PRIVATE firm Interserve has been awarded a new Government contract for supervising criminals across the Humber region.
A new partnership led by £850 million giant Interserve will run the Humberside, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) to help reduce the rate of reoffending.
But critics hit out at Justice Secretary Chris Grayling for pressing ahead with the "untried and untested" move towards greater privatisation, amid concerns it will endanger the safety of probation workers and the public.
Interserve, which is a member of the Purple Futures consortium, will work alongside social enterprise 3SC, and a number of rehabilitation and support charities including Shelter, Addaction, and P3.
The organisations will work together to help monitor the progress of around 1,700 prisoners released from short sentences each year, that currently get no supervision.
The Humber contract is one of five awarded to Interserve, with the collective value of the contracts expected to be worth almost £600 million over seven years.
But the National Association of Probation Officers (Napo), which has staged two walkouts in the last 12 months in opposition to the outsourcing plans, yesterday confirmed it had begun legal proceedings.
General secretary Ian Lawrence said: "It is purely ideological that Grayling is pressing ahead with his untried and untested so-called reforms to probation.
"We have mounting evidence that neither the CRCs or the National Probation Service is stable at the moment and this is having a direct impact on the supervision of offenders and public safety."
He added: "The fact so few organisations have won contracts also suggests that this has been a flawed competition with little or no real interest from providers in taking these contracts on."
According to the Ministry of Justice, almost 60% of prisoners released after sentences of less than 12 months go on to commit further crime within a year. The reforms will see all offenders receive at least one full year of support on their release.
Mr Grayling insisted his reforms would make people safer.
"We cannot go on with a situation where thousands of prisoners are released onto the streets every year with no guidance or support, and are simply left to reoffend. These reforms will transform the way in which we tackle reoffending," he said.
"This new approach will not just redouble our efforts to bring down reoffending. It will also prevent many more people from becoming victims of crime in the future."
Around 70 per cent of the National Probation Service will now be contracted out to private companies working with voluntary organisations, representing the largest level of outsourcing of probation services in the world.
The providers will only be paid in full if they are successful at reducing reoffending, said the Government.
The Humberside partnership is expected to be in place and delivering services early next year, after final contracts have been signed.
