Justice Week 8-12 December 2008

May 07, 2009

Parliament debates Probation cuts

Last week MPs from Thames Valley and Humberside managed to secure adjournment debates in the House of Commons on Probation cuts. The debate on Thames Valley Probation, on Tuesday 28th April, particularly concerned accommodation and the closure of the Banbury Office. It was led by Tony Baldry MP (Con), member of parliament for Banbury. He was supported in the debate by the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Evan Harris.

While on Wednesday 29th April, Elliot Morley, Labour MP for Scunthorpe, secured a second debate on Humberside Probation and the cuts. During the debate supportive comments were also made by MPs Ian Cawsey (Brigg and Goole – Lab), Shona McIsaac (Cleethorpes – Lab) and Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness - Con).

Interestingly, in replying to the debate, Minister David Hanson said: “Indicative budgets have been set for each probation area and have been issued. However—this is important for my right hon. Friend to recognise—the director general of the National Offender Management Service has now made it clear that the indicative probation budgets were issued without the knowledge or approval of Ministers, and so have no authority, as there is no comprehensive spending review settlement for 2011-12 onwards. Therefore, there cannot be any accurate indicative budgets for any area of Government spending beyond that period.”!

Also interestingly, the Chief Executive in Humberside has since written to staff withdrawing the announced compulsory redundancies and indicating that TPOs, who had been told there would be no jobs for them, now have some hope of employment.

Posted by kfalcon at May 7, 2009 04:10 PM