The Sentencing Act progression model now comes into force on 1 October 2026, and rape, serious child sex offences and grooming offences have been excluded from it. The Ministry of Justice published the offence-based exclusion list on 4 August 2026. Release points for standard determinate sentences change on commencement, so advice given before then needs to state which regime it assumes.
What is the Sentencing Act progression model?
The progression model changes the automatic release point for offenders serving standard determinate sentences, and it applies to that category alone. Offenders serving life sentences, extended determinate sentences and other sentence types were never in scope. The Ministry of Justice puts that pre-existing group at more than 18,000.
The model also removes automatic release for offenders who behave badly in custody, so an offender who breaks the rules or is violent in prison can serve the whole of the custodial term. That element is what the word progression refers to: the release point becomes something an offender moves towards rather than reaches by the passage of time alone.
This is the outcome of the review that followed the pause in commencement, which we reported when the release changes were halted. The review has produced two results, a longer exclusion list and a later start date, with commencement moving from September to 1 October 2026.
Which offences are now excluded?
The published list runs to 39 offences drawn from six statutes, and then extends to inchoate liability for each of them. The statutes are the Sexual Offences Act 1956, the Indecency with Children Act 1960, the Criminal Law Act 1977, the Protection of Children Act 1978, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
The bulk sits in the 2003 Act, which contributes 25 of the 39. They run from section 1 through the child sex offences at sections 5 to 19, including the abuse of position of trust offences, and on to the sexual exploitation offences at sections 47 to 50. Sections 8A, 8B and 8C are on the list, so the more recently inserted offences relating to children under 16 are covered alongside the under-13 offences at sections 5 to 8.
The 1956 Act contributes ten, which matters for anyone advising on historic allegations. Convictions under the old statute are excluded on the same basis as convictions under the new one, and the list reaches the abduction and procuration offences at sections 19, 20 and 23 rather than stopping at the principal sexual offences.
Inchoate liability is dealt with as a block. Attempt, conspiracy, incitement, offences under Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 and aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring are all excluded where they relate to a listed offence. There is no separate schedule to check.
The release arithmetic
For sentences that remain in scope, the change is to the fraction. A standard determinate sentence with an automatic release point at 40 or 50 per cent moves to one third. A sentence with a release point at two thirds moves to one half.
Neither figure is a discount applied at sentence: the sentence imposed by the court does not change, and what moves is the point at which the offender is automatically released from the custodial part of it. That distinction is the one most likely to be lost in a conversation with a client, and it is the one that determines whether the answer to “how long will I actually serve” is different on 30 September and 1 October.
The release points change on 1 October, so any advice on likely time served given between now and then needs to state which regime it assumes. Defence practitioners advising on plea and mitigation, and anyone dealing with licence conditions, are working to a moving target: the exclusions are settled but the number released in each tranche will depend on the prison population at implementation.
What licence conditions apply on release?
The package sits alongside a set of community measures that the government describes as a stricter punishment package. Probation staff get near real-time electronic monitoring data to track offender movements, and offenders receive alerts warning them when they risk breaching an exclusion zone.
The funding figures give a sense of the scale intended. The government has announced £100m of additional funding so that prison leavers are tagged on release and banned from attending public events, pubs and clubs, within a wider £700m investment in probation and community punishment that includes 1,300 extra probation officers.
For practitioners the practical question is which of these are licence conditions capable of being challenged or varied, and which are operational arrangements between probation and the prison service. The published material announces the measures rather than setting out the statutory route for each, and that detail will follow.
Victim contact changes
Part of the reason for the delay is victim contact. The Ministry of Justice describes the pause in commencement as being partly to ensure more victims are informed and, where they can be reached, have a say on licence conditions including exclusion zones. A dedicated victim helpline is to be available by October for those affected by the reforms.
That has a bearing on timing rather than on eligibility, because an offender’s release date turns on the sentence and the exclusion list while the consultation exercise runs in parallel.
What should practitioners be advising now?
Two things are settled and one is not. The exclusion list is published and specific, so whether a given conviction is in or out of scope can be checked against the statutory references rather than against a category description. The commencement date is fixed at 1 October 2026.
What is not settled is volume. The number of offenders released in each tranche after commencement will depend on the prison population at the point the model takes effect, and the government has been explicit that the Act is intended to address capacity. Advice on the likely practical timing of a particular release should not assume a fixed cohort.
The date is also a busy one. 1 October 2026 is when the Business and Property Division replaces the Chancery Division, and criminal practitioners have a second live deadline in the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme consultation, which closes on 26 August.
Primary sources: the Ministry of Justice’s Sentencing Act offence exclusions guidance and the 4 August announcement.