Guidelines on Caseload and Workload

The comprehensive document, first presented at the Workshop on Caseload and Workload: Supporting Sustainable Probation Through the Human Dimension (27–28 May, Bucharest, Romania), aims to support CEP members in understanding and managing caseload and workload.

Through benchmarks, comparative patterns, and guiding principles, the Expert Group helps probation services develop context-sensitive standards, enabling jurisdictions to find an evidence-informed balance between quality, sustainability, and public safety.

These Guidelines, created by the CEP Expert group on Caseload and Workload, are addressed to a broad range of stakeholders involved in probation policy and practice. Caseload and workload are not merely operational issues — they are organisational, political and ethical matters that affect multiple actors.

The document provides an overview of caseload and workload models applied in probation services, starting with key definitions and a review of relevant research. It explores different approaches across jurisdictions and presents a snapshot of practices in CEP member countries. Based on this analysis, it offers interpretation, sets out criteria for developing caseload and workload frameworks, and concludes with practical guidelines and recommendations to support quality, sustainability, and public safety.

The document wraps up with a practical section—a structured roadmap as a way of analysing local realities, identifying pressure points, setting thresholds and establishing defensible and transparent approaches to caseload and workload management—as well as a workload formula model, which provides a hands-on tool that services can adapt to their own context.

The goal is not simply to count cases but to create the conditions for meaningful and sustainable probation practice.

The guidelines are only available for CEP members with a login through the CEP Members page.

How to access the member page?

Once logged in, click the avatar in the top-right corner of the CEP website to access the Members page, or click here.