Oh For a Part B!

Regular readers will already be aware of the unbridled contempt I hold for OASys - the sheer length of the thing; the brain-numbing questions that seem to go on for ever; the resentment that you are wasting valuable time when you have loads of other things to do; the computer system crashing, locking up or just being plain 'unavailable' - you get the gist. But just possibly all this would be worthwhile if the finished article was useful, right? Wrong! I'm pretty confident the thing will never be read completely by anyone ever again, including the manager who will be counter-signing it - unless that is you are very unlucky and one of two events occur:-

Your client murders somebody.

It's the subject of audit or inspection.

In either case, you should check that your membership of NAPO is up-to-date and a sick note from your GP might be useful. Unless you are an extremely diligent officer, ideally blessed with the benefit of hindsight, forensic analysis of the completed OASys will reveal something you've not quite got right, or worse, haven't updated. Oh yes, I forget to mention that one of the real benefits of this system is that it can be updated continuously, omg.

Now, any organisation needs information in order to function efficiently, the Probation Service being no exception and sometimes getting the right information in a timely manner can be critical in making very important decisions that affect peoples lives and safety. Obviously I started out in a pre-computer age when we relied upon card indexes, paper files and personal knowledge. If we needed to know about a client quickly, either current or closed, it was straight to the file to look at the last PSR and Part 'B' assessment. The latter was on pink paper and typically a paragraph or two was completed every quarter outlining the situation - what the risks were, what the problems were and what was happening. Simple. Even 20 years worth of a life sentence amounted to only say 15 sheets. It could be digested quickly, it worked and I naively felt that the advent of the computer would just replicate it, albeit electronically. After all, the Part 'C' on white paper that recorded all client contacts had eventually turned into electronic CRAMS - so why isn't there an equivalent of the Part 'B'? 

Of course there is - all the information is in OASys - you just have to spend an hour or two locating it - perhaps printing it out? - between 60 and 90 pages - not really an option - but it is all stored safely and electronically, including all the myriad updated versions. Unfortunately that's now causing a problem. I remember about three years ago there was a major panic as somebody noticed the servers at Head Office were virtually full and a desperate message came out that we had to throw stuff away urgently, or the whole thing would crash. With no hint of irony we were blamed for storing either too much stuff or the wrong stuff. Currently there is a national project to migrate everything to massive NOMS data stores 'following some selective deleting'. I do hope none of that important OASys stuff disappears.

Oh, and in case you were wondering if there was a Part  'A' - yes, on salmon paper, but I don't think I ever bothered with it as from memory it was supposed to record the antecedents and in my time these have always been supplied direct by the police.