National Probation Service

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The National Probation Service of England and Wales is a statutory Criminal Justice Service, mainly responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community. It was established in its current form by the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act in April 2001, but has existed for a century or more as a set of Area based services interacting at arms-length with central government.

In its current form, is established as a Directorate of the Home Office and as 42 Area-based Services, coterminous with police force area boundaries, funded by the Directorate but accountable in the first instance to local Probation Committees. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own Probation Services.

The work of NPS is scrutinised by HM Inspectorate of Probation, which reports independently to UK Government Ministers.

The Service, at the start of 2004, had some 18,000 staff. Statistics for the year 2002 state that it supervised just less than 193,000 offenders and provided 253,000 Pre Sentence Reports to UK Courts, advising them on the background of and appropriate sentence for convicted offenders. In addition, it has responsibility for ensuring that victims of crime can provide input into the sentencing process, and that they are consulted before offenders are released from custody.

The structure and arrangement of UK Criminal Justice Services is, in 2004, in a state of some flux, with the introduction of the National Offender Management Service. Current understanding is that NOMS will be a body overarching HMPS and NPS, and that a number of the head-office functions of HMPS and NPD will be merged. NOMS vision is set out in the link, below.