HARD-pressed probation officials are celebrating a double cash bonus to help them cope with rising demands.

The North Yorkshire probation service was left disappointed after its last budget settlement, which gave it an increase on the year before of just 0.5 per cent.

With inflation taken into account that amounted to a cut in real terms for the service, which is based at Northallerton.

However, after hitting all, and exceeding many, of its performance targets in the last financial year, it has now been awarded its first ever "achiever's bonus" by the Government - and is in line for an extra £263,000.

In addition, it has been awarded another £67,000 by Home Office minister Paul Goggins, who admitted that the service was "under pressure".

The total windfall of £330,000 will now be used to strengthen the service's work by recruiting new practitioners.

Delighted chief officer Roz Brown said yesterday the awards represented a "very significant sum" for the service.

"They will solve our problems with the budget, but will also mean we will keep on moving forward," she said.

She added: "Locally, we work very closely with other agencies such as the police, local authorities and the health service, to cut crime in York and North Yorkshire.

"The probation service supervises offenders to tackle issues such as drug abuse, poor education or accommodation issues, which cause them to offend.

"We use methods that are known to work and rigorously return offenders back to court if they fail to co-operate.

"The awards reflect our high performance and the excellent work we do with offenders."

Probation board chairman Terry Ewington said: "Local staff have worked very hard to achieve our excellent performance results and it is wonderful to have this commitment and hard work recognised by the Government in such a concrete fashion."

The probation service is the law enforcement agency charged with reducing crime by supervising offenders and reducing the likelihood of them re-offending.

It is responsible for supervising offenders placed on community orders and following their release from prison.

Nationally, the work of the service is expected to rise by 20 per cent from 205,000 offenders a day to 245,000.