Omnishambles Update 55

Lets start this bumper Saturday edition with some typical PR breathless hype. Despite all reports coming in as to the reality of the situation one month into the TR omnishambles, here's a CRC advert for probation officers that are urgently required :- 

"We are looking for enthusiastic and committed individuals to join our forward thinking team of staff within the newly formed Staffordshire & West Midlands CRC. 

In addition to a sound knowledge of the principles of effective practice, we are looking to appoint Probation Officers who are resourceful and innovative, who able to respond flexibly to changing priorities, to work to tight deadlines and be committed to promoting our aims and values."

Interestingly, in addition to all the usual guff including 'quality of eOASys completion', an 'ability to supervise PSO grade staff' is required. In the present climate and state of uncertainty and staff morale, good luck to them in filling these PO posts. 

But of course such has been the utter shambles resulting from the split that the NPS is also desperately advertising for PO's as well:-

Yesterday our Assistant Director asked us to urgently supply her a list of all PO vacancies as she needs to arrange for a recruitment advert to go out. I wonder how CRC POs will feel? Will they apply and then leave CRC understaffed or will they say stuff it! It all seems a mess.

The London CRC PR people have been busy trying to present a positive image too with this 'day in the life of' piece that many seasoned and jaded PO's might find difficult to recognise:-

A day in the life of a newly qualified Probation Officer

Background
I qualified mid 2012, after coming to probation as an administrator, and a court reporter from the banking sector when I was looking for a change. My degree is in criminology, so this is an area I’ve always wanted to work in – so training to be a probation officer was a natural progression. I love it. No two days are ever the same, and I love the feeling of being mentally exhausted at the end of the day and knowing I’ve used my brain.


Morning
My day begins at 7.45am when I arrive in the office and sit down and check my emails and catch up on anything that comes in overnight. Depending upon whether anything is urgent, I may have to reorganise my day.

Around 8.30am I wrote a letter of recommendation for a client that finished their suspended sentence, who wanted to get their licence back early following completion of a Drink Impaired Drivers programme.

At 9.30am I get up from desk and grab a coffee, and then get on with writing reports until 11am, when I have my first appointment. As a morning person, I find this to be my most productive time of the day.

I see three to four people per day from Tuesday to Thursday. The appointments last around 30 minutes, unless a client wants to talk through problems.



Generally clients have appointment weekly, bi weekly or monthly depending upon close supervision they require. I keep Fridays and Mondays as clear as I can so I can write these up. In between my appointments I write up meeting notes on the computer system. Somewhere between 12pm and 2pm, I grab lunch and eat it at my desk.

Afternoon
At 2pm, I meet a client to go shopping. He has been in a hostel for a longtime, and has recently been given housing by his local authority. The Sheriff and Recorders Fund at the Old Bailey gave him a grant of £100, to go towards household items – so it is my job to keep hold of the money until he has purchased what he needed. We went shopping for a microwave and kettle. It was a good chance to catch up in an informal setting.

For the rest of the day I finish reports, complete OASys reviews, reply to emails, return phone calls and check my diary to make sure I am prepared for the next day.

Rewarding
I love the responsibility of being a Probation Officer. I’m glad I retrained. I wanted something to test my brain, and although the job can be daunting at times, I love the feeling of going home mentally tired at night.”

As yet we have no idea as to who will end up buying and running the CRC's, but as the privateers make their final decisions on whether to place a bid or not, people like Debbie Ryan might like to be reminded of what drives people like us in the public sector. I notice that with exquisite timing the Committee on Standards in Public Life have just published a report on ethics, summarised thus:-

The Seven Principles of Public Life
The Seven Principles of Public Life apply to anyone who works as a public office-holder. This includes all those who are elected or appointed to public office, nationally and locally, and all people appointed to work in the civil service, local government, the police, courts and probation services, NDPBs, and in the health, education, social and care services. All public office-holders are both servants of the public and stewards of public resources. The Principles also have application to all those in other sectors delivering public services.

SELFLESSNESS
Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest.

INTEGRITY
Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.

OBJECTIVITY
Holders of public office must act and take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Holders of public office are accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.

OPENNESS

Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.

HONESTY

Holders of public office should be truthful.

LEADERSHIP

Holders of public office should exhibit these principles in their own behaviour. They should actively promote and robustly support the principles and be willing to challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.

There's more bad news for Chris Grayling as yet another top Judge delivers a blow to his plans for limiting Judicial Review, as reported here in the Guardian:-

Restrictions on judicial review challenges may be motivated more by a desire to avoid political embarrassment than the need to save money, a senior judge has suggested.

Appearing before the House of Lords constitution select committee, Lady Hale, deputy president of the supreme court, said she understood that ministers did not enjoy having their initiatives held up or overturned in the courts.

The Ministry of Justice is introducing measures in the criminal justice and courts bill currently before parliament that will make it more costly for NGOs to bring legal challenges against government or local authority decisions.

"I'm not sure that this is really a question of public resources," Hale told the committee. "I think the problem is, not surprisingly, that nobody who is running a government department, or who is operating in a government department, is very happy when somebody comes along and says the decision you have just taken is not in accordance with the law. Nobody likes that."

Private Eye tells us that the Parole Board are furious with Grayling for implying it was their fault that so-called 'skullcracker' was moved to a Cat D open prison, when in fact the enquiry he ordered has found it was his own public protection department that specifically excluded the Board's involvement.

We learn that the MoJ are trying to prevent news of prison disturbances becoming public knowledge and that prisoners were on the roof of HMP Dartmoor in sunny weather on 19th June. Apparently Grayling is furious to discover that they were offered sun cream by staff according to this BBC report :-

"The MoJ said sun cream was offered as part of a duty of care but declined by the prisoners."

There's an interesting piece on the Politics.co.uk website about risk registers that must make Grayling a little nervous too:- 

Iain Duncan Smith's latest effort to prevent the publication of documents warning of the dangers of universal credit has been dismissed by a judge.

You can see the desperation quite clearly now. IDS' team are throwing any old legal argument at the wall to see if it will stick. The judge's casual dismissal of the arguments seems to show a flicker of resentment at having to hear them at all.

Basically, this is IDS' worst nightmare: documentary evidence of the problems his department imagined universal credit could have, the scale of the problems which eventually transpired, and proof of whether they deliberately misled the public about the progress of the programme.

Finally, somewhat surprisingly the FT in a recent editorial questioned the whole business of outsourcing some functions of the state:-

"British governments of all political colours have been too promiscuous about transferring activities to the private sector. Not every public service lends itself to going private. The powers invested in the state for sensitive services such as prisons can never be adequately captured in a contract, and should not be supplied by private contractors. The government must control its temptation to outsource on all fronts. The rush to outsource the probation service is a case in point."

A pretty strong message there then, and not from the usual suspects like the Guardian either, but from the Financial Times!