Tuesday 20 August 2013

Voices From the Front

Two recent contributions to the Prisoners Families Voices website caught my eye, and I hope the authors don't mind me quoting one in full, and the first part of a second. By the way PFV, congratulations on passing the one millionth visitor!

When my fella was in prison for 7 years, I found it impossible to communicate with his probation officer. He was passed from pillar to post to a different probation every 6 months or so. All I know was when I rang probation on behalf of my fella, I was passed over to some probation officer who didn't know a thing about him. No offence, because there is none intended personally to anyone who is a probation officer, but how on earth does swapping and changing probation officers contribute to rehabilitation? It doesn't because even though they have a piece of paper with details about the offender in front of them, that does not mean that they actually know that person and their capabilities and strengths to set them on the right path after they are released from prison. I must say that I think probation has gone worse. Personally I really do not see the point of having them and I say this because I have been with my fella to probation and quite honestly it is a waste of travel money to get there, Probation appointments are not productive at all and it is basically a place offenders go to sign on like people sign on at the dole queue. There is little time spent with the offender so what really is the whole point of this service?

To the Editor. I know it has probably said umpteen times, but I would like to voice my opinion on Probation. I am an ex offender and I have turned my life around no thanks to them. I did get on with my probation officer, but that's all I did, exchanging pleasantries, because what choice do you have but to shut up, put up and maintain your liberty. I never missed a probation appointment and always made sure I was on time. I too saw different probation officers time over and they did not have a clue who I was and what I was all about. Nor did they ever ask me what my intentions were concerning employment. Many a time I wanted to ask my assigned probation officer exactly what his job was because all I saw was mountains of paperwork and files. I could see he was snowed under so I kept my opinions to myself. As I said, I didn't hold anything against him, he was doing his job and was a decent bloke when all is said and done.

Regular readers will know that these sentiments have been voiced many times before on the PFV website and all seasoned PO's will know only too well that they have a distinctive ring of truth about them. I've responded in the past and tried to explain what some of the reasons might be, not least because many of us share the same frustrations being voiced. As it happens, the following is a recent contribution from a PO to this blog and gives some insight into what's going on across the other side of the desk:-

"management working hard to ensure staff are being treated as fairly as possible?" 
After 27 years service I was put on competence procedures yesterday. 84 clients to supervise and encourage to do their best by the courts their victims their communities and themselves and desist from the harm they do to each of those sections in society. Entrenched alcohol and drug users, domestic violence and safeguarding children cases, mental health and in some cases extreme violence in their history. But warned that if I don't stop doing one to one work and start producing eight layer 3 oasys reports a week and keep up to date with the 84 inputting into the n delius tracking system (cheaper than tagging I suppose) I will be sacked for being incompetent. What's fair about that? Meanwhile those staff that are being encouraged to form mutuals are doing just that without the bother of the moral minority trying to uphold this once great service's values and beliefs, we are far too busy with our workloads and distracted by the competence procedure to see how far on they are in feathering their own nests.

The really sad truth of the matter is that the job has become increasingly impossible under the suffocating requirements of shit computer systems such as OASys and now Delius. I would have added National Standards, but although now relaxed thank goodness, the legacy 'tick box' culture and micro-management remains, together with intolerable caseloads due to colleagues 'jumping ship' before the TR omnishambles hits us. But on top of all this we now seemingly also have some management feeling the need to make an impact, improve their prospects as TR approaches and demonstrate 'effectiveness'.

Two further recent PO contributions on the subject of middle management indicate how 
fractious things are getting as the omnishambles rumbles on:-

I agree re dumbing down of SPO's - it reflects the target driven ethic, where ticking the boxes is all that matters. Many PO's are more able than their SPO, its just that they cannot bring themselves to do the mindnumbing corporate thingy + lose client contact. In my experience over 20 + years the best SPO's led by example, working longer and harder than the team and putting the interests of the client, and in turn wider society at the centre of considerations. This did not ignore risk and public protection issues. It was always about the relationship with clients as a base from which to promote change. Sadly these days we are too busy ticking the boxes with far too many "cases" to stand a chance of developing meaningful work. This said I'm sure there are some colleagues who are able to do good work sometimes in spite of the often meaningless target/tick box constraints.

Yes, and some SPO's, willing to climb the greasy pole, but not shrewd, or bright enough to follow Mr Grayling's maniacal mission, for fear they would be found out....are now looking to extend their CV's in other ways - surprisingly some SPO's are asking to do SDR's, not to lighten the load, but as a flat rate report; thereby, improving their future prospects, leeching onto those who know how to write such documents, asking for advice and then, as if by magic being in two places at once - i.e. being paid to write a PSR at HMP local, whilst being paid for being the only available SPO available to an entire office. I've said it before, no brains, no dignity, no integrity and no bottle. For all their detached disdain for the Probation Service, those managers going upward in this new world, are likely to be the really ruthless and ambitious one's, who from experience are the most dangerous. 

41 comments:

  1. An important question I feel, is who really is responsible for allowing it to become what it is?
    The creation of NOMS for me really put paid to probation values and damaged it signifigantly as a greatly valued institution. I dont think there was enough resistance by probation at that time to keep its own identity. Its been on a slow slide ever since.
    Strike action by probation I also belive to be in the large ineffective. A days industrial action is just saving the government a days wage, because on return to work everyone puts nose to the grindstone to catch up on the work they've missed. They have to. Its the way the jobs structured. Its not like industry where a lost days production is gone for good.
    In my opinion there has for some time now been a need for a time and motion study. A formula produced that covers and combines all factors of the job. How much time does it take for this, how long for that, and a caseload given to the PO that can be managed effectively and within the parameters of some universal structure.
    A caseload of 85 is just not acceptable, but why has it been allowed to become that way?
    At least under some time and motion structured formula a PO could refuse excessive caseloads, and industrial action could form a 'work to rule' basis, which I feel would be far more effective and protracted then strike action.
    I guess I'm just thinking out loud, and rabbiting on a bit tapping away on my mobile, but todays post has really put that question in my mind.
    How has probation been allowed to reach this point, and who really is responsible for allowing it to happen?

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    1. My thinking exactly and you have nicely predicted another post in the course of preparation, the working title of which is 'How Did We Get Into This Mess?'

      I seem to remember in the dim and distant past there were time and motion studies - people with long memories will no doubt remind us - but measuring the work has always given management the 'wrong' answers so they just ignored the results.

      Of course OASys changed everything, but again management just pretended it didn't take half a day to fill in. The term 'Inconvenient Truths' springs to mind - hang on that's another bloody post title there.......

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    2. Netnipper: I am not sure 'time and motion' studies have ever served the interests of practitioners. TM studies started out in the USA, I think in the 1920s, it was known as 'scientific management'. It was applied to the car industry, for example, as a means of fragmenting the manufacturing process and timing the production line. It was all about productivity and piece rates, it was about increasing profits. I think it is really problematic transferring methods used in the production of material goods and applying these to human relations whether in the field of health, education or crime.

      In probation the topic of workload weightings has been researched and debated ad nauseam. It's abject failure is evident in caseloads of 85! Intuitive and common sense judgements are more likely to be closer to the truth than number crunching and breaking down the probation task into minute units. There was a flurry of such activity over the past two years, which gave us the specification, costings and benchmark project. All grist for the mill for accountants and private sector profit calculations but of little use to practitioners. In fact it simply piled on the pressure with it's timings for reports and OASys completion. Add in the fact that three-quarters of work time was spent at a desk, it left little time for much else. The allocation of resources in this way was also demonstrating just how little priority was placed on actual client engagement. This marketisiation of probation is just another example of the reach of markets into areas where market values corrupt. All set out in Sandel's The Moral Limits of Markets.

      It's not going to happen in the future, but at one time probation officers had the discretion and the professional trust to allocate their time as they determined appropriate with necessary oversight from an informed line manager who understand practice issues, which included managing caseload demand.

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    3. I agree to a large extent, but when common sense has gone out the window what else is there?
      Discretion and appropriate allocation of time should be the most important tool available to a PO. But as you say thats not the future and its also not the now.
      I guess I just wonder in what direction the road back lays?

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  2. Netnipper: Easy to identify with the stories of unsatisfactory contact with probation. I saw how managerialism commodified clients in the target culture, how the importance of relationships was marginalised. No wonder all this was ultimately perceived as a lack of respect for clients – it was! and no surprise the experience of probation was disappointing for some.

    I remember a murder case I was allocated at the remand stage. I visited during the remand period and also visited post-sentence, I attended the parole hearing and supervised the licence. I knew the individual well, I could speak with authority.

    That was once the norm in probation. Now, whatever your sentence, there is no continuity. Probation has been failing clients for years.

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    1. Netnipper,

      Yes sadly very true and it's a topic I covered in some detail way back in the beginning of this blog, now some three years ago. Like you, I've had murder cases right through from beginning to 'end' but it's so very unusual nowadays - I know I'd hate being passed from pillar to post and always do my best to avoid it.

      In those early days of the blog, I was delighted to get 100 hits in a day, but with a ten-fold increase of mostly probation practitioners now regularly tuning in, I'm in the process of thinking about re-publishing some of the early stuff. So, there could be an archive slot in the near future.

      Cheers netnipper for your regular input - it's very much appreciated!

      Jim

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    2. A couple of years ago I was at a lifer parole hearing where the panel expressed surprise that I had held the case for three years. A pretty sad indictment of the situation.

      This goes to the heart of my practical objections to TR, the transfer of cases (my strongest objection is on moral principle, against the making of private profit from the administration of public justice, but I don't think that one will carry much weight these days). Every time a case is transferred, with the best will in the world, something gets lost. And the absolute worst time to change supervising officers is when risk is risking. With all the investment in SEEDS, and the belated recognition that the key component of supervision is the relationship between client and officer, it really is unfathomable that this "system" is being mooted.

      I've still got that lifer case, by the way.

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    3. A very sad indictment indeed, and I'm always astonished how many colleagues no longer feel continuity is important.

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    4. I feel the private sector and the MoJ will quite quickly realise the great importance of client/officer continuity.
      Staff turnover in the private sector is bound to be far higher then probations, if only because of shite wages and conditions.
      It wont be long before those on supervision can get their mates to turn up for their appointments, and not only will no-one be the wiser, no-one will care, just as long as somebody comes along so they can claim their fee!

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    5. ROFL! - yes I love that bit - well people take driving tests by proxy, so do you know, it's quite bloody possible! Boxes ticked, targets met. Reported on time and regularly! Sorted, simples! Oh I need another drink.....

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  3. As a working and dedicated practitioner I have no fondness for the TR agenda, but the PFV comments identify the crux of the current problem. Probation has become a meaningless service managed by people who couldn't wait to get away from service users because they were more interested in managing numbers than people. The government's agenda have been responsible for this shift in culture. I recently took on a released lifer because his she was changing teams. She is still in the same building and she is still in an OMU, so why change the Lifer's PO? It seems that the Trust prefers service users to be allocated to a team rather than a PO or PSO, that it is more important hat the lifer stays with the same team manager than the same offender manager. Yet the Trust bangs on about desistance strategies and methods. What kind of shambles are we already working in? These changes in values have been overseen by the same Chiefs who are now silent on TR.

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  4. There is a similar attitude in medicine.

    I have been out of hospital about a month with follow up treatment monitored by my GP(not that I have an actual person as a GP, just the senior partner at the practice, is named as my GP)

    In that time, I have not had contact with the same GP twice.

    There is far more I could say but you get the picture.

    One outcome is what I think is called defensive practice - I am sure it happens in probation - do what is necessary to avoid a complaint rather than what will enhance the prospect of positive change - which might be risky.

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  5. Defensible decisions ! Oh yes there's a thing .....I am sure other will be able to give comments on this but my view...we make informed decisions not defensible.

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  6. TheUrbaneGorilla20 August 2013 at 16:08

    Surely I'm not the only one who remembers F30 forms - monthly returns, which allocated a time weighting to each task (even MPSOs!) and completed by each PO before being passed to management. The weightings were realistic but far too generous (there's a contradiction) and it wasn't long before everyone working a 37.5 hour week was owed months in lieu time. They soon disappeared - never found out why . . .

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    1. I do vaguely remember Form 30's, but if truth be known I've never been that good at filling forms in, especially ones that I can't see the point of. Is it possible that this was one of the many tasks my brilliant admin person at the time dealt with on my behalf?

      I do seem to vaguely remember the office joke that if you had a few clients on multiple orders, it helped enormously to make the stats look better! Could this be the Form 30 you refer to I wonder?

      Oh what halcyon days, mere mention of Money Payment Supervision Orders has brought on a veritable flood of nostalgia......

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    2. TheUrbaneGorilla20 August 2013 at 16:48

      A4 size with green text on white background. Carbon copies as evidence you'd completed it. Probably mid - Eighties. Pre-computers - completed them using a Biro. Couldn't possibly comment on multiple orders.Yes - the brilliant admin person - I had one too - was in charge of collation - used to threaten to hurt me if I didn't get them in on time. Glad you remember MPSOs Jim - but were you ever asked to give advice to unruly children - it's a task in the older (very older) editions of Jarvis (oh no - I've mentioned Jarvis - more nostalgia)

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    3. Ah Jarvis, blue, cloth covered, presented to me upon appointment with a personal note from the Chief inside and written in ink. It also came with a bakelite name plate 'Mr J........'to be affixed to my own office door by the Service's handiman.

      Do you know I have never opened Jarvis in earnest throughout my career, but I remember my university placement SPO consulted it daily - unbelievable I thought then and still think to this day. It was barely useful by the mid 80's, but I've always kept it for old times sake and for historical purposes.

      I was once called upon to give words of advice to an unruly child, and tried to mediate a neighbour dispute.

      Our office was underneath the County Court and even in those days, not every officer was wearing a tie, unlike myself. Consequently, every time the Judge demanded a PO, sorry DCWO asap, it was yours truly that was regularly dispatched upstairs to help pour oil on troubled matrimonial waters. This remained the situation right up to the formation of Cafcass.

      There was always a special bond between PO and admin person and they would do everything and anything to cover your back - great days....

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  7. The rot set in the day a PC appeared on my desk (1996?). Since then, it has been like a newborn - feed me, feed me!!

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    1. Agreed - and my colleagues never subsequently forgave me for encouraging the office to volunteer when the first word processors came out - I never thought they'd end up on MY desk!

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    2. Could all of probations current problems be traced back to you wanting a word processor?
      Could all this be really your fault Jim?

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    3. I was youngish and naive......

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  8. I remeber those wonderful machines, when the SIR you wrote, was typed on a typwriter, on multiple sheets of paper with different coloured carbon copies - once typed, you had to run them through the machine,the one with the wind up handle, from which multiple copies appeared. One of our admin remebered the name of the machine just the other day, but I have forgotten again, age!!!! All errors had to be corrected with tipex! Oh and the mention of Divorce Court Welfare Officers,took me back to a certain, Yorkshire Judge asked me if I had looked around the house of the subject of my report, as I had failed to comment on the decor I my report....and the trips to the Queens on Wednesdays' fabulous days!

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    1. Yes it was the old faithful Gestetner - a very messy job filling it with black ink regularly. The Social Inquiry Report was typed on a 'skin' that was perforated by the key strokes of the typewriter and then had to be carefully attached to the inked drum, and carefully peeling off the backing layer.

      Any corrections had to be made using a special fluid that sealed the perforated wrong letter and then had to be very carefully over-typed with the correct letter. It was a miracle it worked at all, but it did when fed with paper and the handle turned. I seem to remember the inky skins were carefully stacked on shelves, just in case you needed to run any more copies off.

      I can just remember giving dictation as and when required, with my admin person taking it all down in shorthand.

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  9. Gestetner maybe?

    http://mmop.org.au/-pix/duplic1w.jpg

    Then there were Banda machines - ugh!

    https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSFFrAFvRdhMSoGBzmAce_QxycrCBDxSovavmP_j7Kdg9m0Zn7y

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  10. I remember reading a SER on a 40 yr. old man that commented that he was bottle fed as a child. Really.

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    1. Really? I thought that was apocryphal! I wrote some real rubbish in the early days I'm sure, but never touched on breast or bottle feeding lol.

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    2. I've seen a lifer post sentence report from way back (not written by this area thankfully), that describes a clients family member as 'an unattractive woman with a hare lip'...........Some practices should most definitely be left where they are in the past, undisturbed!!!

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  11. Thanks Tolkny - the Banda machine! However time consuming that was, we had loads of time to chase service usrs around, as Jim says, we had admin support, who were, as many are now, wonderfully supportive and hardworking!

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  12. As previously highlighted we need to work to rule rather than strike.Those in management currently feathering their own nests and 'motivating' hard working staff to be the 'best trust' to line themselves up for plum jobs on our hard work and many peoples increasing health problems need to realise the tick boxing and endless pointless paper work is only achieved through peoples willingness to work over their hours for nothing. This is the end as we have known it they won't care if you lose your job or your terms and conditions are slashed.

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    1. Fully agree. But need to know what the 'rule' is to work to first! Anyone know or remember what that is?

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    2. You get no protection in law when working to rule unless it has first been agreed by a recognised trade union; as this requires a ballot. Anything else can be viewed by employers as breach of contract. However, this is not the same as doing what is contractually required of you and no more, esp ref hours. I personally never accumulate TOIL-I might work the odd 1/2 hour over but I always immediately shave any time worked in (say) late night reporting on subsequent days. Unfortunately some offices develop a really unhealthy culture with everyone working masses of hours over. You just have to be hard nosed about this, probation runs on a massive amount of good will and free labour (although this currently appears to be leeching out of the organisation at an alarming rate). Will the world stop turning if I don't complete this oasys tonight? No, it won't.

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    3. I have to admit I've never claimed Time Off In Lieu - I've worked early mornings, late nights, Saturday mornings and taken work home, but I've also disappeared from the office when other bits of my life dictated. The key thing for me has always been doing whatever in order to get the job done - so I agree working to 'rule' is bloody hard.

      I did follow the Napo line on only using public transport for a period when Essential Car User Allowance was removed, but in the end it was only seriously inconveniencing me and the clients. I still had the same amount of work to do - only in less time.

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    4. I've always thought that the concept of TOIL was a bit odd - in Probation work anyway. You work over your required hours because you've got too much work, then take a day off in recompense - but then have to fit five days work into four days, and the cycle resumes. Paid overtime - or proper-sized caseloads - have always seemed like more honest or sustainable options to me.

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  13. We also need to all collectively do it. To continue the film analogy the darkness of Mordor is already upon us we need to act now

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    1. A ballot for work to rule would I'm sure produce a far better turnout then one for strike action. Nothing else appears to be meeting with much response so why not?

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    2. Working to rule? Always remember: "The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions" - Oliver Wendell Holmes

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  14. Update on some of my 85 clients. Spent over hour with domestic violence case traumatised by her usual week end beating we are trying to find a safe exit path without alerting the psychopath she lives with she wants to leave. Hour on phone looking for mother who lives down south that her daughter is not a "happy student living up north"but took an overdose and wants to go home. Hour persuading young offender to hand himself in to police. 30mins collecting food parcel for usual dwp sanctioning victim and to cap it all a phone call from a police officer telling me how crap probation is because she has just arrested one of my clients who she said had no choice but to offend because he was starving having been released from prison without a discharge grant meanwhile on my desk my list of oasys not done by next week .........or else Means I won't sleep again tonight"

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    1. Cassandra,

      It all sounds dreadful and could so easily be a fate faced by many probation officers at some stage in their career. I know I've been at a similar point before going off on long term sick. We hope you're ok, but be careful not to identify yourself. If you want my contact details they are on the profile page.

      Best wishes,

      Jim

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  15. Most clients hate their po these days and retort their "worse than the old bill" my mate is a defence solicitor and most of his clients tell him how they cant trust and indeed despise their po. JIm what your fighting for unfortunately died years ago.

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    1. non robot,

      I agree it's dying, but not completely dead. There are still some 'old timers' lingering on, but also some newer colleagues who have decided to learn about how it used to be and they find it fits intuitively with how they want to practice. TR may well kill it all off completely of course and the robots will rule, but lets live in hope for a bit longer.

      Cheers,

      Jim

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