Today we are announcing a national probation inspection, covering England and Wales, and reviewing the ability of regions and PDUs to deliver probation services effectively.

National arrangements for service delivery have a crucial role in enabling effective outcomes in frontline probation work. We see some of the impact of this activity through our regional and PDU inspections, but they do not give us a full picture.

It is clear we are unlikely to see any significant improvement in our core programme of PDU inspections in the short term. Regions and PDUs need more time to allow recent changes, including the implementation of SDS40 and Probation Reset, to embed.

By taking some time ahead of our next regional inspection programme to carry out a national inspection, we will be able to gather a comprehensive overview of the things that help or hinder the effective delivery of probation services. This will allow us to make recommendations to drive improvement and target them where we believe they can have the most impact.

Fieldwork for our national inspection will begin later this month and we look forward to sharing the results in the spring. Our inspection standards have also been designed to allow us to carry out further national inspections in the future, where we think there is a need to do so.