The North East region of the Probation Services receives an overall regional rating of ‘Requires improvement’

Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, said: “We found encouraging work to engage people on probation and promote desistance across the region, which was amongst the best seen across probation regions so far. Leaders had strong relationships with key partners and their efforts to ensure the North East was a good place to work was having a positive impact. Staff we met were highly motivated and committed to delivering the best possible service. However, as is so often the case in our inspections, work to protect the public and keep people safe was a concern.”

Inspectors were impressed by the strategic drive to achieve an inclusive and safe working culture driven by open and visible leadership. The approach to improving delivery through reducing complex processes and ensuring practitioners were able to prioritise the most critical aspects of their role had been recognised nationally.

However, risk of harm assessments were found to be largely insufficient. Practitioners routinely requested information about domestic abuse and child safeguarding from the police and children’s services, but this information lacked the detail required to analyse risk of harm sufficiently.

Mr Jones continued, “Through a sustained focus on improving information sharing arrangements to assess risk accurately, and by nurturing their existing culture of innovation, the North East region of the Probation Service can improve outcomes for people on probation and keep communities safe.”

This report makes nine recommendations. Seven of these are for the North East probation region, including to work with police across the region to improve the quality of information sharing. Two recommendations are for His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, including to ensure sufficient resources are allocated to the region to enable effective and timely serious further offence reviews.

ENDS 

Notes to editor

1. Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) replaced Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) and the National Probation Service (NPS), which merged into a unified Probation Service in June 2021.
2. North East region is one of 11 probation regions in England, with a further region in Wales.
3. This was the first inspection of probation services in North East region since the commencement of the Inspectorate’s new adult probation inspection programme in October 2023.
4. For this report, the Inspectorate conducted fieldwork in each PDU across North East between 28 April 2025 and 29 July 2025. We reviewed 292 cases, of which 183 were subject to a community sentence and 109 were subject to release on licence.
5. The report is available on our website 16 October at 00:01.
6. HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of youth justice and probation services across England and Wales. We report on the effectiveness of probation and youth justice service work with adults and children. We highlight good and poor practice and use our data and information to encourage high-quality services. We are independent of government, and speak independently.
7. The Inspectorate uses a four-point scale: ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’. The Inspectorate rates specific aspects of each service and gives an overall rating.
8. For media enquiries, please contact Louise Cordell, Head of Communications
   07523 805224 / media@hmiprobation.gov.uk (E-mail address)