Wednesday 5 June 2013

Politics is a Dirty Business

We all know most politicians of every persuasion are professional liars and not to be trusted in normal circumstances, but this is a battle for the survival of a vital public service and the rest of us just have to swallow hard and do what ever it takes to win. Politics has always been the art of the possible.

So it is that we must now find the will to applaud the architects of the whole probation privatisation fiasco, the Labour Party, as they seemingly mount a 'spirited' opposition to Graylings proposals in the House of Commons.

There's no point in even mentioning matters of principle here, or what might be the right thing to do. Labour are just going through the motions for a bit of political expediency, as HM Loyal Opposition is paid handsomely to do. It's all a game, as they know full well that they don't have a cat in hell's chance of inflicting a defeat on the government due to the Liberal Democrats remaining firmly in bed with their Conservative partners. 

Anyway, I quote from the Labour Party press release issued yesterday:- 

"Labour has tabled amendments to the Offender Rehabilitation Bill that would force the Government to pilot their controversial changes to the probation service.

We believe their proposals constitute a serious risk to public safety because of their untested and untried nature.

Because the Government is misusing 2007 legislation, this means they require no change in the law to introduce their proposals. By tabling these amendments, Labour is ensuring that their ill-thought through plans receive proper parliamentary scrutiny.

And, if successful, they would mean that the Government’s changes to probation could not happen until they have been properly piloted and independently evaluated to ensure there is no risk to public safety."


Things are always different in the Upper House though with so many non-politically aligned cross benchers and today probation's good friend Lord Ramsbotham has been leading opposition to the proposals by tabling some key amendments to the Bill that, if passed, would effectively kill it. The key amendments proposed are 21, 22 and 23 which respectively prevent changes to the probation service without parliamentary approval, prevent the introduction of PbR for 3 years and without the results of pilots being evaluated first and ensure probation trusts can bid for any contracts. 

But any amount of sound reasoning might still come to nought as the government can in the final analysis invoke the Parliament Act in order to exert their will over a troublesome House of Lords. What is much more likely to be effective in saving our bacon is pure chance and good luck. As Harold Macmillan once famously remarked, events have a habit of throwing the best laid political plans off balance and there's quite a few possibilities in the wings. 

For a start the whole parliamentary corruption issue has been re-ignited as a result of those pesky media types setting up MP's and Peers with yet another honey-trap sting operation. They always fall for it don't they? But I have to say I'm not sorry to see the smug look removed from the face of that dreadful self-serving ex-copper Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate. 

Then there's the astounding secret affair that's so shocked the Prime Minister. Despite gagging orders, it won't be secret for too much longer. Finally, we still await news in relation to the police investigation into historical child abuse allegations at the Elm Guest House in West London. All these and more can derail the best laid plans of any government.

Word has it that Grayling's job and career are on the line over his plans for 'reforming' the criminal Legal Aid system. As the first non-lawyer to become Lord Chancellor, he's made lots of powerful enemies in the legal profession and as we know many politicians are lawyers. If he screws it up, and some are confidently saying he's massively under estimated the guile and sheer power that the law still exerts within the Establishment, it's curtains for Chris's prospects which can only be good news for us. A dirty business indeed - but hey ho! 

I know you've signed the No10 petition - but please tell others to sign it here.        

10 comments:

  1. it couldnt happen any other way, chris grayling will use all sorts of dirty tricks to get this mess through. Morale high group count for nothing if you lose and people are put at risk

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  2. So not directly related to the post but here goes... yup its a dire situation and we the Probation Service appear to be a rudderless ship fast approaching the edge. But are we not Probation officers?, are we not equiped to help offenders with their crisis?, are we not proud and resilient with have morals and pride?, do we not coach offenders to use appropriate problem solving and coping strategies?. Yes we are all on a change journey (yes I am a trained change manager, if Probation had realised their existing skill set could have saved them alot of money with Lean having delivered something very similar for a blue chip company!!)could and all have hit the valley of dispair by now (some deeper than others) but are we going to move into acceptance?. Yes its hard for us all but actually instead of putting energies into to posting our views and disappointments why aren't some of us doing more. A quick e-mail to the house of Lords, a twitter to an influential celeb, a letter to panarama, a conversation with the current militant barristers who appear to be getting more signitures than us for their petition how can we share their audiance?, do we have high volume places we can ask for signitures to the petitions schools, universities, spouses works (I have done this), letters, e-mails, twitters to the press, crime commisioners, getting 3 family memebers to sign and pass the word, posters, the list is endless. if I can think of these things why can't NAPO So many in my office doing nothing but flapping or in complete denial but when I talk to them a liitle spark ignites. Yes I am posting but I am also doing what I can in my own little creative way, and I have lots more ideas yet. So come on lets all try and do just a little bit. One blog post, twitter, facebook message, NAPO post could be something that might just might help.

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    Replies
    1. Well I agree entirely and it's gratifying to see that the readership of this blog is steadily rising - 784 yesterday not including those who access by mobiles.

      In the absence of any effective probation voice and leadership, we have to do things ourselves and hence initiatives like this blog. But this blog can only really be effective if people contribute, either by commenting or more importantly feeding me stuff to write about.

      My knowledge about what's going on is necessarily limited to my own area and contacts - we need to share more information in order to get the bigger picture and hence exert a bit of influence. The Napo forum pages could be doing this, but for what ever reason there is precious little signs of life for days on end.

      So keep at it dear reader and more power to your elbow!

      Cheers,

      Jim

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  3. I think you mean the Parliament Act, not the Westminster Act. It was passed in 1911 and it efectively removed the right of the Lords to veto the will of the House of Commons.

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  4. Regarding signatures for your e petition, it strikes me that the probation service has a large customer base, the offenders that they supervise. The change from public to private will have signifigant impact on them, and i'm sure most would prefer 'the devil they know'. As they will obviously be affected in some way by any change they too are an interested party in this whole shabunckle. Would it do any harm to point out to them that a petition exists and where to access it if they wished to sign it? Just a thought from an outsider, hope its not a stupid one.

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    1. It's not a stupid thought, but I think there are professional and ethical issues concerning trying to recruit clients to the cause. Probably better to use our wide social networks to recruit people.

      Thanks for your interest and support,

      Cheers,

      Jim

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    2. Liverpool John Moores University has a large social science department full of students with a fantastic social ethic. They are however frustrated that the careers they are training for such as probation and social services are being desimated by our present government. Within the criminology department dwells an old scotsman whos accutely pained by this and he too has a great social conscience. My tip of the day would be to email him and make him aware of your petition and tell him you need more signatures. At least a few hundred to be collected here i think, and he may be a good friend to your cause. Look him up on the net-Joe simm criminologist-
      Good luck with your struggles

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  5. I know one should not puts one's head into a lion's mouth, but is a reduced probation service such a bad thing? With the 'transformation' won't the public probation service end up about the size it was twenty years ago. I read that the education department wants to significantly reduce the numbers of teaching assistants, seems the money would be better spent employing teachers. In probation didn't we see a massive expansion fuelled by probation service officers a job creation programme for the unqualified; and all the money wasted on a bloated management structure, target-chasing tally ho's. We also saw more first time and low tariff convicted being sucked into probation, as it once again embraced a treatment paradigm, this time of the cognitive-behavioural variety. It also needed to find things for it growing workforce to do. Isn't it possible that the probation service that remains in the public sector won't be a rump, but a nucleus of well-trained and skilled practioners, something that is arguably implicitly recognised by government: it would not trust the whole of the service to the private sector.

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    1. You raise a number of good points. Yes the Service expanded significantly and as you say fuelled a rise in unnecessary managerialism and bureaucracy. Every Service built massive Head Office's full of people doing I know not what. The paperwork became ridiculous and OASys just halved our productive time. The flirtation with putting all and sundry on programmes was a mistake and soaked up even more valuable staff hours.

      Without doubt we have been very badly served by our management over the last 20 or so years. It makes me very angry and was the main reason I started this blog. However, none of this excuses or justifies what is being proposed. Probation needs to be put back into the hands of professionals who understand what the work entails and can speak up for it.

      If I had my way, all managers of every grade would have a small caseload to remind them what the issues are. I'd make them all use OASys and write at least one PSR a month. I guarantee if this happened, OASys would be history and at a stroke our productivity would double. It's not necessarily the high case loads that cause us stress and illness - it's all the bureaucratic shit that gets in the way of doing our job with people.

      But we need a leader to say all this and with authority. With the greatest respect to Sarah Billiald who speaks for the Chiefs, what authority does a former accountant command for goodness sake?

      National Standards removed the discretion we used to have in dealing with low tariff offenders, but we eventually got the discretion back. We got rid of volunteers, but now they're essential. Everything goes in circles in order to give bloody managers something to do. We could have sorted all this - and still could - if only probation had a strong voice and dynamic leader.

      Ok rant over - but you get the gist! Thanks for poking the lion. All comments very welcome.

      Cheers,

      Jim

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