The Public Accounts Select Committee has warned Justice Secretary Chris Grayling on the potential risks stemming from the “scale, complexity and pace” of his plans to part-outsource the probation service. The Committee has mainly voiced its concern over the timetable of the plans and urged that it should go ahead only with each stage when it is safe to do so . Under the original timetable the supervision of 160,000 medium- to low-risk offenders is to be transferred to 21 community rehabilitation companies from 1st June, with a new national probation service supervising the remaining 65,000 “high-risk” offenders.
