This morning HM Prison & Probation Service published the new probation workforce strategy. The strategy was accompanied by a press release from Prisons and Probation Minister Lucy Frazer which promised to recruit an additional 1,000 probation officers.

The strategy sets out five key objectives, updated from the previous HMPPS people plan created before the decision to renationalise the service was made. I have set all five out in full below:

Promoting wellbeing for everyone

The pressures of your job, amplified by the impact of COVID-19, has a significant impact on you and your wellbeing. We are committed to ensuring our workforce has the right structures, support and encouragement to maintain your mental and physical health.

Attracting and retaining talented people

We want the probation service to be a rich, fulfilling and rewarding place to work. The workforce has adapted to and absorbed a very different way of working to keep staff and service users safe from COVID-19. Our aim is to absorb the best aspects of these new ways of working into our everyday working practices and, in doing so, create more compelling reasons to attract and retain talented staff.

Supporting and developing our people

Your skills and expertise are unique and are the core of a safe and effective probation service. We are transforming our model for learning and development to provide a comprehensive and modernised learning offer that delivers engaging content at the point of need. This will support you throughout your career in your role at the heart of the Criminal Justice System. This embraces new digital and flexible means of learning and development and qualification while providing valuable face-to-face and
reflection time for the highest value learning opportunities.

Creating a more diverse workforce where everyone feels included

We are building an environment that creates diversity and promotes equality to help support a unified and purpose-driven culture for the probation service. We will tackle racism and other forms of discrimination where it exists in the service and we will ensure the workforce is equipped and supported to do the same. The probation system has come together and delivered such extraordinary work over the
past few months. We have tried and tested new ways for people to deliver their work in a more flexible and diverse way, and our aim is to retain the positive ways of working that have emerged, shaping our culture through many voices.

Fostering confident leaders who inspire and empower others

Now more than ever we are reliant on innovative, confident and diverse leadership. Leadership is demonstrated at all levels and we are committed to nurturing this throughout your career. All of these measures are intended to progress our diversity and inclusion objectives. We will conduct equality impact assessments on these measures as they are further developed and implemented to ensure that we are doing everything we can to support staff with protected characteristics and ensure the right safeguards are in place.