Cheshire Probation Area to become a Trust

31 Jul 2009

Cheshire Probation Area’s application to become a Probation Trust has been successful. The new Trust will come into being on 1 April 2010 and will operate under a 3-year contract with the National Offender Management Service (NOMS).

As part of the new Trust arrangements, four Local Delivery Units will be created, based on the boundaries of the new unitary authorities of Cheshire East and Cheshire West & Chester, plus Halton and Warrington.
The Trust status will give the organisation more independence and autonomy to deliver its services locally but within national strategic and policy frameworks, including the two overriding priorities of protecting the public and reducing re-offending.
Leslie Robinson, Board Chair, explains “Becoming a Trust means that we will have to provide even better value for public money and work hard with all our partner agencies to make sure our communities are safe.”
Steve Collett, Chief Officer, says, “This is excellent news and a just reward for the phenomenal amount of work put in by our staff to prepare ourselves for the trust application. The move to Probation Trusts is part of Government policy to modernise the public sector. Crime happens at the local level so solutions also need to be local and the new structure will allow us to work much more closely with local authorities and other partners who have significant resources that they can bring to bear on reducing crime and reducing reoffending”.