Wheel Turns Again

There is a sad inevitability about all bureaucracies and management structures in the public service. Typically they have way too many managers in so-called strategic roles whose job it is not just to keep the wheel turning, but to keep re-inventing it as well. Lets be honest, their career development and progression depends on this and of course they 'positively thrive' on perpetual change. Looking at the latest copy of the Probation Association magazine an article entitled 'Professional Judgement Pilot' caught my eye.

Apparently the Surrey and Sussex Probation Trust are extremely proud to have been chosen to pilot a brand new idea that gives probation officers 'greater freedom to exercise their professional judgement in managing cases'. Amongst other things it introduces the astonishingly good idea of the ability to arrange to see some clients more frequently if they have greater needs. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny. I've been doing this since I started and just sort-of carried on. How can you build a meaningful relationship with a client who's just spent an hour telling you about all their problems and at the end say 'right see you in a week/two weeks time then?' To be honest I also carried on seeing less of the ones that didn't need much attention as well. So, yet another example of Jim Brown not being stuck in the past after all and using out-moded methods, but actually being in the vanguard of cutting edge practice, albeit somewhat unwittingly. 

But hang on, this begins to unpick the reasoning behind that current probation mantra of 'resources follow risk'. Now I've never subscribed to that either and have continually argued that it should be 'resources follow needs and/or risk'. Maybe this wheel is turning quicker than I thought. Interestingly, it was one of the key issues mentioned by the four clients who recently gave evidence to the House of Commons Justice Select Committee. They said officers spent too much time talking about offence-focused stuff and hardly any on problems like housing or employment. Of course it also goes some way to dealing with some of the issues raised in the House of Lords debate earlier this year and discussed in my recent blog Friends in High Places.

The Probation Association article goes on:- "Our staff are well trained professionals and in the main they have responded enthusiastically to this opportunity to move away from a focus on process to one which tailors their activity to the needs of each individual case and allocates their resources to maximum effort". Absolutely amazing stuff and whoever had the idea is obviously destined for high places. In passing I can well imagine why the odd few are not that enthused because they were probably recruited when we were going through that very fashionable-at-the-time phase of command and control. Lets hope they can learn to use a bit more judgement for the sake of their clients. 

The article is worth reading in full just for its complete inability to acknowledge any hint of irony but I particularly love this bit:- "and the prospect that OASys will at last come to be seen as an essential tool rather than a beast to be fed". Now that really is an example of hope desperately trying to triumph over reason!

As a footnote I hear that as my and many other probation offices are due to close, the very latest management thinking is a move towards 'localism' and 'community engagement' at a local level. I feel I could easily get quite angry soon.