Sheffield rally for probation staff protesting 'unsafe workloads'

Prison service staff say there are too few staff to manage the increased workload and this poses a risk to public safety

Probation staff have held a rally in Sheffield claiming they are facing unmanageable workloads, which poses a growing risk to public safety

Demands on staff have been rising, with the justice workforce "increasingly depleted", the union Unison claims.

Sarah, a probation worker for over 20 years, said staff were under pressure to deliver "an unrealistic service".

The Ministry of Justice says it has recruited more than 4,500 trainee probation officers since 2020.

"There is a chronic absence of staffing resource across the service nationally," Sarah, who did not want to give her surname, told the BBC.

"We're concerned that the government has an issue with prison places and an absence of a sufficient number of beds, and, as a consequence of that, they've elected to bring people into the community when otherwise their risks would be better managed in prison.

"Those being released early can be high risk," Sarah told the BBC.

Three unions - GMB, Napo and Unison - launched the Operation Protect campaign to raise awareness of issues faced by probation staff, with about 50 members taking part in Friday's rally in Sheffield city centre.

Some of the more experienced staff have left the probation service in recent years exacerbating current workload issues, the union said

Unison says the increased workload faced by staff has prompted some senior probation officers to quit the service, leaving even fewer staff to manage a rising number of cases.

"Staff in the probation service are extremely overworked. Put simply, there are way too few of them and their already huge backlog of cases is growing by the day," said Natalie Ratcliffe, Unison Yorkshire and Humberside regional organiser.

"Not only is the well-being of staff at risk, but so is the safety of the public," she claims.

"Prisoners are being let out of jail under the government's early release scheme, but the probation service doesn't have the staff or the resources to deal with them."

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said more than 4,500 trainee probation officers had joined the Prison Service since 2020, while the number of senior officers had also increased.

"We're also investing an additional £155m a year to recruit even more staff, bring down caseloads and deliver better supervision of offenders.

"While we will always ensure there is enough capacity to keep dangerous offenders behind bars, this scheme allows us to ease short-term pressures on prisons - by moving some offenders at the end of their custodial term onto a licence where they continue to be supervised under strict conditions," the government statement concluded.