A new report from the government's spending watchdog has raised an alarm over the way offenders are electronically monitored in the UK. According to the account, the National Audit Office found that the public are being put at risk because of issues with the tagging of offenders, turning a technical process into a matter of public safety.
The tags at the centre of the report are meant to keep track of people at sensitive stages of the justice process. According to the account, individuals are placed on a tag to be monitored, for example after they leave prison or when they are on bail awaiting a court hearing or trial, making the reliability of the system central to public confidence.
The timing gives the findings extra weight. According to the account, the government is trying to free up spaces in prison to tackle overcrowding and is about to release thousands of people earlier in their sentences in September, relying on the tagging system to work effectively so those offenders can still be monitored once they are out.
The report, however, casts doubt on how well that system is functioning. According to the account, one of the headline findings is that last year, in 2025, less than half of those who should have been tagged were actually fitted with a tag within the standard number of attempts allowed for doing so.
The watchdog also set out why the process so often falls short. According to the account, the reasons for tags not being fitted can include the person not being at the address at the time of the visit, or the individual simply refusing to be tagged, leaving officials unable to complete the order.
The scale of the gap is spelled out in the figures. According to the account, as of March this year there were almost 9,000 people who had a tag order in place, meaning a tag should have been fitted, but where the tag was not actually in place, pointing to a significant number of unmonitored cases.
The government has pushed back on the headline number. According to the account, officials said they have since revised those figures to account for people who had completed their orders or sentences, and now put the number of people unmonitored as of March at closer to 5,500, though the report keeps pressure on the scheme ahead of the planned releases.