Daddy or Chips?

Over the coming weeks Probation Officers will have to make an invidious decision whether to choose to opt for NPS or CRC. If you don't make a decision, one will be made for you. I'm tempted to describe such a proposition as a Hobson's choice, but wikipedia urges caution:-

Hobson's choice is often misused to mean a false illusion of choice, but it is not a choice between two equivalent options, which is a Morton's fork, nor is it a choice between two undesirable options, which is a dilemma. Hobson's choice is one between something or nothing.

Whatever, most people would say it's a shit choice, but I notice that tweeter and blogger PoOfficer has had a stab at a sort of cost/benefit analysis of both options on offer and I hope they don't mind me quoting from their handiwork:-

National Probation Service (NPS)

• This will be a tiny organisation with little scope for progression. 
• Big focus will be in the Courts and more PO's working from Court and allocating work to the teams directly from Court.  I don't want to work in a Court.  
• What will be left will be Public Protection work.  Whilst this is fascinating and vital, I don't want a whole caseload of high risk clients where I am unable to be as flexible as I currently am.  I do not want to be confined by MAPPA restrictions.
• I wont be delivering any interventions.  Apart from sex offender work all other interventions, including Specified Activities will be implemented by the CRC. 
• From what I have read, if I am NPS my main duties will be to risk assess, mainly from a computer and have little scope to deliver an intervention or work with clients on a one to one basis. 
• We are merging with another area so will I be sent there to work?  Miles away from home. 
• Will this become an 'elite' service? Do I really want to be part of this? 
• I know the documents state that CRC and NPS will office share initially but I am sure this will change in the future.  I can see my trust having tiny NPS offices around the county as a base and then they will 'rent' rooms from children's centres, Police Stations, Courts etc.  Do I want to be co-located and not in my Probation team? Will I lose the camaraderie of my colleagues? 
• I will be doing what I trained to do - risk assess, write reports and manage high risk clients.  Will I have time to complete bespoke interventions with clients or will I just send them to the CRC for this?
• Will we be a civil servant? If so, It feels as if we will lose our voice and will have to roll over every time the Government says so. 

Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC)

• We don't know who this will be, so we could end up working for an organisation we don't want to.  
• Likelihood is that our terms and conditions will change.
• A positive that I can think of is that it will cut all the red tape that Probation currently insist on.  Hopefully it will move us into the 21st century and I will be able to email a Social Worker without being told it breaches data protection.   We may have better use of technology, thinking outside the box, more resources etc etc.  This does sound appealing.  
• I wont be writing parole reports, pre-sentence reports or advising the Court about sentencing.  I trained for two years to be able to do this, I don't want to lose it.  
• If I do go to the CRC and manage medium and low risk clients - will the new provider eventually realise that they will be paying me a PO wage to do the same work that a PSO can do?  Will I take a pay cut or just be let go?
• Working for a CRC may provide more of an opportunity for progression.  Some of the companies bidding are multi-national and other roles may frequently come up.
• Do I really want to work for a company who's number one priority is profit?

How can we be asked to make a decision between the NPS and CRC when we don't know the full details.  We don't know who the CRC's are yet.  We don't know what the new NPS will look like and what 'team' we may be allocated into.  We really don't know anything.  It will not be an informed decision, yet I will get my letter in November asking me to make a decision.  What if I refuse? Will it then be made for me?

I've become aware that many PO's are thinking that the NPS will be a 'safe haven' from the carnage that will ensue within privatised CRC's. This is a big mistake and here is what Professor Paul Senior thinks on the subject in his latest and excellent blog post reflecting on Llandudno:-

It is instructive and worrying to note that in the last few weeks the role of the National Probation Service in this future world has been used as a prop to argue that the continuation of Probation and the worth of probation is thus guaranteed. Firstly it seems to have been conveniently forgotten that the last attempt to impose a National Probation Service in 2001 was an abysmal failure. Even Michael Spurr seemed to acknowledge that the success of the probation trusts in the last five or six years shows that a locally accountable, partnership driven service is more likely to reduce reoffending than a remote and bureaucratically driven national service. The recent replacement of a senior probation figure as the new director of NPS, whatever the reason, is symptomatic of the drive to create a command and control structure driven by norms where Probation staff become civil servants and subject to the suffocating and unquestioning delivery requirements imposed upon them. The NPS will, I am afraid, be an uncomfortable home to work in. If you look at any of the process maps provided recently on twitter by Joe Kuipers you will see just how complex structures have become. They assume a rational and linear process of engagement which does not fit with the chaotic and difficult world in which our service users inhabit and which a fragmented and competitive environment will further engender. There is talk of national standards returning to drive the NPS. I discussed in June ( Bill McWilliams lecture) the difficulty of maintaining the essence of probation. It strikes me it is now abundantly clear that that essence will not rest with the NPS. Indeed when you look at the MoJ’s own evidence-based publication, coincidently (or maybe not so coincidentally) published on the same day as the announcement of the competition, you will see a firm statement of what they consider to be the organisational framework within which successful rehabilitation services can be delivered. They include four key elements:

The role of skilled, trained practitioners
Well sequenced, holistic approaches
Delivery of services and interventions in a joined up, integrated manner
Delivery of high-quality services

Put simply, these elements describe a probation trust and is a ringing endorsement of the work that trusts have done over the past few years. Somewhat ironic therefore that the world of probation with its locally accountable 35 Trusts, is being dissected in such a complex and fragmentary way that the possibilities of achieving any of these above evidence-based qualities has been severely compromised.

The message contained in these two blog posts couldn't be more clear. Under the TR omnishambles proposals, probation as we know and love it is going to disappear. If colleagues wish to stay in this line of work, retain their sanity and bound out of bed each day happy at the prospect of another fulfilling day's work fairly rewarded, then put simply, they must join colleagues and take action to stop it all happening.

As Paul Senior puts it:- "it is now abundantly clear that that essence (of Probation) will not rest with the NPS" and as PoOfficer says:-  I don't think I want to work for either NPS or CRC. Sad times ahead.

Doing nothing is not an option in my view. Exceptional circumstances require exceptional responses. If not a member, join a union. If already a member and didn't vote in the recent ballot or feel industrial action is wrong, read and listen to what people are saying and reconsider. I'll finish by quoting a bit more from Paul Senior and urge people to read what he says in full:-

I saw a steely determination in Llandudno that probation staff, reluctant always to take militant action, but people who care deeply for the service users they work with, will not simply roll over and let such changes happen. Apart from seeking to avoid the unnecessary personal tragedies that will inevitably unfold, with job losses, job redirection and reductions to codes and conditions of service, probation staff will fight for something that they believe in. This is a vocational service not driven by monetary reward or competitive advantage. Michael Sandel, a political philosopher, has pointed out that the neoliberal marketisation of services raises crucial questions about the moral limits of markets. Surely the mark of any civilised society is that it would not treat its miscreant members as simply commodities to be sold to the lowest bidder. I urge everyone to join the growing ‘cacophony of noise’ against these changes. There is time to draw breath, to re-consider the folly and dangers of this process and to construct an evidence informed basis for change.