STATE-RUN probation services in Wales have been praised for their “effective” rehabilitation of high-risk offenders in a glowing inspection report published today.

The findings are in stark contrast to the performance of private community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) which face being taken back into public ownership after their failure to manage lower risk offenders since the part-privatisation of the sector in 2014.

Chief inspector of probation Dame Glenys Stacey said Wales’s National Probation Service – overseen by the Ministry of Justice – had “dynamic, effective leaders and enthusiastic staff committed to high-quality work.”