Private firms will not be permitted to supervise prisoners deemed as “high risk” when the Probation Service outsources contracts to run offender management services, according to draft guidance seen by The Guardian. Criminals who have committed offences that have attracted significant and prolonged media attention will also be included within this bracket, and will remain under public sector supervision. The Ministry of Justice has set an objective for 70% of the Probation Service workload to be outsourced to independent firms by 2015.