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<p>The workforce position, at 31 December 2023, was 20,806 full-time equivalent (FTE)
Staff in Post working in Probation Service grades (including those working in Approved
Premises). This is an increase of 1,856 FTE (9.8%) since 31 December 2022.</p><p>Recruitment
and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service and we have injected
extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to deliver more robust supervision,
recruit more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.</p><p>We have recruited
a record 4,039 trainee Probation Officers between 2020/21 and 2022/23 and we expect
these intakes to qualify by the end of 2024 and begin to take on Probation Officer
caseloads.</p><p>Trainee Probation Officers are onboarded twice annually (including
this March which will not be counted in the figures below), and this can lead to fluctuations
in staffing levels across the year.</p><p>We will continue to run centralised recruitment
campaigns in priority regions to help bolster the number of applications.</p><p><strong>Table
One: Vacancies across Probation Service Regions, December 2023, all Probation Service
grades.</strong></p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Probation Service Region</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Vacancies
(FTE)</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS East Midlands</p></td><td><p>21</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS
East of England</p></td><td><p>277</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS Greater Manchester</p></td><td><p>15</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS
Kent, Surrey & Sussex</p></td><td><p>121</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS London</p></td><td><p>463</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS
North East</p></td><td><p>50</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS North West</p></td><td><p>128</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS
South Central</p></td><td><p>154</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS South West</p></td><td><p>85</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS
Wales</p></td><td><p>0</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS West Midlands</p></td><td><p>82</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS
Yorkshire & the Humber</p></td><td><p>45</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>PS Approved Premises</p></td><td><p>0</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><strong>Notes</strong></p><ol><li>Data
shows average resource across the month, adjusted for joiners and leavers within the
month. Data shown as of December 2023, aligning with the most recent HMPPS Workforce
Quarterly publication. More recent data cannot be provided due to potentially pre-empting
future statistical publications.</li><li>Vacancies have been calculated as Required
Staffing (FTE) minus Staff in Post (FTE).</li><li>Where the number of Staff in Post
(FTE) in a region exceeds Required Staffing (FTE), the number of vacancies has been
shown as 0 FTE. Summing the figures in the table will not give the overall number
of vacancies across the Probation Service due the surpluses in some regions that haven’t
been shown in the table.</li><li>Vacancies have been netted off between grades and
business units. As a result, the overall vacancy figures presented mask the presence
of vacancies at both grade and business unit level.</li><li>Data have been taken from
the Workforce Planning Tool and are subject to inaccuracy as a result of the manual
nature with which returns are completed. This approach differs from the published
statistics, which uses data from the Single Operating Platform (our departmental HR
system).</li><li>Staff in Post (FTE) has not been adjusted for long-term absences
(e.g. Trainee Probation Officer training time). In addition, we have not factored
in loans / temporary cover / agency and sessional. The actual resourced position will
therefore differ as a result of these.</li><li>Trainee Probation Officers are included
in the data. Trainees spend a proportion of their time training and the remainder
of their time carrying out work at a Band 3 PSO level. Both training time and time
spent delivering caseload are included in the Staff in Post (FTE) calculations, which
means that number of vacancies is lower than the actual gap between Required Staffing
and frontline delivery.</li></ol>
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