THE region's probation service will come under the direct control of the Government from today.

A single National Probation Service has been created in line with Home Secretary Jack Straw's crime reduction strategy.

It will see local probation services in North Yorkshire, Durham and Teesside working to achieve national crime reduction targets.

The Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 has created 42 local probation boards with responsibility for day-to-day probation work and representing local community interest and diversity. They will come within the same boundaries as the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

The National Probation Service will be led by Eithne Wallis, who has been give the task of reducing reconviction rates for offenders under probation supervision by five per cent, with a 25 per cent reduction for those who misuse drugs.

North Yorkshire chief officer Roz Brown said: "We now look forward to a future in which we will go from strength to strength as a national service, protecting the public from reoffending and ensuring all our work is based on the evidence of what works."

A spokeswoman for the probation service in Durham and Teesside said: "We won't get the situation any longer where we can get an offender under supervision of the probation service getting a totally different standard of supervision in another area of the country."