9,000 Offenders Missing Electronic Tags in England & Wales

A National Audit Office report published this week has found that as of March 2026, approximately 8,900 people in England and Wales subject to active electronic monitoring orders were not wearing a tag — a cohort that includes violent offenders, convicted rapists, and prisoners released from custody under licence conditions. The finding exposes a structural failure at the heart of a supervision system the government is simultaneously expanding to relieve pressure on overcrowded prisons.

Disputed Figures, Undisputed Dysfunction

The Ministry of Justice contests the NAO’s headline figure. Its own review places the number of genuinely unmonitored individuals at 5,450, arguing that the watchdog’s count includes cases still under administrative review — people recorded as requiring a tag whose status has not yet been confirmed. The NAO acknowledges that some of the 8,900 cases involve administrative errors, but states that the true number slipping through the system remains “significant.”

The gap between 5,450 and 8,900 is not a minor rounding dispute. It represents thousands of people — some posing serious risks to public safety — whose whereabouts and conduct are unverified. The definitional disagreement between the government and its own spending watchdog reflects precisely the data-quality failures the NAO identifies as central to the problem.

People can appear as “unmonitored” for several reasons: system errors, refusal to wear a tag, delays in fitting, removal following arrest, or straightforward failure to tag someone who should have been tagged from the outset. The NAO does not disaggregate these causes with precision, but stresses that the last category — administrative omission — is not negligible.

A System Deemed Unfit for Purpose

NAO chief Gareth Davies was direct. “Electronic monitoring is central to managing pressures on prisons, but it is not working effectively, creating risks to public protection,” he said, adding that improvements are urgently required to ensure breaches are “responded to effectively.” The watchdog called the current system “inefficient” — a measured word that, in context, carries considerable weight.

The report also flags serious capacity problems among the agencies responsible for enforcement. Police and probation staff frequently lack the information or operational capacity to respond swiftly when a tag condition is breached. The NAO estimates a current shortfall of around 2,200 full-time probation officers — a gap the government expects to narrow to approximately 1,500 by September 2026.

One probation officer, speaking to the BBC, offered a starker assessment. “The report makes clear we’re overworked. And it’s only going to get worse with more people set to do their punishment in the community.” The officer added: “Someone who is dangerous and isn’t monitored will kill someone.” The government has not publicly addressed that warning.

Serco’s Performance and the Contractor Question

The tagging system is operated under government contract by Serco. The NAO notes that while Serco met its 95% timeliness target for tag-fitting visits, it successfully fitted a tag on only 62% of individuals visited within the contractually permitted two attempts. That figure sits uneasily beside the company’s own statement that it has made “significant improvements” and is “tagging a record number of people.”

Serco told the BBC that its ability to fit tags depends on “receiving the correct information” from relevant authorities, and that it reports all unresolved cases to those authorities. The formulation neatly distributes responsibility — but the NAO’s findings suggest the entire information-sharing architecture between Serco, the Ministry of Justice, probation services, and the courts is inadequate.

Expansion Plans Compound the Risk

The stakes are rising, not falling. Under the Sentencing Act 2026, the government is planning a significant expansion of community-based supervision as an explicit mechanism for reducing the prison population. Ministers estimate that an additional 22,000 people per year will require tagging from 2027. Thousands of prisoners — reports indicate the cohort may include killers and sex offenders — are expected to be released early from autumn 2026, most of them subject to tagging requirements.

The Ministry of Justice has announced a £100 million investment in electronic monitoring and claims tag installation rates have risen by nearly 50% since 2024. It also cites a £700 million investment in probation and the recruitment of 2,300 trainee probation officers over two years, with a further 1,300 this year. These figures are not independently verified in the NAO report.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, framed the structural risk plainly. “The government needs to improve the service’s resilience and efficiency, otherwise expanding electronic monitoring risks wasting public money and puts public safety at risk.” The NAO has called on the government to overhaul data quality and management across the entire monitoring system before that expansion proceeds.