THE “ill-judged privatisation” of the probation service has made services “profit-driven rather than people-driven,” Labour’s Ellie Reeves blasted yesterday.

Opening a Westminster Hall debate, Lewisham MP Ms Reeves said the changes meant probation was “turning into a tick-box exercise, but it is not a profession that should be driven by targets.”

Former justice secretary Chris Grayling oversaw the changes, which meant low and medium-risk offenders were monitored by staff from community rehabilitation companies (CRCs), all but one of which are run by private firms.

Ms Reeves said “justice policies have regressed” since the Tories took power in 2010 and “the toxic privatisation of probation services has meant that CRCs continue to fail the people they were set up to help.”

Noting that ministers put an extra £37.15 million “into propping up these failing companies” in 2016-17, she asked: “How can services that continue to be rated as poor by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation continue to qualify for these massive payments from central government while not even doing the job they are paid to do?”

Plaid Cmryu MP Liz Saville Roberts accused the government of refusing to acknowledge that its “blinkered ideology of privatisation has failed.”

Probation officers’ union Napo general secretary Ian Lawrence said: “We have seen report after report from the inspectorate damning the service provided by the CRCs over the last few years.

“The government must take action now against those that are failing to deliver and keep our communities safe.

“We need a publicly owned, locally accountable service that works for communities and service users alike.”