Pictured above: First Minister for Wales Mark Drakeford and lead UNISON Wales probation rep Steve Allender
Probation workers in Wales attended a key event focused on the potential benefits of a devolved service hosted by trade union UNISON.
First Minister for Wales, Mark Drakeford, spoke at the event at UNISON’s office in Cardiff city centre.
Mr Drakeford set out plans for a devolved probation service and said workers would have a well-trained and well-prepared service if it were controlled by the Senedd and not the Tory-led Westminster government.
The First Minister, who is himself a former probation officer, said: “Probation officers would be people capable of exercising judgement and their work would be dedicated to the principle of de-escalation.
“Rebuilding lives is the best form of crime prevention.
“There would be a much stronger sense of the probation service as a partner in the family of devolved services.”
Lead UNISON rep for the probation service in Wales Steve Allender said: “A devolved probation service could help reduce crime levels.
“This is about social justice, and you can’t separate crime away from all the social factors around it, it must be dealt with in conjunction with other devolved services.”
Steve is also a qualified probation service officer and added: “The idea is that if you heavily focus on rehabilitation and re-building lives through your partnerships with other key agencies such as housing, education and health then it means people don’t have to keep coming back into the services all the time which is great for the workloads of probation officers but also so important for our communities.”
UNISON Cymru/Wales probation lead Simon Dunn said: “It was great for our probation staff to hear directly from the First Minister exactly what a devolved service would look like in Wales.
“UNISON represents thousands of probation workers and devolution of justice would put probation at the heart of all public services in Wales.”