An extra 1,300 probation officers will be recruited, the Ministry of Justice has announced.
The department has announced a £700m investment in probation by 2028-29, which includes recruiting an additional 1,300 trainee probation officers across 2026-27, on top of the 2,300 pledged since Labour came to power in 2024.
The funding also includes a £100m expansion of electronic monitoring, meaning that thousands of extra domestic abusers, thieves and burglars across the country will face GPS and alcohol monitoring. The MoJ described this as “the biggest expansion of tagging in British history”.
As part of the investment, a £5m pilot will be launched to introduce proximity monitoring technology which alerts the Probation Service when offenders convicted of crimes such as domestic abuse and stalking come within a preset distance of their victim – a key commitment from the government’s strategy to end violence against women and girls.
As part of the expansion, frontline probation staff will be given access to cutting-edge technology allowing instant access to the location of certain tagged offenders, which will help to identify escalating risk and allow for earlier interventions.
The Probation Service will also change its approach to supervision so that officers can focus their time on the most dangerous offenders, with those assessed as lower-risk to require fewer routine appointments.
It is also investing £8m in new technology to reduce time-consuming admin tasks and save up to 250,000 days of valuable time every year, allowing frontline staff to spend more time monitoring offenders and keeping the streets safe.
The MoJ said the crisis it inherited in the Probation Service has placed too great a burden on hardworking staff, with new statistics showing that between 2023 and 2025, 31% of target probation appointments did not take place due to unmanageable workloads.
It said this has meant officers have been unable to pay enough attention to those offenders who pose the greatest risk.
It said the reforms, announced on Thursday, “will enable overworked probation staff to focus on the parts of their job that have the greatest impact on public protection, and will unburden them from tasks that are less impactful when it comes to protecting the public”.
Martin Jones, the chief inspector of probation said: “I welcome the government’s plans for further investment in the Probation Service, and attempts to focus time and resources where they matter most.
“I have been clear that urgent action is needed to support a service that is currently facing significant challenge, with too few staff, who have too little experience, managing too many cases.
“We are entering a crucial period as the implementation of the Sentencing Act reforms begins. There must be a sharp focus on ensuring the Probation Service can recruit, train and retain sufficient staff, and give them the tools and support they need – both to keep the public and victims safe, and to turn offenders’ lives around.”
Lord Timpson, minister for prisons, probation and reducing reoffending, said: “This is the biggest expansion of tagging in British history and means the most dangerous offenders will now be watched more closely than ever before.
“By combining new technology with a stronger probation workforce, we’re making sure those who pose the biggest risk are under constant scrutiny to better protect victims and the public.”