The probation union, Napo, has ended its high court challenge to prevent the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, from privatising 70% of probation work, saying he recognised there were serious public safety risks involved.
The decision, taken two days before the case was due to begin, removes one of the last remaining hurdles to the privatisation of the supervision of 200,000 low- to medium-risk offenders a year, a process that is due to take place early next year.
On Friday Grayling formally notified successful bidders that they had been awarded contracts to run the 21 new community rehabilitation companies. Two partnerships led by private companies have won the majority of the contracts.
Last week the union claimed that an unprecedented increase in the workloads of probation staff as result of preparations for privatising had been a material factor in two recent murders by offenders.
Ian Lawrence, Napo’s general secretary, said the union had decided to conclude its judicial review after forcing the justice secretary to acknowledge serious safety risks and to spell out how he intends to address its concerns.
“Napo had no choice but to take out a legal challenge in order to force the justice secretary to disclose evidence of his testing processes. We have now seen that evidence and it is clear that our members’ testimonies have been taken into account and that the justice ministry are taking our concerns seriously. However, we will be holding the justice secretary to account to ensure that he implements the safety measures before the private providers take ownership,” Lawrence said.
It is understood that a commitment to a significant recruitment drive to ease staffing and workload pressures and assurances on access by staff in the new community rehabilitation companies to offender records in the remaining national probation service contributed to the decision not to go any further with the legal challenge.
The union is to ask the justice secretary to pay its legal fees.
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: “Napo made it clear from the start that their goal was to disrupt these essential reforms. They have palpably failed to do so but have ended up running up a big legal bill. We are pleased Napo have backed down before they could waste even more time and money.
“These reforms have been and continue to be carefully managed with a focus on the safety of both the public and our employees. They are essential if we want to bring down the stubbornly high reoffending rates.”
