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BREAKING: One of the companies which monitors offenders as part of Chris Grayling's partial privatisation of probation has gone into administration. Working Links has supervised low and medium-risk criminals in Wales and south-west England since 2015.
Working Links has been heavily criticised for poor performance. It's the first community rehabilitation company to be taken over by insolvency experts. Seetec - which monitors offenders in Kent, Surrey and Sussex - will take over Working Links' three probation contracts.
Working Links - which also runs employment schemes - was bought by the German firm, Aurelius, in 2016, which announced the transfer to Seetec last week without going into details why. Ministry of Justice said it had been "aware" of the financial difficulties for a period of time
Probation Inspector Dame Glenys Stacey reveiwed Working Links in Dorset & Devon/Cornwall. She said: “The professional ethos of probation has buckled under the strain of the commercial pressures put upon it here, and it must be restored urgently.”
Dame Glenys Stacey found Working Links staff under-recording number of riskier cases due to commercial pressures, completing individuals’ sentence plans to meet performance targets, without actually meeting the offender. She told @MoJGovUK about her "damning" findings in November
