On an average day, the National Probation Service supervises over 190,000 offenders.  Offenders are placed on four main types of community sentence; community rehabilitation orders, community punishment orders, community punishment and rehabilitation orders and drug treatment and testing orders.  The NPS is also responsible for running a variety of targeted programmes aimed at reducing re-offending rates.

The aims of the NPS are to carry out the proper punishment of offenders in the community and to ensure offenders' awareness of the effects of crime on the victims of crime and the public.  An offender's failure to comply with supervision leads to breach action and can mean being returned to court to be resentenced (or recall to prison if the offender is on licence).    

The NPS is simultaneously committed to the rehabilitation of offenders through programmes that address the reasons behind offending behaviour.   Sentencers can make a probation programme part of an offender's order if the court probation officer recommends that the programme suits the offender and can produce a positive outcome.