ABSTRACT

The first Annual Report of the newly formed HM Inspectorate of Probation concluded that "regrettably, none of the Government's aspirations for Transforming Rehabilitation have been met in any meaningful sense." The division of labour, especially where it involves only one sector working in the courts – incidentally, the Probation Service's traditional power base – can only exacerbate the situation, and induce a sense of superiority in one group. The three selected areas are part of a wider debate about the type of Probation Service. First the governance of the service, which concerns the National Probation Service and the Community Rehabilitation Companies. Second, there are now more demands for clarity and uniformity concerning the contents of the reports. Finally, the chapter suggests that the ethos of the service will involve a mixture of the public and private, this being the only way to prevent the service from being overwhelmed by one rather than the other.