessment, safeguarding, domestic abuse work and professional judgement indicated that many practitioners lacked the confidence and expertise required to manage complex cases effectively. While the Professional Qualification in Probation programme provided a valuable route into the profession, inspectors found that qualification alone did not adequately prepare practitioners for the complexities of public protection work. Sustained post-qualification development, supervision and practical skills training were therefore essential.
Inspectors also identified a consistent disconnect between organisational performance measures and the quality of public protection practice. Regions often performed strongly against national targets while weaknesses remained in core areas such as risk analysis, multi-agency engagement, management oversight and delivery of purposeful interventions. Existing performance frameworks were found to incentivise task completion and compliance more readily than the exercise of professional judgement and effective risk management. As a result, regions increasingly relied on local quality assurance mechanisms and reflective learning approaches to identify and address deficiencies in practice. Inspectors concluded that national performance arrangements required reform to focus more directly on the quality and impact of public protection work.
A recurring theme throughout the inspections was the value of regional flexibility within a clear national framework. Regions achieved their strongest outcomes when leaders were empowered to adapt arrangements to local risks, partnerships and operational realities. Innovative local approaches to information-sharing, governance, quality assurance and risk management were often more effective than standardised national solutions. However, inspectors found that greater flexibility should be balanced with stronger national consistency in critical areas such as vetting, safeguarding and information-sharing.
Finally, approved premises capacity and placement arrangements were found to have an important impact on public protection and resettlement outcomes. Capacity pressures frequently reduced flexibility, increased reliance on out-of-area placements and complicated risk management. In contrast, the integrated Welsh model demonstrated how strong coordination, collaborative decision-making and effective partnership working could mitigate these challenges. Inspectors found that Wales delivered clear public protection benefits through integrated governance, shared ownership of risk and effective links between accommodation, resettlement and probation services.
Overall, the principal barriers to effective public protection were systemic rather than local. While regions had demonstrated commitment, innovation and improving partnership working, sustainable improvement required national action to address workforce instability, strengthen information-sharing, enhance practitioner capability, realign performance measures and provide regions with the flexibility and resources necessary to respond effectively to local need. Without such changes, there remained a significant risk that improvements in process and compliance would continue to outpace improvements in the quality of public protection practice.
Methodology (Back to top)
We define public protection as the strategic and operational effort to prevent harm to the public by managing the risks posed by individuals under probation supervision. This includes assessing risk accurately, engaging with the person on probation to deliver constructive interventions, implementing robust risk management plans, ensuring compliance with court orders and licences, and working collaboratively with other agencies (for example, the police, social care services and through MAPPA) to reduce the likelihood of reoffending and serious harm. The purpose of the dynamic inspection of public protection across all probation regions in England and Wales was to focus in a narrower, deeper and more detailed way on the public protection activity being delivered, in response to repeated inadequate ratings for keeping people safe in our core adult inspections.
In total, we inspected public protection work across 858 cases that started supervision between March 2025 and November 2025. We conducted 711 case inspection interviews with practitioners and held focused discussion groups with representative managers from probation and the partner agencies working alongside them. We focused on the quality of assessment, planning, delivery and reviewing in case work, and reviewed how organisational arrangements supported public protection. Most of the cases we inspected were managed as medium or high risk of serious harm. Just under one third (32 per cent) were subject to MAPPA and were managed at Level 1 or 2.
We inspected all 12 regions between October 2025 and June 2026. Following each inspection a report was published with our findings, and recommendations were made at both a regional and national level. This report focuses on the findings associated with the seven national recommendations made for His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). We revisited each region to facilitate follow-up activity with managers and staff, based on the specific findings in each region.
Findings and recommendations (Back to top)
Recommendation 1:
Reduce vetting delays and address workforce instability by implementing streamlined and more regionally responsive recruitment processes.
Vetting delays were a consistent and significant barrier to workforce stability and service improvement across all inspected regions. Inspectors found that prolonged national vetting processes hindered recruitment, delayed the filling of critical vacancies and, in some cases, resulted in successful candidates withdrawing before appointment. These delays extended workforce shortages, increased workloads for existing staff and reduced organisational experience and capacity.
Regions were more reliant on inexperienced, insufficiently trained or overstretched practitioners, limiting their ability to deliver and sustain improvements in public protection practice. The issue was not confined to individual regions and was widely recognised as a systemic national problem rather than a local administrative challenge. Its impact extended beyond recruitment, affecting workforce resilience, the implementation of improvement initiatives and the overall quality and consistency of risk management and public protection delivery. Given the clear and obvious impact of vetting delays on subsequent public protection work, HMPPS may wish to consider whether the lengthy checks are justified by the risk they are seeking to mitigate. Across the inspections, there was a clear and consistent message that reducing vetting delays and streamlining recruitment processes would improve regions’ capacity to influence local recruitment and was essential to stabilising the workforce and enabling sustained improvements in public protection outcomes.
Recommendation 2:
Develop a national strategic approach to information-sharing with police and children’s services to support regions in achieving consistency and compliance with legislation to obtain and use information to protect the public.
Information-sharing with the police had improved across the inspected regions and represented one of the clearest areas of progress in public protection arrangements. Stronger strategic relationships, enhanced information-sharing mechanisms, co-location arrangements and greater access to police intelligence meant that practitioners were generally better able to obtain relevant risk information than at previous inspections.
However, the quality, timeliness and completeness of information shared remained variable between forces and local areas, and practitioners did not always have access to the intelligence required to maintain a comprehensive understanding of risk. In just under one fifth of cases (18 per cent) information had been received from police in respect of domestic abuse; however, this had been of insufficient quality to be meaningful in assessing risk. Delays, inconsistencies and gaps in information continued to undermine effective assessment and risk management in too many cases. These gaps meant that relevant risk factors in cases were not always identified or sufficiently managed and this impacted directly on keeping people safe.
More significantly, inspectors found that practitioners did not always demonstrate the professional curiosity, analytical capability or confidence needed to make effective use of the information available to them. In over half of the cases inspected (54 per cent) critical information was not interrogated, analysed or translated into a robust safeguarding assessment and risk management activity. As a result, opportunities to strengthen public protection were sometimes missed, despite improved access to intelligence.
The principal challenge had shifted from simply obtaining police information to ensuring that this was both sufficiently detailed to be meaningful and subsequently being used effectively. While partnership arrangements with the police had strengthened, access to information was not consistent across all police forces and the benefits were not yet being realised consistently in the quality of risk assessment and public protection practice.
Information-sharing with children’s services remained a significant weakness across the inspected regions and was consistently less effective, less mature and less reliable than information-sharing with the police. While leaders had established constructive strategic relationships, formal agreements and recognised routes for safeguarding enquiries, these arrangements had not resulted in consistently effective operational practice.
Inspectors found considerable variation in the quality, timeliness and completeness of safeguarding information received from children’s services. In just under one third of cases, information received from children’s services had been of insufficient quality to be meaningful in assessing risk. Too often, it lacked the detail necessary to support robust assessment and risk management, and effective information exchange frequently depended on local relationships and individual persistence rather than well-established and dependable systems. Differences in local authority processes and inconsistent approaches across areas further limited the effectiveness of multi-agency safeguarding activity.
Again, the weaknesses identified extended beyond receiving information. Practitioners did not always demonstrate the confidence, professional curiosity or safeguarding expertise required to challenge inadequate responses, escalate concerns or fully analyse information relating to children at risk. This was evidenced in just over half of the relevant cases. As a result, opportunities to identify and protect actual and potential child victims were sometimes missed, and safeguarding information was not consistently translated into effective assessment, planning and risk management activity.
Although inspectors found examples of improving practice, including direct access arrangements, co-location initiatives and strengthened partnership working, these developments had not yet delivered consistent improvements in public protection work. The evidence indicated that the principal challenge was not the absence of information-sharing mechanisms, but the variable quality of safeguarding information, inconsistent operational collaboration and the limited effectiveness with which information was used to manage risk.
Overall, inspectors concluded that information-sharing with both the police and children’s services remained a persistent barrier to effective public protection. Little progress had been made against national recommendations made by HM Inspectorate of Probation in April 2025 to address this at a national level.[1] Greater consistency in the quality and sharing of information, supported by a clear national strategy, remained necessary alongside continued efforts to strengthen practitioners’ analytical skills, professional judgement, and ability to challenge and act on risk and safeguarding information. The scale and consistency of these findings again pointed to the need for a more coherent national approach that drove effective information-sharing and improved safeguarding practice.
Recommendation 3:
Provide regions with increased dedicated learning and development resources to enable improved delivery of training and continuous professional development activities for all staff.
Inspectors found a strong commitment across regions to improving public protection through learning, development and quality improvement activity. Leaders had introduced a wide range of locally tailored initiatives, including mentoring, coaching, reflective practice, quality development officers, specialist support, targeted workshops and enhanced quality assurance arrangements. These approaches reflected a clear recognition that workforce inexperience, reduced professional confidence and the increasing complexity of public protection work required sustained development rather than reliance on national training programmes alone.
However, the impact of these initiatives had been constrained by workforce instability, high workloads and the pace of organisational change. Inspectors repeatedly found that practitioners lacked the confidence, capability and analytical skills required to manage complex risks consistently and effectively. Opportunities for reflective learning, supervision and professional development were often limited by operational pressures, while learning was not always translated into improved frontline practice.
Overall, inspectors concluded that locally tailored learning and development activity was essential to strengthening professional judgement, practitioners’ confidence and public protection outcomes, especially for probation service officer grades and less experienced practitioners. While regions had demonstrated innovation and commitment in developing local solutions, sustained improvement required greater capacity and dedicated resource to embed learning, address capability gaps and ensure that development activity resulted in consistently effective practice.
Recommendation 4:
Develop and implement a training programme for Professional Qualification in Probation (PQiP) trainees and continuing professional development programmes that gives priority to applying practical skills in managing complex risk, ensuring consistency and quality across all regions.
Inspectors found that PQiP trainees were a vital source of future workforce capacity and generally benefited from more structured training, protected learning time and formal support arrangements than other practitioner groups. However, qualification alone had not equipped many newly trained staff with the confidence, analytical capability or professional judgement required for complex public protection work. Across the regions, inspectors identified continuing weaknesses in areas such as risk assessment, safeguarding, domestic abuse and multi-agency risk management, indicating that newly qualified practitioners often remained insufficiently prepared for the demands of frontline practice.
Regions had responded by investing in mentoring, reflective practice, specialist support, quality development activity and locally tailored continuing professional development programmes. Inspectors viewed these initiatives positively, particularly where they focused on embedding learning and translating training into practice. However, workforce inexperience remained a significant challenge, extending beyond PQiPs to include newly qualified officers and other staff with limited experience. In too many cases, gaps in confidence, professional curiosity and risk analysis persisted.
The benefits of training and professional development were frequently undermined by workforce shortages, high workloads, organisational instability and a lack of experienced staff to provide consistent supervision and mentoring. Opportunities to consolidate learning, reflect on practice and develop expertise were often constrained by operational pressures. Inspectors concluded that sustained improvement depended not simply on recruiting and qualifying new practitioners, but on providing structured post-qualification development, effective supervision and ongoing professional support to ensure practitioners were capable of delivering consistently high-quality public protection work.
Recommendation 5:
Evaluate current national performance metrics to determine whether they drive quality public protection practice and consider how to embed public protection-specific metrics in dashboards to enable leaders to monitor quality and impact effectively.
AND
Embed public protection-specific metrics in dashboards to enable leaders to monitor quality and impact effectively.
Inspectors found a consistent disconnect between performance management frameworks and the delivery of effective public protection practice. Regions frequently demonstrated strong performance against HMPPS national targets and process measures, yet this was not matched by the quality of frontline work required to keep people safe. Practitioners operated in environments characterised by high workloads, workforce instability, continual organisational change and competing national priorities. As a consequence, their attention was often directed towards task completion, compliance and recording requirements rather than the professional curiosity, analytical thinking and informed judgement that effective risk management demands. The repeated finding across inspections was that processes had often been completed, but the quality of assessment, analysis, implementation and review remained insufficient.
The evidence suggested that existing performance arrangements did not adequately incentivise or measure the aspects of practice most closely associated with public protection. Inspectors repeatedly identified weaknesses in the analysis of risk information, multi-agency engagement, management oversight and the delivery of purposeful interventions, despite evidence of strong compliance with organisational processes. Regions had increasingly developed their own quality assurance frameworks, audits, reflective practice models and case review mechanisms to compensate for the limitations of national metrics. Where improvement was evident, it was more closely associated with reflective supervision, professional development, practice observation and learning from serious further offences than with performance against conventional scorecards or dashboards.
Overall, inspectors concluded that national performance measures were not sufficiently aligned with the delivery of high-quality public protection work. There was a clear need for assurance frameworks that prioritised the quality and impact of practice rather than the completion of processes. Effective public protection was consistently associated with rigorous assessment, professional judgement, meaningful engagement with partner agencies, effective management oversight, purposeful intervention delivery and opportunities for reflection and learning. Until performance arrangements focused more directly on these factors, there remained a risk that regions would achieve positive performance outcomes while significant weaknesses in public protection practice persisted.
Recommendation 6:
Review national arrangements to provide regions with greater autonomy in adapting risk management approaches to local contexts, while maintaining accountability and assurance.
Across the inspections, a consistent finding was that public protection was more effective when regions were able to adapt risk management arrangements to local circumstances. Inspectors identified numerous examples of locally designed approaches, including bespoke information-sharing arrangements, tailored quality assurance and learning frameworks, specialist governance structures, co-location with partners, safeguarding hubs, operational assistance functions, and innovative approaches to risk management and workforce pressures. These initiatives were generally viewed positively because they reflected local risks, partnership arrangements, geography, levels of demand, and workforce challenges, and were beginning to improve practice and public protection outcomes.
Regions frequently faced difficulties in implementing nationally designed policies, processes and systems within complex local environments. National approaches to recruitment, vetting, information-sharing, workforce management and organisational change were often experienced as inflexible or insufficiently responsive to local circumstances, requiring regional leaders to mitigate their impact through local adaptation. Regions were typically most effective when strong leadership translated national requirements into locally relevant guidance, priorities and improvement activity.
However, we would not advocate for unrestricted local variation. The evidence consistently pointed to the need for a balance between national consistency and regional autonomy. While local flexibility enabled regions to respond effectively to distinct operational challenges and partnership landscapes, excessive variation risked creating inconsistency in critical areas such as information-sharing, safeguarding and MAPPA delivery. There was a need for stronger national frameworks in areas including information-sharing and vetting, while allowing regions discretion over how services were delivered locally.
Overall, the strongest public protection arrangements operated within a clear national framework of accountability and assurance, while retaining sufficient flexibility to tailor delivery to local risks and operational realities. The evidence suggested that public protection was most effective where national expectations were combined with empowered regional leadership, enabling professional judgement, local innovation and responsive partnership working. Rather than advocating greater centralisation or complete local autonomy, a model in which national consistency provided the foundation for effective public protection balanced with local flexibility was more likely to enable regions to deliver it effectively in their own context
Recommendation 7:
Review approved premises capacity and placements to support the appropriate management and resettlement of people on probation.
Approved premises (AP) capacity and placement arrangements emerged as an important factor in public protection. Across the inspections, capacity pressures were found to increase operational complexity, reduce flexibility and create challenges in securing appropriate placements and move-on accommodation. Inspectors highlighted the risks associated with shortages of AP beds, including out-of-area placements that weakened protective factors, disrupted established support networks and complicated the management of risk in the community. Capacity constraints also generated additional pressure on probation resources and reduced the ability of services to support effective resettlement.
In contrast, Wales demonstrated a mature and integrated model that mitigated many of these risks through strong regional coordination and partnership working. The regional Case Referral Unit (CRU) provided strategic oversight of placements across all Welsh AP, supported by daily joint decision-making between the CRU and AP managers. This ensured that placement decisions were informed by operational intelligence, capacity considerations and public protection needs. AP managers retained significant influence over allocations, helping to match placements appropriately and contributing to reportedly low recall rates.
The principal strength of the Wales model was its integration. AP, prisons, probation delivery units, accommodation services and Welsh Government housing partners operated within closely connected governance arrangements, enabling swift communication, shared accountability and coordinated problem-solving. Inspectors found that strong relationships between probation, accommodation teams and AP staff supported effective pre-release planning, continuity of care and smoother transitions from custody into the community. Initiatives such as pre-release engagement by AP key workers, AP representation at MAPPA, regular involvement of community policing teams and oversight of alternative accommodation arrangements by residential public protection leads reinforced a whole-system approach to risk management and resettlement.
The evidence suggested that this approach strengthened public protection by improving placement matching, supporting continuity of supervision, maintaining local partnership links and reducing fragmentation between custody, AP and community services. While Wales continued to face housing shortages and move-on accommodation pressures, devolved housing arrangements provided greater flexibility than was available elsewhere and reduced some of the constraints experienced in other regions.
Overall, the inspections indicated that the Welsh model delivered clear public protection benefits through integrated governance, collaborative placement decision-making and strong cross-system relationships. Rather than relying solely on additional capacity, Wales had strengthened outcomes through effective coordination, shared ownership of risk and seamless links between accommodation, resettlement and public protection functions. This created greater stability for individuals leaving custody and provided a more coherent framework for managing risk in the community.
Footnotes (Back to top)
[1] Recommendation 3 – Collaborate effectively with senior leaders in the police and local government to implement sufficient work across relevant agencies in relation to domestic abuse and the safeguarding of children, in HM Inspectorate of Probation (2025). National Inspection Report. Available at: National Inspection – April 2025 – HM Inspectorate of Probation.
Data annexe (Back to top)
Press release (Back to top)
National findings: Dynamic Inspection of Public Protection in the Probation Service