This week marks a fresh start for probation and a welcome one, as private sector and public sector colleagues come back together as the unified, public sector Probation Service.

I pay tribute to the team that has led this major transition programme in HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and to the regional probation directors who have helped to implement it. Having led a major change programme in my past life, as a Director at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), I know just how many moving parts there are to keep track of as thousands of staff and tens of thousands of cases – not to mention buildings and ICT systems – move into a new organisation. And this one has so far (fingers crossed) gone remarkably smoothly.

This is the fourth major structural reorganisation probation has gone through in 20 years. In the longer arc of history, it marks the final step from probation being an entirely locally run and funded service to being an entirely national one, with probation staff now all government civil servants. Whilst that may have its advantages in terms of a standardised operating model and job roles, there is a danger that local innovation and initiative may get squeezed out too. Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) leaders I spoke to had welcomed the greater autonomy they had been granted to experiment with new ways of doing things and had responded with some significant and welcome innovations. For example, in introducing opportunities for people who had previously been on probation becoming staff and volunteers, and by using community venues for appointments with people on probation. It’s important that regional directors and local heads of service retain the ability to experiment and build local partnerships.

As I have said previously the Transforming Rehabilitation model was fundamentally flawed. Many feared this from the start, and our inspections over six years only confirmed these concerns. Squeezed budgets meant falling probation officer numbers –  staff under relentless pressure and unacceptably high caseloads. This inevitably resulted in poorer quality supervision, with over half of the cases we inspected in the private sector probation companies being unsatisfactory on some key aspect of quality.

Merely lifting and shifting large volumes of cases from the private sector into the public sector won’t improve the quality of work that probation staff are able to do. Vacancies for probation officers must be filled and staff properly trained for their new responsibilities. Structural change needs to be backed by sustained investment for there to be true improvement. After many years of cuts – a 40 per cent real terms reduction in probation funding per case supervised by 2019 – the injection of £150m of extra resource this year and last has been welcome but that needs to continue into the next Spending Review period. Real transformation is a long-term commitment, and unification is just the beginning of that journey – but it’s a very welcome first step.