Welsh Minister Mark Drakeford was joined by Ella Rabaiotti, from the Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice (WCCSJ), and Napo’s Su McConnel, at a December meeting in the House of Lords focussed on the proposals to devolve Policing, Probation and Youth Justice.
Minister Drakeford gave an overview of the Welsh Government position and an update about developments in Youth Justice and Policing, before handing over to members of Wales Probation Development Group, part of WCCSJ. Ella Rabaiotti and Su McConnel presented a summary of a new model for probation in Wales. The recently published model builds on research and expertise outlined in earlier published papers “Towards a Devolved Probation Service in Wales”.
Su McConnel informed the meeting that the model of a Welsh Probation Service proposed in this publication would see “A standalone Probation Service, not within the civil service, and separate from Prisons, contributing to Welsh Government social policy and justice objectives. This Welsh Probation Service would be embedded in its communities, close to families and working with, and commissioning, local services and groups. It would impact on the prison crisis and reduce re-offending, be closely linked to courts, see increased restorative justice work, and foster relationships with the voluntary sector”
Former probation officer, Ella Rabaiotti, now a senior lecturer at Swansea University, emphasised the importance of highly skilled engagement between the probation practitioner and service user as central to reducing re-offending. “We know what works” she said, “and research confirms the centrality of a good professional relationship to potential success in Probation and in the absence of such a relationship, most if not all interventions would not be realised”
The small but influential group of Lords attending listened closely and asked searching questions.
Later, Mark Drakeford said “Many thanks to Baroness Ilora Finlay for calling together members of the House of Lords with an interest in the devolution of criminal justice to Wales, and particularly the probation service. The case for devolution is already made. What we are focused on now is demonstrating the positive difference devolution would make. Nowhere is that more evident that in the probation service. The House of Lords events brought together practitioners, academics and law-makers to affirm the case for a locally-based service, rooted in the courts and the communities which it can serve’.
Ella Rabaiotti said “ The Wales Probation Development Group remain keen to collaborate broadly, including with policy makers, probation allies, and particularly Napo members and probation practitioners to develop this model further”
Su McConnel commented “nothing proposed in our joint work with WCCSJ would not apply, broadly across England as well as Wales. The devolution debate allows us to reconsider models for a future Probation Service”
You can find papers published by WPDG here: Publications 2024 and Publications 2025
4 responses
Good to see ideas and I’m all for a standalone Probation Service outside the Civil Service and away from Prisons, but this proposal risks being an academic fantasy dressed up as reform, a charity-flavoured community project that would fold the second it meets real cases, real risk, and real accountability.
Theory masquerading as practice, soaked in desistance buzzwords and glossy notions of “rehabilitation via relationship” is not what we need. It says nothing about how you deliver that with caseloads, safeguarding, breach, MAPPA, courts, or inspections breathing down your neck. It’s a preview of what happens when you let academics hunting for research projects set the agenda instead of practitioners who actually deal with the consequences when things go wrong.
Reality cannot be conveniently erased, we know Probation currently struggles to meet basic supervision and risk demands. Yet we’re supposed to believe a looser, community-commissioned, under-powered model will somehow outperform the mess of a system we already have?
Devolution and Local commissioning sounds innovative until you face the obvious, that capability, resources and political affiliation differ wildly between areas. The Third sector as a replacement for statute does not work, particularly if structural inequality is a risk. NGOs and charities are brilliant supplements in some scenarios but to be presented as the backbone of supervision, standards, and accountability, means we’ve downgraded rehabilitation and public protection to a voluntary arrangement.
My major concern is Academics in the cockpit, while practitioners are passengers. The process elevates theorists, think-tankers, and policy entrepreneurs, while sidelining the only people who’ve actually managed risk, supervised cases, and carried responsibility in court. When the service was collapsing, academics observed it and think tanks supported it, they didn’t help it yet now they want to design its future.
The goal of independence is solid. The model being touted is not. It’s utopian, lightweight, untested, and structurally naïve, perfect for seminars and keynote speeches, but will be disastrous for the frontline. A good starting point would have been ‘shaping probation’s identity’, but hey ho.
Indeed, a sensible starting point is understanding what probation is before we redesign it into something it isn’t. Over the summer, Napo published a series of (now largely forgotten) articles exploring “professionalism in probation”. While some of the conclusions are arguably idealised, they rightly foreground the practitioner – service user relationship and the need for adequate resources to make that relationship meaningful.
Set that against the persistent findings from HMIP and the solutions become obvious: evidence-led practice, practitioner influence, realistic caseload caps, improved pay, and crucially, an elevation of qualifications and status that aligns more closely with social work. None of this is new; the profession has been saying it for years alongside more localised autonomy through severing ties with NOMS, HMPPS and the Civil Service, but without compromising the benefits of a nationalised probation service .
Perhaps it’s time for a re-run of those pieces or at least to open up wider theme, as a reminder not only of where we were in this debate but to better explore where we need to go if we’re serious about rebuilding a credible, skilled and effective probation service.
If the goal is an effective service rather than an abstract model, then we might also look at jurisdictions where it already functions tolerably well, Scotland and Ireland being the clearest examples, rather than reinventing the wheel via academic proposals that dodge the immediate barriers to competence.
Reflections on the meanings of professionalism in probation practice
https://napomagazine.org.uk/reflections-on-the-meanings-of-professionalism-in-probation-practice/
The Concept of Professionalism in Probation – A View from the Frontline
https://napomagazine.org.uk/the-concept-of-professionalism-in-probation-a-view-from-the-frontline/
A strong passion – professional identity in Probation
https://napomagazine.org.uk/a-strong-passion-professional-identity-in-probation/
I really welcome these comments and I am glad that this article has generated another bit of a conversation going on more widely. Indeed, the work done by WCCSJ and Napo Cymru is only another piece of that. Some quick responses-
I will pick up on three points from the two comments above:
– “My major concern is Academics in the cockpit, while practitioners are passengers.” The devolution of Probation to Wales is existing Welsh Government policy. Practitioners in both England and Wales have little opportunity to have an audible independent voice. WCCSJ is committed to, and has gone to lengths, to include the practitioner voice and experience in its work, and works in collaboration with Napo to that end, enthusiastically endorsed at last year’s AGM.. All three presenters at the event have many decades of practitioner frontline experience, the most recent being up to some 18 months ago.
– “A good starting point would have been ‘shaping probation’s identity’, but hey ho.” The presentation- it was relatively brief- was distilled from papers published in 2024 (there is a link in the article). This set of papers isn’t a blue-print, it is a starting point for a conversation. I would however suggest that the first paper goes some way to cover the issue of Probation’s identity and core values.
– “… the solutions become obvious: evidence-led practice, practitioner influence, realistic caseload caps, improved pay, and crucially, an elevation of qualifications and status that aligns more closely with social work.” There is an immediate crisis, and there is longer term. Of the immediate crisis, poor pay (and recruitment and retention) is definitely a (if not the most) significant factor. Restoration of professional status and social work rooted training is also addressed in the WCCSJ papers that the HoL presentation was drawn from. The pay and caseloads issue is front and centre, and immediate. The potential rethinking of what Probation was, is and will be, across Wales and England, is a slower burn, but I would argue this also should be built on now.
Thank you for contributing
Solidarity
Su
It’s notable that this type of approach can be framed as dialogue, while the central criticisms remain largely unaddressed. The issues raised about capacity, pay, caseloads, statutory authority, and operational competence are not peripheral; they are the foundation of whether any model can function at all. This proposal does not meaningfully initiate a conversation on those terms.
There may be contexts where elements of such an approach could operate – possibly parts of Wales – but it is not a wider, transferable or universal solution. As with most reform, credibility comes from models that are designed, tested, and led by practitioners doing the work, not inferred from intent or provenance. Probation lost its way long ago; this does not recover it.
Independence without statute, practitioner leadership, and operational realism is not reform. It is the displacement of risk onto the frontline, repackaged as innovation.