The Ministry of Justice has made a replacement statutory instrument on offender licence conditions for England and Wales after deciding to change the commencement date of an earlier order. The Criminal Justice (Sentencing) (Licence Conditions) (Amendment and Revocation) Order 2026 was made on 7 August 2026 and laid before Parliament on 10 August 2026. It revokes S.I. 2026/760, which had been made and laid on 7 July 2026, and the explanatory note states that the replacement is being issued free of charge to all known recipients of the earlier instrument. This is a technical reissue rather than a fresh policy shift. The explanatory note says the new order is otherwise unchanged, meaning the substance of the July instrument has been carried forward while the timetable has been reset.
The commencement provisions are split. Articles 1 and 3, including the revocation of the July order, come into force on 1 September 2026. Article 2, which contains the substantive amendments to the 2015 licence conditions framework, comes into force on 1 October 2026. For prisons, probation services and criminal justice advisers, that timing point is the main operational consequence of the reissue. The department is not presenting a new set of policy choices; it is moving the start date for the amended standard conditions by using a revoke-and-replace instrument.
Article 2 amends the Criminal Justice (Sentencing) (Licence Conditions) Order 2015, which sets the standard conditions applying to offenders released on licence after a determinate sentence of imprisonment. It first inserts a definition of "supervising officer", described as the officer responsible for managing the offender under probation arrangements made under section 3 of the Offender Management Act 2007. The order then replaces the standard conditions in article 3(2). The revised drafting restates the core expectations in plainer terms: offenders must behave well, not commit offences, keep in touch as instructed, attend meetings at places specified by the supervising officer, and live at an address approved by that officer unless permission is given to stay elsewhere.
The instrument also tightens the link between day-to-day supervision and practical decisions that can affect risk management. Offenders must tell the supervising officer about new work or a new type of work and obtain approval before starting it. They must also disclose any names they use that differ from the names recorded on the licence and must report changes to contact details, including telephone numbers and email addresses. The most notable addition is the passport requirement. Offenders must tell the supervising officer if they hold a passport, provide passport details when requested, and obtain permission before applying for a new passport. Permission is also required before leaving the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, except where the individual is being deported or removed for immigration purposes.
The preamble records the statutory basis for the order. The Secretary of State acted under section 250(1) and (8A) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and, as required by section 250(8), had regard to three purposes of supervision on licence: protection of the public, prevention of re-offending, and securing the prisoner's successful re-integration into the community. That framing matters for interpretation. The order is aimed at the standard conditions attaching to release on licence, not at creating a separate category of offenders or a new sanctions regime. Its policy function is to define the baseline rules that apply once a determinate sentence prisoner is back in the community.
The explanatory note says the wording has been updated to make the conditions easier for offenders to understand. In policy terms, clearer drafting can matter as much as new duties: licence conditions are more likely to be followed, and more readily enforced, when the instruction, the decision-maker and the reporting requirement are stated without ambiguity. No impact assessment has been produced because no impact, or no significant impact, on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen. The practical effect is therefore administrative rather than fiscal: from October 2026, probation supervision in England and Wales will operate with a revised standard licence template, an express passport-reporting condition and a formal definition of the supervising officer, while S.I. 2026/760 falls away.