The government's disastrous privatisation of probation played with lives

Analysis: The government is having to clean up its own mistakes after ignoring warnings about the Transforming Rehabilitation scheme, writes Lizzie Dearden

There is little public or political appetite to raise spending on the criminal justice system (Getty)

It is hard to think of a government programme more disastrous than Transforming Rehabilitation – a botched privatisation scheme that has seen criminals commit rape and murder while supposedly under supervision.

A damning report released today said “skyrocketing” numbers of offenders were being sent back to prison for violating licence conditions.

The privatised companies charged with supervising them from 2014 onwards were meant to save the government millions, but it is now expected to pay an extra £467m of taxpayers’ money to repair the damage.