The Bishop of Lichfield received the following written answers on 13th March 2025:
The Lord Bishop of Lichfield asked His Majesty’s Government what the average caseload of probation officers in England and Wales was in each year of the last decade.
Lord Timpson (Lab, MoJ): The average caseload of Probation Officers has been presented from the period July 2021 to February 2025. This is because the Probation Service unified in June 2021, with some Probation Officers and caseload held by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) prior to this point. The Probation Service does not have access to data for caseload held by CRCs .
Table One: Probation Officer average annual caseload across England and Wales
| Period | Annual average caseload per Probation Officer |
| July 21 – June 22 | 36.0 |
| July 22 – June 23 | 37.1 |
| July 23 – June 24 | 35.2 |
| July 24 – Feb 25* | 34.2 |
*Data presented based on an eight-month period rather than a full year.
Notes:
• The data within the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) are manually entered by Senior Probation Officers (SPOs) for the purposes of ensuring that contracted hours and adjustments are accurate. These data are subject to inaccuracy as a result of the manual nature with which data are submitted.
• Annual average caseload per Probation Officer has been calculated by taking the average caseload on the last day of each month in that period.
• Even if staff do not have contracted hours, they can still have cases allocated to them by SPOs.
• There may be cases where staff who have left the Probation Service still appear to hold caseload on the WMT and so the data should be treated with caution. Furthermore, some staff on long-term absences (e.g. career breaks / long-term sickness) may still have a caseload allocated to them.
• Data have not been presented for the period prior to June 2021, the point at which unification of the Probation Service took place. Prior to June 2021, some Probation Officers and caseload were held by CRCs, data for which is not included in the WMT. It would not be consistent to present a time series of caseload per Probation Officer before and after unification.
The Lord Bishop of Lichfield asked His Majesty’s Government how many deaths by suicide there have been of people in prison in England and Wales for each year in the last decade.
Lord Timpson: Self-inflicted deaths are any deaths of a person who has apparently taken his or her own life irrespective of intent. This not only includes suicides, but also accidental deaths as a result of the person’s own actions.
| Year | Self-inflicted deaths 1,2,3,4 |
| 2015 | 90 |
| 2016 | 124 |
| 2017 | 73 |
| 2018 | 93 |
| 2019 | 86 |
| 2020 | 67 |
| 2021 | 89 |
| 2022 | 77 |
| 2023 | 96 |
| 2024 | 89 |
Data Sources and Quality:
These figures are derived from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System and the HMPPS Deaths in Prison Custody database. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Although the figures are shown to the last individual the figures may not be accurate to that level.
1 – Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody. They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state has less direct responsibility.
2 – Due to the number of deaths that remain unclassified (awaiting further information) in recent years, and the latest year particularly, caution should be used when comparing with earlier periods.
3 – A proportion of the most recent two years’ figures for ‘other’ deaths are expected to be re-classified as natural causes or self-inflicted deaths.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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