Thousands of criminals do not wear electronic tags, according to a report

Those who are tagged are placed in strict conditions as part of their punishment.

This includes staying in a certain place or sticking to a curfew. If someone breaches their conditions, they can be given a formal warning, taken to court or immediately sent back to prison.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice announced plans to significantly expand electronic monitoring as part of the Sentencing 2026 Act, which aims to ease the pressure on prisons by managing more offenders in the community.

As part of the new law, thousands more prisoners could be released from early autumn this year. Reports suggest that murderers, rapists and sex offenders may be among them. Most require tagging.

Several probation officers have told the BBC they are worried about how they will cope.

Crime inspectors are responsible for checking that criminals are following their parole conditions. This can include things like ankle tagging or not taking drugs.

“The report makes it clear that we are overworked. And it will only get worse as more people prepare to serve their sentences in the community,” said a probation officer.

“We don’t have enough, and we don’t know how the government is going to work to ensure that no one is at risk. Because bad things happen, a dangerous, unsupervised person kills someone,” the probation officer added.

The NAO says part of the problem is a shortage of around 2,200 full-time probation officers, which the government expects to reduce to 1,500 by September this year.

The watchdog also said that while the security contractor – Serco, which manages the tagging system for the government – met its target of 95% timeliness of tagging visits, “it was only successful in 62% of the individuals who visited it in two trials”.

The BBC has contacted Serco for comment.

The NAO calls on the Government to improve the data quality and management of the monitoring system.

The government has been working with Serco to improve its performance and reduce congestion charges.

Ministers estimate 22,000 people a year will need to be tagged from 2027.

“The government must improve the strength and efficiency of the service, otherwise the expansion of electronic monitoring will waste public money and endanger public safety,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.

The Ministry of Justice said the government had inherited a “failed labeling system with a tax history”.

“As this report shows, the installation price has increased by about 50% since 2024, we have worked hard to fix this,” he said.

“This is in addition to our £700m investment in probation – recruiting 2,300 trainees and hiring 1,300 more staff over the last two years – to ensure the probation service has the resources it needs to keep dangerous criminals under close surveillance more than ever before.”