Some Observations 10

When I recently took a trawl through the NAPO discussion forum, it was good to see that some of the former vibrancy had returned, having suffered badly from a massive 'redesign' last year. It's still not as good as it was though, but a decent debate has been raging as a result of someone asking about the pros and cons of a return to officers being able to use rather more discretion and judgement than more-recently qualified colleagues are used to. Apparently NAPO is re-writing their 'Good Practice Guide' with promises that it will provide some answers. It's funny in a way - that's exactly what I started out with in 1985 - a 'Good Practice Guide' and a copy of Jarvis of course.  

This is a big year for NAPO as it celebrates 100 years since foundation in 1912 and the conference at York in July promises to be especially interesting as our proud past is inevitably compared to our uncertain future.

Talking of which, I see from Jonathan Ledger's blog that the list of senior defections from NOMS to the private sector grows ever longer. Interserve are the latest company to benefit as they finalise their bids for operating the public sector prisons put out to tender by Ken Clarke. Call me naive, but I just don't understand how we're expected to believe that all these former public servants don't take with them privileged information that then enables the public sector to be outbid completely unfairly? But it's all so terribly British - Jonathan wonders if the people concerned are aware that the National Exec - well - jolly well groaned when they heard!

I haven't been watching 'Prisoners Wives' on BBC1 - you have to draw the line somewhere - but I can't help noticing that a post on the Prisoners Families Website voicing a differing view of some prisoners wives being anything other than victim, has generated quite a spat. If nothing else, it should serve to remind us all that 'pigeonholing' anyone is not at all helpful, especially in this line of work. By the way, it may surprise some to know that we used to run support groups for prisoners wives in the old days, and organise subsidised coaches to far-flung prisons.