TR Week Eight

For the first time in many years I feel genuinely stressed with work. I have felt demotivated for months now. But the change wrought up on us has meant that my case load has slightly come down but my report writing has doubled. It's not doable. So I keep trying to write good reports as I always did but my work otherwise suffers. What was a nice office to work in these last years has seen most of us become more hassled, less inclined to help and more short fused. It's all very sad. Thank goodness it's Friday and I can forget about the mess that is probation for a couple of days.

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Just left work now, but could easily have stayed until Sunday night. Cannot cope with the work, its coming from every angle like projectile vomit. My head is pounding and I don't know which task to do next they are all a priority. Please someone SORT IT OUT. What an utter mess.

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Told the boss today my workload is crazy, I'm making mistakes & it's dangerous. She said "they have it worse in the next county".

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Assistant Chief said there is national shortage of Probation Officers. Not enough staff to cover the governments proposed agenda. Whoops!

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The whole idea of Chris Grayling's reform was that people would be released from their local prison. Except they won't. Cos jails are full.

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Probation officers in Court now not allowed to have printed copies of court results, go into court offices or see a judge unless accompanied
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Court NPS now prioritising Breaches of orders in favour of the NPS to detriment of CRCs. Breaches being abandoned!
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Apparently the probation email system has been hit by a virus - meaning no emails are to be sent. Oasys was updated at the weekend too - only to botch up what was already awful - it seems that assessments and reports completed this morning and yesterday could have been completely lost.

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No OASys, no email. Apparently Delius was working but no one can tell.

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I'm in NPS and I have a higher caseload than before the split. Of course now all of them are high risk. Numbers of oral hearings are going to increase three fold because of a recent Supreme Court ruling. Also when a case is transferred to NPS because of risk concerns it then stays with NPS permanently. These issues together with loads of PSR's make my job completely untenable. NAPO really needs to sharpen up its operation and communicate this to the people in power.

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The other month, for the first time in my career, I felt unsafe during a prison visit. Free flow of prisoners but not enough staff to open doors to allow them to get where they were going. I won't be going back any time soon - videolinks it is for me for now. I am genuinely worried about staff and prisoners who have no choice but to be there. It's going to be a long hot summer. 

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In relation to the IT problems...I do hope that once it is resolved, an entry will automatically be placed onto every case, that due to technical problems any records, reports, risk management or sentence plans that may have been completed after Sunday 20/7 to - the date fixed. This will safeguard staff in the event that anything occurs during this period resulting in an SFO or if your integrity and competency is questioned.

I have done 3 SDR's in this period, and will be mightily pissed if they have to reset the system, wiping out all that work. Oh and I am telling Judges why no information has been received from external agencies - cos our Email system is rubbish. Those dreaded Case Allocation Forms - they ask before each section, have you had time to consult with others etc -- well, no is the answer, as the Courts timetables don't work around our IT maintainers ability to provide and maintain.

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Oasys not working again today. Pressure is on from every angle but we do not have the IT to do our jobs, its chaos upon chaos. Who ever gets voted in hurry up and sort this mess out. From meltdown Manchester.

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Was told of 17 year old sent to prison because court worried about probation chaos & he wouldn't be safely managed when he hit 18.

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Something in my working day needs to give, so I can safely manage my dramatically increased workload.

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Seeing more examples of people being given different jobs / promotions. What ever happened to a competitive, unbiased interview?

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These retiring chiefs and professional managers who insist “Probation is always changing” (while sweeping their arms in a circular shape) and that “these structures just come and go and the spirit of probation will always live on” are just deluding themselves. TR is not just another incarnation, it distills all that is bad in the last twenty years and destroys everything that was good. The time will come when we will have to pick up the pieces and I hope that someone, somewhere will have the guts to stand up for social work.

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I am so relieved to arrive home and to feel safe. I know it sounds mad but everyone is so stressed we have a constant under tow of aggression in our office now, where previously we all got on and I feel anxious all of the time. This can not be repaired.

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It's sad that we are made to feel like this at work, all the goodwill and case discussion we had to enhance our practice is gone. I would be very surprised it the private companies would be interested in such a demoralised workforce.

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MARAC report to write for a colleague on leave. Thought it would be straight forward but the prison have taken the OASys and NPS have got the Delius because there's a new PSR needed.I know nothing about this man. It's ludicrous.

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Dear Bidder. My work is meaningless and without value and so will your shares be. Total Quality Management in action a la Grayling...

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Went to see NPS manager I am CRC shafted. He wasn't in his office so I had a sneaky look at a memo on his desk from CEO, I know its wrong, but there's a war now and we need all the information we can get to see what they are up to. Anyway the memo said to offer all NPS jobs to those that have just qualified and did not get PO jobs post split for a fixed term with a view to permanent jobs, and for all those who had previously applied for NPS jobs such as agency staff and are on the reserve list. 

This makes a mockery of the shafting once again, so as we were all made to feel like shit they are now offering our jobs to those who were not even subject to the degradation of the shafting process, were is there transparency and fairness in this? Dirty Bastards. By the way this was from an office in dismantled Manchester.

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They seem to be treating CRC shafted staff like they have scurvy, they seem to have forgotten that we had no choice in this, and it seems there is no way back. They would rather employ anyone that can read and write rather than give the post to CRC staff, so much for the "most experienced staff" that was banded about to humiliate us and make us feel that we were somehow less experienced, and worthy, bullshit. 

With the sort of staff now being employed by NPS such as newly qualified, inexperienced agency staff this makes a mockery of those that were shafted into CRC. Well done Grayling you have managed to manufacture a service that will struggle to meet the demands of managing serious cases, arsehole, this goes against your objectives of the shafting process and shows how fundamentally flawed it was.

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MoJ is trying to "have its cake and eat it too". If CRCs snd NPS are separate organisations then how can NPS say it will only employ staff from CRCs on secondment? This is presumably to "protect" a loss of staff from CRCs but that's not the concern of NPS. Can this secondment restriction not be challenged nationally I wonder? Needs to be raised with Unions.

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West Midlands is seriously going downhill. We need urgent unannounced inspections which will reveal dangerous practices. If there are any journalists looking for a story... here's your chance.

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PSR "Unfortunately, due to the recent split of the probation service into two separate entities I no longer have access to detailed records'

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Told publicly owned CRC's are currently excluded from increasing establishment due to possible share sale. What happen's if workload increases in the meantime? Is this decision putting public safety at risk?