FOI Ref: FOI/2023/4835
You asked
I would like to request figures on how many parole officers were employed by HM Government each year between 1960-present. I would also like to know what the starting salary of a parole officer was for each year between 1960-present.
We said
Thank you for your freedom of information request regarding the number of parole officers.
Unfortunately, the information you have requested is not available from our Census 2021 data. HM Prison and Probation Service - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) may be better placed to assist with your equiry. Their freedom of information team can be contacted at data.access@justice.gov.uk.
More detailed information on wages and numbers employed past and present may be available from them. The Census does not include a question on wages so we do not hold this information.
However, the census codes all jobs recorded on each questionnaire in terms of their skill level and skill content. The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) is a common classification of occupational information for the UK. This link provides more information: https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/standardoccupationalclassificationsoc/soc2020/soc2020volume1structureanddescriptionsofunitgroups
Parole officers are classified in the broader category as the probation service and were given the SOC2010 code 2443.
According to the 2011 Census there were 14,602 probation officers in the UK and in 2001 there were 10,665.
Due to its coding complexity, Census data for 4-digit codes (2443) is limited and the information provided has been extracted from non-standard (bespoke) datasets for both the 2011 and 2001 censuses. There is no equivalent data available from the 1961-1991 Censuses. Census 2021 4-digit SOC2020 statistics are not yet available.
You may also find the following report useful: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-offender-management-service-workforce-statistics