§ Julie MorganTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many of the additional probation staff employed since December 1999 are trainee probation officers; and what their average caseload is. [168392]
§ Paul GogginsThere have been 3,646 trainee probation officers appointed since 1998, and there are 780 projected trainee officer appointees for 2004.
1429WIt is not possible to calculate the average caseload of a trainee because this varies significantly during the two-year programme, according to their stage of training.
Trainee probation officers are classified as supernumerary to the workforce, which means that they do not form part of the establishment for casework purposes. During their training they undertake the amount and type of cases appropriate to their experience and knowledge and identified development needs. Their casework contribution is therefore incidental to meeting their training needs.
The information previously collected and held on starters and leavers to the service is very limited in terms of the analysis that can be performed against it. With this in mind, since 1999, the number of probation staff1 (senior probation officers, senior practitioners, probation officers, trainee probation officers and probation services officers), employed by the National Probation Service has increased by 3,089 full-time equivalents, which equates to a growth of 31.9 per cent. The proportion of this, which can be broadly attributed to growth among qualified probation staff, is 12.5 per cent. with the remainder being a growth in probation services officers.
1These figures exclude staff employed in family Court Welfare in 1999 and 2000, as these were subsequently transferred in 2001.