Given all the recent discussion concerning 'sifting and sorting' and Napo's advice about lodging a grievance, I thought it might be instructive for some readers if I published part of a letter that indicates how these grievances are being dealt with. I don't think it matters which Trust it relates to as I suspect the script is pretty typical and orchestrated by the MoJ.
Dear...........
Transforming Rehabilitation Programme: Problem Resolution Procedure
I acknowledge receipt of your grievance under the Trust's Problem Resolution Procedure. This relates to the national transforming rehabilitation programme that the Trust is required to implement. The Trust aims to create a culture where concerns and issues are resolved as close as to the source as possible to create the opportunity for suitable solutions to be explored.
The nature of this grievance, that being the national programme means a local resolution on this matter is not achievable. The trust is required to follow the framework and processes set down by the MoJ. There are some matters where we have local discretion. Such matters will be consulted on during the course of the implementation process. As the Trust is following instruction, the framework and processes as laid down by the MoJ, the Trust's problem resolution procedure does not apply. The Trust will continue to share information from the TR programme with staff as it emerges. We will continue to share your concerns with the programme.
The location is unlikely to change for most staff as a result of the transfer. In your letter before transfer your location will be confirmed.
I note your concerns regarding the date to be used for sifting purposes. HR is working closely with the Management Information Team to ensure factors that would affect this being an accurate picture are taken into account such as: maternity leave, long-term sickness absence and secondments. Line Managers have also been asked to identify those individuals where this date would not be broadly typical of their workload. Further discussions have taken place and Line Managers have been asked to provide a point in time when a more typical caseload calculation can be used, to ensure that no individual is disadvantaged as a result of their atypical caseload. If you require further information please discuss this with your Line Manager.
I would like to assure you that the Trust is working with the MoJ, local trade unions and colleagues to ensure the practicalities of the staff transfer are delivered to ensure the best outcome for Staff, Service Users and the Community.
>>>>>>>>>>
The Trust has received a number of similar communications and appreciate that you and your colleagues have concerns about the future for the probation profession and for the work we undertake to protect the public and reduce reoffending. Many of these points have been raised by the Trust through the formal consultation about Transforming Rehabilitation and in subsequent meetings with both the programme team and ministers. However, the Trust itself will no longer be delivering services after 1 April and is not therefore in a position to determine the outcomes of the programme.
On a more positive note I believe you should take encouragement from the development of the Probation Institute as a focus for maintaining professional standards and staff development . This initiative has been the result of joint work between the Probation Association, Probation Chiefs association and the trade unions with support from the MoJ.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Finally, line management is there to help support you through this process. Our staff are professional, loyal, hardworking and committed to working with offenders in the community and to supporting colleagues on the front line of service. That work, supported as it is by our values, will be equally important and necessary once the new operating model is implemented. Any further information will be shared with you at the earliest opportunity and I hope this will help address some of the present uncertainties.
Yours sincerely,
.
http://m.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/general-news/leeds-prisoners-could-work-as-bin-men-1-6398078
ReplyDeleteHow many council workers are being layed off because of budget cuts?
INMATES at a Yorkshire prison could be given jobs as bin men under proposals being considered.
DeletePrisoners at Leeds Prison, in Armley, who are nearing the end of their sentences could be let out on day-release to help with refuse collections in a bid to assist their transition to life on the outside.
The idea is being actively considered by Leeds City Council.
The proposals has been mooted by Susan Kennedy, the new governor of the prison, during talks with officials from Safer Leeds – a partnership between the council and police.
Ms Kennedy said: “This could be an ideal way of providing offenders with work experience.
“We were talking about what role the council could play with rehabilitation and I said, ‘You must need bin men’. I’m setting up a waste management qualification in the prison and I thought that this could be an ideal way of providing our offenders with work experience.”
Coun Peter Gruen, chair of Safer Leeds, said the authority is keen on the move but stressed there is “significant work to be done to assess all the options and implications”.
“Bridging the gap between prison and getting into employment on release is a key component of the work being done across the city to help break the cycle of re-offending,” he said.
“Employers – including the council – offering work experience with close supervision can give those nearing the end of their sentences the motivation and confidence they need to turn their lives around and divert them from further criminality.”
Ms Kennedy, who took charge of Armley jail in October, said employment opportunities were vital to offenders’ chances of staying on the right side of the law after prison.
In her first interview since she became governor, Ms Kennedy said: “Employers needn’t be scared of employing ex-offenders. They are coming back into our communities whether we like it or not. I would rather they were in gainful employment and were learning how to become responsible citizens than were being written off.”
Ms Kennedy, 52, was born and brought up in the Leeds area and went to Batley Girls’ Grammar School.
She worked in the probation service for 10 years and was a governor of Buckley Hall prison in Rochdale and deputy governor at Styal women’s prison in Cheshire before taking the job in Leeds. The category B prison holds up to 1,212 offenders. She said while some cannot be rehabilitated, the “vast majority” can and their time in custody should be used to teach them employability skills.
She plans to set up a “resettlement village” at the prison, for charities, employers and other organisations to help inmates prepare for release. “One thing we know is that having a stable job reduces people’s chances of getting back into crime,” she said.
Julie Thornton, employment services development manager for West Yorkshire Probation, said: “Employment can reduce the rate of reoffending by up to 50 per cent and is one of the most important factors in changing people’s lives.
“Any initiative that helps employers realise the benefits of working with offenders and ex-offenders is a good thing.”
How much work is being done by Unpaid Work/Community Payback projects that was formerly done by Council staff ? Answer ? LOADS
ReplyDeleteI've just noted this article regarding changes to the law about TUPE.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that the changes take effect from May 1st this year. With TR now being put back until June, I'm wondering if the changes may have any impact on those moving over to CRCs? Or indeed if it has any significance to TR as a whole?
Hopefully someone with more knowledge then me may be able to pick through it and see.
Sorry for straying of topic, and please feel free to delete this comment if it has no relevence.
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=010ea1bc-933f-4905-8cda-73a86f58a9c6
scalagouse makes a good point, I feel. There have been too many unanswered questions raised on this blog-site and elsewhere (local and national). The TUPE issue was raised when we met with our potential mutual CRC team. They told us TUPE didn't apply and that the MOJ could do almost what they wished. I'm not an employment lawyer. I have approached NAPO direct and asked questions. Some years back I wondered how the MOJ and NOMS could remove our employment status from permanent contract to three-year rolling contract (Area to Trust status), but no-one ever replied. I asked how they could dismantle our service on a national scale and give us ghost-employee status via NOMS, again I received no reply. The POA published a lengthy and very helpful article by Robinsons solicitors for their staff when there were issues of new contracts. I thought NAPO also used Robinsons? Why couldn't we have such advice provided in writing? Presumably that is the kind of advice we pay for through our subs?
ReplyDeleteAn excellent piece today Monsieur Brown, superbly headed with just enough words to define the Trusts' behaviour. Chapeau! Encore!
ReplyDeleteAnyone with access to EPIC can find the CRC Handbook and various other volumes of operational guidance prepared by the treacherous NOMS brigade.
ReplyDelete'Only following orders' but whatever happened to the much heralded Trust freedoms. The ideal logo for Trusts would be the three wise monkeys. You give them a grievance and they sidestep any duty of care and point to the Ministry. But they offer the comforting fig leaf of a Probation Institute and have the gall to refer to probation values - the very same values that were allowed to decay under their stewardship. There may be some honourable exceptions - there always are - but generally those in positions of leadership are a decadent bunch.
ReplyDeleteI think I read on this very blog a few weeks ago, that one trust had sent all their grievance letters to MoJ/Noms...only to be told, if I remember right..it was a local issue, nothing to do with MoJ/Noms. Seems it is not an issue anyone gives too hoots about, and so our very humanity and rights to air our grievance is lobbed between two intransigent organisations, who continue to treat us with contempt. Can't wait to get my assignment letter, to set about doing only what is expected of me under the terms of my job description, that is, if they ever get around to writing it.
ReplyDeleteThey will put off getting round to writing job descriptions as long as possible. Good luck with doing only what is expected in supposed job description as I am under the impression that things will be pretty much the same job description wise until share sale.
DeleteRe: TUPE. We are being transferred under COSOP (Cabinet Office Statement of Practice on Staff Transfers) and not TUPE so the same protections don't apply (although as we know, a business case soon does away with any protections under TUPE). TUPE has been under review for a while and I doubt very much that the outcome will favour employees.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it takes others to point out what you really know and I am now praying that the voluntary redundancy scheme will be extended so that as a PO I can go. When you read all of yesterday's posts about oral hearings and Parole Board behaviour you realise it just typifies why we are in this mess. Out professionalism has been eroded over the years and NO ONE ever speaks up for us. Don't get me wrong I think NAPO is the only exception but it hasn't the clout because we are not VALUED. This is because our senior managers have just jumped through any hoop placed in front of them. I hope any senior manager who reads this hangs their head in shame. Yes this is your fault, you never valued us so you never defended us and gradually who we are has been eroded.
ReplyDeleteToday I read that Serco, G4S, Capita, Athos are before a commons select committee.
ReplyDeleteI also read that an inquiry is being called for into the London CPS as budget cuts are causing cases to collapse.
I read too that fraudsters are using Universal Jobmatch in the job centre for scams.
Another article says prison officers from HMP Winson Green are being offered £500 bonusesand other incentives to work at Oakwood.
And just for fun Serco and G4S are proposed bidder as English Heritage is about to be outsourced.
I also read this.
http://m.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/crime/new-bid-to-cut-re-offending-in-hartlepool-while-concerns-raised-over-privatisation-of-probation-1-6399514
Can't help but think that as a nation we should all be concerned about it.
CONCERNS have again been raised around Government plans to privatise the probation service by councillors investigating how to cut re-offending rates in Hartlepool.
DeleteThe town, whose current re-offending rate stands at 35.6 per cent, has the second highest rate in the country and Hartlepool Borough Council is carrying out a scrutiny investigation to see what can be done to cut the figure, which has come down slightly over the past year.
But at a meeting of the audit and governance committee, members were concerned what impact the probation privatisation plans and payment by results would have.
In the 12-months up to last September, of the 1,720 offenders cautioned, convicted or released in the previous year, 612 re-offended committing a total of 2,029 offences.
Representatives of National Offender Management Service North East, Durham Tees Valley Probation Trust, Chief Inspector Lynn Beeston, of Cleveland Police and Mark Smith, head of integrated youth support services at the council spoke at the meeting.
Meanwhile, Hartlepool MP Iain Wright, who raised concerns about the introduction of payment by results, submitted a written response.
Mr Wright said: “My impression is that this will create an incentive for agencies to focus their attention primarily on those offenders easiest to rehabilitate and neglect the more difficult cases.”
Labour councillor Peter Jackson said: “Privatising the probation service I don’t believe is the right way forward.”
Independent councillor Keith Fisher said: “To go to payment by results is very dangerous.”
Chf Insp Beeston added: “Hartlepool still has one of the worst re-offending rates in the country, although it has improved.”
G4S or Serco for the new Heritage England? God forbid!!
DeleteWell I'll be cancelling my membership if that happens!
DeleteRe. 14.17. Wasn't Athos one of the Three Musketeers?
Deletehttp://www.thirdsector.co.uk/Management/article/1228759/English-Heritage-charity-licence-tendered-externally-eight-years/
DeleteThe Department for Culture, Media & Sport says that in 2019 it will review arrangements for the licence to manage the National Heritage Collection
DeleteThe new charity that will be spun out of English Heritage will have its licence to manage the 400-site National Heritage Collection guaranteed for only eight years, after which period the management contract could be tendered externally.
A Department for Culture, Media & Sport consultation document on the plans for EH says that in 2019, halfway into the eight-year programme to create a financially self-supporting charity, a review of "future contractual arrangements" will begin.
A DCMS spokeswoman confirmed that the review "will consider all options, including that the management of the collection should be tendered to other organisations".
A spokeswoman for EH said it did not anticipate losing the licence. "We have no reason to anticipate that the charity won't be successful," she said.
Because the licence is not granted under legislation, it "has to be subject to being reviewed and tendered under EU law like other contracts", the EH spokeswoman said.
She also said that Historic Royal Palaces, which manages five London properties including the Tower of London, operates with similar 10-year contract arrangements. HRP, originally founded in 1989, was made a charity in 1998 by the Department of National Heritage, a predecessor of DCMS.
A spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union, which has members both in the head office and at EH sites, said: "Private firms have proved time and time again they are incapable of maintaining the level of quality and reliability of service that exists in the public sector because of the need to cut costs to maximise profit.
"It would be catastrophic for our much-loved heritage attractions if they were handed to the likes of G4S, Serco or Capita to be run on these lines."
Paul Pugh, head of third sector services at the law firm Eversheds, said: "When considering national treasures, the key consideration is ensuring appropriate stewardship of the assets and, in general terms, this can be built into the procurement process and legal structuring.
"The proposals being suggested reflect the direction of travel towards different models of public service delivery in the UK, which is leading to a blurring of public, private and third sector as we move towards small government."
http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/01/28/comment-my-bill-will-protect-the-public-from-more-privatisat
ReplyDeleteApologies if this is a repeat, but highlights damage of moj inquiry to serco's business:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d42e298-1c8c-11e3-8894-00144feab7de.html
Not my normal read, and with little information on TR I thought this may make an interesting read for anyone like myself who doesn't get any sleep anymore.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newstatesman.com/2014/01/choking-death-should-we-stop-sending-women-prison
Gemma learned a lot from prison. On her first day in HMP Styal, eight years ago, she learned how to take heroin and crack cocaine. “I didn’t tell the girls I hadn’t done them before – I just wanted to fit in,” she tells me when we meet at Brighton Oasis Project, a charity for women with drug or alcohol addictions. By her second jail sentence, at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey in early 2013, she’d been taught how to “load up” with drug-filled condoms before her court date and how to avoid being “decrotched”: “when someone watches the cell door and they use a spoon to take the drugs out from inside of you”.
DeleteGemma says she didn’t know before prison that if you slit your wrists the blood can spurt so high it hits the ceiling – but self-harm was so common at Bronzefield that a deep-clean team was often called in to mop up the bloodstains, and the staff carried knives to cut ligatures from inmates’ necks. One woman repeatedly tried to hang herself but the guards “didn’t do anything to stop it. They just put her on meds and kept on cutting her down.”
According to a study published in the Lancet in December, a quarter of female prisoners self-harm, and 102 female inmates self-harmed more than 100 times in one year. Self-harm is more common among women in prison than men: women make up 5 per cent of the UK’s prison population but account for 28 per cent of self-harm cases.
I first meet Gemma at Boppers, a mother-and-baby group in Brighton run by Oasis, for women whose children have been placed on a child protection plan by social services. We all sit on nursery-size chairs making peg-angels. Gemma’s six-month-old son, David, is gurgling happily in her lap and when she whispers “heroin and crack” she gently places her hands over his ears. David was born while Gemma was in prison; she gave birth in front of two female prison guards she’d never met before. She says she was fortunate that two women happened to be on shift that day. David and Gemma spent a month in hospital together following complications she believes could have been caused by prison nurses reducing her methadone dose during pregnancy. Two officers – men and women – stood guard beside her hospital bed 24 hours a day, so she felt unable to breastfeed.
“Prison doesn’t help you, it does the opposite. I came out angrier,” she says. “They should give you a chance to turn your life around, but instead they just send you to prison, lock the door and you lose a bit of time. The same people are coming in and out of prison.”
(A longish article but well worth a read.)