THE latest private company to win a contract to run probation services in the region has been announced - as the industry’s union warns of a system in crisis.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has announced the businesses who have won contracts to run probation services for low or medium risk offenders in a controversial privatisation of part of the industry.

In North Yorkshire, Purple Futures has been named as the new provider of probation and rehabilitation services.

The company is led by Interserve, a FTSE-listed public services company, which will run the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) with Addaction, Shelter and P3.

Purple Futures says it will take over on February 1 next year and it expects to deal with an annual case load of about 10,000 offenders in North Yorkshire, Humberside and Lincolnshire, where it says the reoffending rate is 50.8 per cent.

Private firm Sodexo, which has run HMP Northumberland since 2013, has won the contract to run Northumbria Community Rehabilitation with the charity Nacro.

In the Durham Tees Valley probation trust area, a joint venture between charities and social enterprises called ARCC (Achieving Real Change in Communities) is managing the services.

Probation union, NAPO, has criticised the introduction of companies - which have to deliver profits to shareholders - in the business of rehabilitating offenders.

But the MoJ says some of the company’s payments will be dependent on how effective they are at reducing reoffending rates.

The union had mounted a legal challenge to the privatisation, but ended its bid for judicial review just before the case was due to start.

Responsibility for high risk offenders remains with the much-reduced publically-run National Probation Service. But NAPO says this side of probation has been left in chaos by the recent changes.

A national official for NAPO, Tania Bassett, said chronic staff shortages had already resulted in cases untrained staff with no previous experience of probation being given serious sex offenders and other high risk offenders to manage.

“Staff shortages mean cases are being allocated to inexperienced and untrained staff who have just started and haven’t been in the service before.

“They’re being allocated high risk cases like sex offenders without having been trained at all in dealing with sex offenders.

“The other thing we’ve noticed in terms of CRCs is the difficulty in communication between the two organisations. The main cases that seem to be slipping through the net seem to be domestic violence cases and child protection issues as well; child protection and safeguarding aren’t being picked up quickly enough.”

Justice Minister Andrew Selous said: "All offenders under supervision continue to be managed by trained and experienced probation staff.
 
"The reforms are happening in a phased way to safeguard public protection at every stage, and I am very grateful for the hard work and professionalism of probation staff as we deliver these important changes.
 
“We will pay the organisations that deliver this support by what works — and between them they have the skills and experience to deliver what does.
 
"Some of our most successful rehabilitation charities will now have the chance to use their skills to rehabilitate thousands of offenders who up to now have just been left to fall through the cracks.”