Payment for Maintenance of Probationers
| Published date | 01 July 1947 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201834701100311 |
| Date | 01 July 1947 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Payment for
Maintenance of Probationers
T
HE
schemes under which support from public funds is
available towards the cost of maintaining probationers
in homes, hostels and lodgings have been evolved over the
last 20 years
and
many of the Home Office circular letters
dealing with this
matter
are now difficult to obtain
and
not always easy to follow on account of the frequent
modifications introduced.
For
this reason the following
summary may be of assistance.
Power
to
contribute towards the expense of main-
taining persons who have been released on probation with a
condition of residence was given
to
local authorities by
s. 5
(2)
of
the
Criminal Justice Act,
1925,
and
by s. 5
(3)
the
Secretary of
State
was empowered to
pay
Exchequer Grant
in relief of such expenditure.
It
will be seen by reference
to
the section
that
local authorities have wide powers of
incurring expenditure in this direction,
but
Exchequer
Grant maybe made only on the conditions and
to
the extent
laid down
by
the Secretary of
State
with the approval of
the Treasury. These conditions differ in some respects as
between
hOI;I1es,
hostels
and
lodgings,
but
subject
to
their
being observed the Exchequer is willing
to
meet slightly
under
half
of the expenditure so incurred by the local
authority. (This reduction is due
to
the deduction made
from all grants-in-aid of probation expenditure in order
to
finance
the
Probation Training Scheme).
The local authority for
the
purpose of this expenditure
is defined in section 10 the Criminal Justice Act,
1925,
as
"the
authority
out
of whose funds the salary of the Clerk
to
the
Justices for
the
Petty
Sessional Division is to be
paid". This definition leads
to
the probably unforeseen
result
that
even in a Combined Probation area established
by
the Secretary of
State
under s, 2of the Criminal Justice
Act,
1925,
contributions towards
the
expense of main-
taining probationers in homes, etc., are a responsibility of
tk.e
Iocalauthorityas
sodefined
and
not
o;f the Central
v321
To continue reading
Request your trial