Probation services

The probation service manages offenders on community sentences as well as those on licence/supervision after release from prison. The National Probation Service (NPS) manages high-risk offenders and new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) manage low- and medium-risk offenders. Neither are mandatory members of SABs (although they are statutory members of local safeguarding children boards), but like prisons they potentially have much to offer and to gain by being members. They will already be participating in the work of community safety partnerships, multi-agency public protection arrangements and multi-agency risk assessment conferences, and therefore will be used to working with other key partners on the SAB.

In many places there is an established history of probation services sitting on a SAB and contributing to the work of its subgroups, but with the new arrangements there will need to be a local decision made about whether it is the National Probation Service or the Community Rehabilitation Companies, or both, that sit on the board.

The benefits for these services are similar to those for prisons, although in this instance the offender will be living within the wider community and so will fall under the remit of the SAB if there are safeguarding concerns.