Rehabilitating Probation: Experiences and Impacts of Unification among Managers and Practitioners in a Probation Service Region, 2022-2024

Rehabilitating Probation: Rebuilding culture, identity and legitimacy in a reformed public service was a three-year (2022-2025) ESRC funded research project that examined the implementation, experiences and consequences of a significant and unprecedented programme of public service reform that brought formerly outsourced probation services back into the public sector.

Probation services across England and Wales were reunified following a period of large-scale privatisation under Transforming Rehabilitation reforms implemented in 2014, which had led to the establishment of a publicly operated National Probation Service (NPS) and a number of private Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). In June 2021 the public and private arms of probation were brought back together under a newly constituted public Probation Service.

The Rehabilitating Probation research project captured the experiences and consequences of reform at local, regional and national levels and from a variety of perspectives, including: probation staff; senior managers; policy makers; service users; and external stakeholders. The research explored the impact of reform on the roles, identities and cultures of probation workers and narrated how a newly reconfigured probation service sought to (re-)build legitimacy with its external partners.