We pressed MoJ on why performance had worsened over the last few years. MoJ explained that workforce shortages, which it inherited upon unification, exacerbated by high staff turnover, were the main reason for poor performance.10 Written evidence from the Rehabilitating Probation Project Team and from Crest Advisory stressed that continuing workforce shortages and the resulting high workloads had undermined the quality of, and confidence in, the service.11 MoJ told us that the decline in performance is also linked to the increased complexity of cases.12 We challenged MoJ on why it had failed to address staff shortages sufficiently to date, given unification was almost five years ago. MoJ and HMPPS argued that they had been working hard to address the shortages by recruiting large numbers of staff. MoJ explained that overall staffing numbers had increased by 22% since 2021.13 However, despite this, the vacancy rate for probation officers had increased to 21% in March 2025, seven percentage points higher than in September 2021, when it was 14%.14