The probation inspectorate has just (24 September 2026) published the national findings from its Dynamic Inspection of Public Protection in the Probation Service. The inspectorate was so concerned at the persistently low standards of public protection work that it took the unprecedented step last Autumn to suspend its inspections of probation delivery units to undertake a series of inspections focused on the issue across all 12 probation regions.
The inspectorate’s overall conclusion is not reassuring. The report highlights a number of improvements including Strengthened governance, enhanced quality assurance, targeted workforce development and improving partnership arrangements. However, it found that:
“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.”
The inspection process
Inspectors examined public protection work across 858 cases that started supervision between March 2025 and November 2025 and conducted 711 case inspection interviews with practitioners and held focused discussion groups with representative managers from probation and the partner agencies working alongside them.
Most of the inspected cases were 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.
All 12 probation regions were inspected between October 2025 and June 2026. Following each inspection a report was published with findings, and recommendations were made at both a regional and national level. Inspectors also revisited each region to facilitate follow-up activity with managers and staff, based on the specific findings in each region.
Findings
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
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.
Partnership with police
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 sharing with children’s services
Information-sharing with children’s services remained a more substantial and persistent weakness. In nearly a third of relevant cases information received from children’s services was of insufficient quality to inform assessment and risk management effectively.
Investment in public protection but…
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.
Conclusion
The inspectorate came to the conclusion that 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, the inspectorate highlighted a significant risk that improvements in process and compliance would continue to outpace improvements in the quality of public protection practice.
Recommendations
The report concludes with seven key recommendations:
- Reduce vetting delays and address workforce instability by implementing streamlined and more regionally responsive recruitment processes.
- 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.
- Provide regions with increased dedicated learning and development resources to enable improved delivery of training and continuous professional development activities for all staff.
- Develop and implement a training programme for Professional Qualification in Probation trainees and continuing professional development programmes that gives priority to applying practical skills in managing complex risk.
- Evaluate current national performance metrics to determine whether they drive quality public protection practice and embed public protection-specific metrics in dashboards to enable leaders to monitor quality and impact effectively.
- Review national arrangements to provide regions with greater autonomy in adapting risk management approaches to local contexts.
- Review approved premises capacity and placements to support the appropriate management and resettlement of people on probation.
