A union leader says Andy Burnham's decision to review a plan that would release up to 6,000 prisoners early has caused confusion among the staff who have to carry it out, with no clear guidance on whether they should keep preparing for a release date of 2 September 2026.

Tania Bassett, a leader in the probation union Napo, told The Guardian that staff inside His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) cannot get answers about what to do next. The union asked HMPPS directly whether preparations for the September release should continue and what the plan is following Burnham's review announcement. As of 23 July 2026, HMPPS did not know, according to The Guardian.

Burnham said on 22 July 2026 that he would look at "the whole of the policy" with the new justice secretary, Alex Norris. This came after growing political pressure, including news that Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, two of the three men convicted for the killing of police officer Andrew Harper, might be eligible for early release under the scheme.

Here is what the scheme does. Under the old system, prisoners serving a fixed-length sentence were automatically released halfway through. The new law, called the Sentencing Act 2026, changes that to an "earned progression model." This means most prisoners could be released after serving one-third of their sentence instead of half, but only if their behaviour warrants it. The rest of their sentence is served under supervision in the community, with an electronic tag.

The problem is timing. Preparing a prisoner for release takes at least six to eight weeks of work per person. Staff have to do risk assessments, find accommodation, visit homes, coordinate with victims, and set up safety plans with other agencies. With a target date of 2 September and no clear answers by late July, the time to finish that work is running out. If the scheme goes ahead, staff need to know now. If it does not, they could redirect their effort elsewhere. Instead, they are left waiting.

Napo has previously criticised the decision to extend the early release scheme to 70 days, according to reporting referenced by BBC Radio Newcastle. A Napo representative also told the i newspaper that serious crime resulting from the scheme was "inevitable" because of existing problems in the probation service, as relayed through Channel 4 News.

The broader context here is a mismatch between what the law promises and what the service can actually deliver. The earned progression model was designed to encourage rehabilitation by tying release to behaviour rather than a fixed date. But the probation service that has to make it work is, according to its own union, short on staff and infrastructure. Releasing up to 6,000 prisoners early, each one needing supervision and electronic tagging, places a burden on the system that Napo calls unmanageable even before the current confusion. The union's claim that serious reoffending is "inevitable" is a judgment about the system as a whole, not about any specific person. But it frames the question now facing Burnham and Norris: can the policy be fixed, or is the gap between what the law expects and what the service can do too wide to close before September?

Burnham's promise to review "the whole of the policy" means he may not just be looking at who qualifies. He could reconsider the one-third release point, the supervision rules, the behaviour criteria, or the timeline itself. Each of those changes would affect HMPPS, the probation service, and the prisons where releases are planned.

What is still unresolved is whether the 2 September date will hold. If it does, HMPPS will need to confirm preparations within days to meet the six-to-eight-week window. If it slips, the prison overcrowding that the scheme was meant to ease will continue into the autumn. The justice secretary's office has not yet set a timeline for the review, and Napo's unanswered questions suggest that, in practice, the policy is on hold without anyone officially saying so.