Sunday 5 October 2014

TR Week Eighteen Part 1

Not all senior managers are complicit with TR. There are many vocalising their frustration and concern too.

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Yes they are! NONE of them are demonstrating anything other than fully complicit behaviour (with the TR agenda) to the staff group NONE OF THEM.

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I am just someone who believes what I have witnessed with my own eyes and ears. All of the demands are made by Senior Management with no thought for those at the bottom of the food chain, like me. We have been threatened that performance "must improve" ...or what??? They won't get their bonuses (and yes I KNOW they have performance related bonuses).

It is an appalling system and staff are working flat out with no regard, on the part of senior managers, for their well being. It is the senior managers who should exercise the duty of care to staff - not disregarding them and only speaking to those at the top, which is what is implied. They supposedly raise concerns but only with those at the top table - it bloody stinks! Who can check the truth of this? The evidence is overwhelming read the blogs, newsletters and attend a few away days!

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It saddens me to see a colleague feels so let down by the management team. I can't nor won't try to challenge you on your personal local experiences. However, I would agree with the other anonymous post and strongly challenge the notion that none of the managers are challenging TR. As a manager myself, yes I hold staff to account for the work they are required to do, but do so with consideration of the situation they find themselves in. 

We have missed targets where I assess we did all we could (all things considered) and none of my staff were threatened or left hanging out to dry! I raise the concerns regularly higher up the manager chain and try to keep staff informed. However, let's remember that within our workforce many locations have for years been carrying dead wood. It is these people that we can no longer carry - not that I'm making excuses as many hard working staff are putting their all in and then some!!

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Where? To whom? I only see the happy flappy smiling faces and blogs and all the b***ocks about innovation. So a quiet word expressing a bit of misgiving doesn't cut it, I'm sorry. We need someone with a bit of courage to say out loud that this really is not working and post share sale it will get extremely bitter and dangerous. Fiddling whilst Rome burns is bang on..worrying about minute process nonsense with no sense of the bigger picture.

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I don't speak in defence of the collaborators or, in some cases, the architects of TR but... Presumably They are trapped in a dilemma of their own making; to speak out openly & explicitly as a critic of TR and all it stands for they will have to (1) be prepared not to have a job anymore and/or (2) be prepared to pay the price of any gagging order they signed when taking the shilling.

I can't think of any other reason why rational human beings would persist in believing this omnishambles is anything other than a fucking disaster.


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Doesn't look like colleagues PSO up to SPO will be losing jobs in CRC and NPS so I have heard in the pub as there isn't enough to do the work. Looks like terms, job description and pay will.

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The Grayling Paradox
Our senior managers are caught in the perfect storm of Grayling's making. Firstly they all embraced TR (well did any single Trust SMT not implement TR processes?), then they either took Grayling's thirty pieces of silver (EVR) and walked away or remained in post. For the majority who remain, they have the dual responsibility for making TR work (thereby sustaining their own careers) and being fully accountable should it unravel (thereby jeopardising their own careers). They, for example, had responsibility and ownership for the staff split. Yet they also would be the ones to have to report to NOMS/MOJ on its implementation. What's in it for them to report upon their own managerial failures? Well, I guess integrity, but perhaps that's why they have lost the hearts and minds of the staff, they are now seen as having none......


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I feel duty bound to report that, as a Branch Chair, I attended a Testgate meeting with representatives from the MoJ and Cabinet Office. I was present throughout this meeting and can report that the senior managers (inc CEO) present at this meeting made it absolutely clear that this operating model has massive flaws in it and that the current split was causing a huge number of difficulties, particualry in the NPS, which are undermining the CRC in our area. 

NONE of the senior managers present have got VR and all of them are critical of TR, despite having to implement it. There is a lot of talk on here about CEOs and other managers colluding with TR unquestioningly. I can report that this is not always the case and that the MoJ ARE aware of the problems. If they report that everything is going well, they are doing so IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT IT IS NOT.

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As the MoJ are in denial and you report that some CEOs are not, then it would seem they are only expressing their doubts behind closed doors. On the other hand, we do read some of the upbeat stuff that CEO's circulate to their workforces. Are some of these CEO's the same ones who express doubts about 'massive flaws'? 

Given the serious threats posed by TR, is it defensible to say one thing in public and something else in private? If you do say something in public that you don't actually believe and if you become part of the spin in the process, then isn't this a form of collusion, as it enables the MoJ to misrepresent the facts of TR? They may not be colluding with TR 'unquestioningly' but aren't they colluding quiescently?

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Well said! What are we to believe? Everything I have been involved with from regional union meetings with senior managers present to team meetings with my own line manager, supports the view that senior managers ARE saying very positive "let's make this work" stuff. Their blogs, tweets and newsletters also support this view. If what Anon says is correct, it is really extraordinary? Also I understood the union was asking for information on Testgate. How come a branch chair is attending such meetings?

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Because my CEO asked me to attend. He also told me not to hold back. I didn't, but didn't need to because he was saying as much as I was. They know. And they know we know that they know. It is Orwellian.

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Is a Kafkaesque nightmare.

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Add the Orwellian element as raised earlier (they know we know they know its shit, but they won't admit that its shit or that they know its shit) and the next six months are going to be more bizarre, depressing, distressing and unpleasant than we've ever known.

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And it's all going to be over the Christmas & New Year period AGAIN - last year we had the selection process going on and we didn't know where we'd end up. What a year - I've aged considerably.

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Re the role of middle managers. In my area north of England TR is largely being propped up by retired managers being invited back by their mates to supplement their pensions and disappear without any consequences for them after the damage is done.

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TR is a complete shambles! In my area the accountability game is in full flow, seems that any potential risk escalation is whipped up to NPS no questions asked, even if the PO in CRC doesn't agree with it. We seem to be up-tariffing offenders due to TR because CRC's don't want any potential trouble landing at their door. The days of focusing on the case that sits before you has gone, now we're over-escalating risk in order to cover our backs, with the cases suffering the consequences.

I've heard that CRCs will continue to get paid for cases that transfer to NPS which will make this kind of practice more common. Re the role of middle managers, there are plenty who are against TR and are vocal about it, however they are in the minority. Lots of new managers in my area.

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Admin in our CRC office moaning cos they have to open cases remotely for other offices miles away - they better get used to it. Although officially based in X you can easily be directed to Y as and when to cover holiday/sickness or whatever (i'd say training but that's v unlikely).

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PAM (platform for achieving more) is a tool for project management. A) It isn't secure. B) After 5 years, the 12 (twelve) Derbys users who were originally given licences, were so impressed, DLNR decided it might be a good thing to roll out. It's that good! It makes an absolute dogs dinner of anything simple you might want to achieve. It certainly fills your time trying to use the bloomin' thing, if that's what they mean by achieving more. Another useless bit of kit from the purveyors of magic beans.

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Restorative Justice: All the Police and Crime Commissioners have been given a budget to spend for restorative justice. The Target Operating Model (TOM) for TR highlights how the plan is for PCCs to directly commission CRCs to do RJ for them and the process will be exempt from any bidding or competition - CRCs can just be given the work and get paid for it by PCCs. It doesn't make it clear if this is as well as RJ as part of Rehabilitation Activity Requirements or instead of. Will CRCs be able to get paid twice for one piece of work and if so will they make as many RARs RJ as possible just to make money?

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Restorative Justice: where terrified victims get nasty letters from Solicitors when the case is RIC awaiting sentence. If they don't give the scrote who made them go through the courts process by going not guilty, a chance to say s/he is actually really not threatening or devious or manipulative at all. If you have a theory that isn't proven by experimentation and observation, it is WRONG. RJ is just plain WRONG. It has been tried and failed so many times, only fools don't understand it doesn't work often enough to make it viable. They should scrap it (again). It makes probation look bad.

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RJ works when no-one is forced and no-one gains only in my opinion as a trained facilitator!

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I just love all these (funded), programmes that are springing up all over the place at the moment. Some I believe are great ideas. However, when the programmes are by private companies it all changes. They'll have to sell their services, but for how much? They'll need more I'm sure than the private companies recruiting their services are willing to pay. So, they'll have to take on more offenders at a lower price, or cut staff and quality of service, OR, sell the whole programme to a prime to take it 'in house', and then be subjected to stripping back as with everything else they do to provide their share holders with maximum profits.

That was a massive problem for the work programme, and hundreds of millions of pounds in funding were lost as a consequence - just ask A4e!! Grayling knows this as the PbR model applied to the work programme was his baby. But he still gets paid, so why give f*** if he makes the same mistake again?

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If you consider all aspects of private sector involvement in probation, there must be a vast amount of legal issues present that do not appear to have been taken into consideration. In fact, it's almost like the legal complications (and liabilities) for private sector involvement in probation work has never been considered past the point of 'can we sell it or can't we'?

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What is the legal standpoint of private companies if they failed to adequately address someone's risk of re-offending, and they went on to reoffend? Would the victim be able to sue under Tort laws or similar?

Just a query as I'm unsure what to do with myself once I get the sack and might jump into bed with some ambulance chasing lawyers on what could possibly be a new get rich scheme (I'm begin slightly flippant there).

I'm not sure if ANY private company would be too impressed if they kept getting hit with legal action every time there was a new offence? Might even put a few off from bidding if they knew this was just round the corner. What then for Probation.....

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Staff in Yorks going off sick at an alarming rate. PSR's reaching crisis as CRC officers refusing to do them for the pitiful amount they get for an FDR. I have to say there is a lack of leadership and close to meltdown here. An absolute scandal in terms of how they assist officers with stress. Threaten capabilities and disciplinaries rather than thinking outside the box and giving ideas on how to help front line officers with their caseloads. What are other areas like? I am in the NPS. Senior management are all conspiring with the MOJ in my view. They do not appear to give a flying toss about staff. It's actually easier to go off sick as if you stay behind you still have your head above the parapet and risk the sack if an SFO occurs. Staff on sick come back on reduced caseloads and all sins forgiven due to illness.

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In our office in Manchester there are 5 people of sick leave which leaves just 3 NPS staff to cover a very busy inner city office. There are more agency staff than permanent staff. I don't know where all this is going to end. Like I wrote last week, things have got alarmingly worse, 'teething problems' and all that bollocks is nonsense. It is absolutely horrible, my feet feel like they have had concrete poured onto them It's becoming more and more difficult to motivate myself to go to work. It feels like all the services nationwide are now beginning to experience the meltdown that we had from day one.

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Sadly you are right. We can see it coming and CEO's doing fuck all to stop it. Won't get agency in here. Rather see staff going off sick. They think they are saving cash and being clever but at the same time they are actually paying full time wages for folks to stay at home in their pj's for 6 months at a time watching Loose women and reruns of fucking Murder she wrote. That is where the problem lies. If you have had a month off your sickness record is as shite as it is, you may as well do the 6 months than come back and make yourself sicker. Can't get the blame for an SFO, cant get put on a capability, can't be disciplined, still the money in the bank at the end of the month. Can't blame them but, sadly I am old school and not in my make up. I feel for you bro!!!

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The situation in Northumberland is even worse than Sunderland. Ashington is the CRC office, Blyth is NPS and Hexham, Alnwick and Berwick are shared. It's now taking well over an hour for many clients to travel to appointments and attenders at Blyth are also being labelled in their small communities. From managing Hexham with a PO, part time PSO and part time admin, we now need a CRC PO, an NPS PO, a CRC PSO and an NPS PSO as well as specialist report writers. There are only three rooms. They don't all fit in. Thank you for remembering the impact on admin. They have been treated very badly during the split. The complete and utter chaos and dangerousness created by TR is unimaginable.

14 comments:

  1. It is an interesting aspect of this debacle. Managers in Probation and in any other services have always had a corporate responsibility to present a united front and to implement service developments they may not wholly embracce. It is the nature of business. Normally, however, the disagreements over direction of travel are nuanced and it is not that difficult to represent an idea you are not wholly in favour of. In fact, it is more responsible to represent the idea as legitimate in order to ensure it's acceptance by the mainstream workforce.

    The trouble with TR is that it is so far off the mark in terms of everything we understand about effective practice and requires us to bellieve in these 'experienced providers' who we KNOW to be incapable of dealing with the issues that the continuation of a senior management's collective responsibility looks increasing incongruent. You cannot have an SMT that is fighting among itself but, never in the history of the management of offenders in the community has so much insanity been allowed to fester at the heart of what we do. Our sneior managers have been totally compromised by Grayling's Folly. His unwillingness to listen has create the farce of respected professionals having to support dysfunctional structures and implement untenable policy changes. It's a disgrace.

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    1. No, they do not "have to support it" the SMT did and does have a choice, some of the changes are being actively developed by them! Also they have a voice strong enough to challenge the IT debacle and have not done so. The IT is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE and is a significant business risk ( in terms of lost productivity and growing staff sickness). SMTs have been lazy in understanding the new processes leaving it to middle managers and staff in a sort of 'just make it work and don't bother me with the trivialities' sort of way......They have let us all down.

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  2. And still NAPO waits for the Testgate results...tick tock. 5 days to save Probation. Announce JR at the AGM or its all over.

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    1. NAPO aren't gonna announce a JR. They will have list if excuses as to why they aren't.

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    2. I believe JR is close, final evidence being collected, have faith

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    3. If an EM is not used to question pursuit of JR, questions can still be put to National Officers/GS in AGM accountability session.As Andrew Selous isn't coming there's extra time though imo there should always be preference to give time for members concerns as opposed to guest speakers

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  3. I have been speaking to National Napo about taking my particular case forward to an Employment Tribunal. They seem to have no interest in going down this route and instead are advising staff to use to use the staffing commission (which was set up as part of the National Agreement).

    I have been told 'There are a number of cases that we are going to refer to the staff commission, but this will not be until after the Napo AGM'.

    My concern is reading somewhere (was it in the Target Operating Model or the CRC handbook?) that if employees use the staffing commission, they give up their right for an Employment Tribunal. Can anyone confirm this?

    It seems that any employees with legitimate grievances and the energy left to fight are being led (by Napo) down a path away from Employment Tribunals towards a staffing commission which in turn will help TR run very smoothly.

    Well done Napo. Great job. But who are you working for?

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    1. What is this Staff Commission? Anyone have any details?

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    2. Napo nationally, in my experience, been resistant to supporting applications to employment tribunals. Even more so lately, no doubt because it involves a fee. There is no detail on the staff commission in the framework agreement, only that one will be established to deal with issues that arise as a direct result of transfers. Nothing in it about superseding an ET. There is supposed to be a Joint Circular according to Branch Briefing: BR94/2014, but I don't know if it has been issued, as it should have all the details. An appeals body similarly established to deal with job evaluation disputes, but it did not involve waiving rights to an employment tribunal.

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  4. write to NAPO and formally request support for ET, being mindful of the v tight deadlines

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    1. I have. They are pushing the staffing commission instead.

      I have to say, it concerns me. Are they doing this to everyone with a view to avoid Employment Tribunals?

      I know our CRC will do whatever they can to avoid Employment Tribunals. Why? Would it scare off bidders? Delay share sale? I say let's try it and see!

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    2. This sounds very concerning-you have to apply for an ET within 3mths minus 1 day of the issue of grievance/discrimination. As I understand it to get Napo backing you have to submit(with a local Napo rep)a summary of your case(I believe there's a form you have to complete with your rep)asap after the issue of complaint and Napo liaise with solicitors to check if its a case likely to succeed and if it passes their criteria, you get support with yr case including loan for ET fees( you repay if win I think). I don't understand why your case would be diverted elsewhere to this staffing commission unless they dont think you have a case OR the view might be you could go via ET route if staff commission result is considered to be the triggrr for grievance? Eithrr way you should be getting clear explanation from national Napo

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    3. Thank you. I've asked for some clarification. Hoping to hear more by end of day on Monday, including whether or not staff commission stops any future employment tribunal. I'll see what is said.

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  5. Staff commission has not been appointed yet! Please ask NAPO to support you to ET and if answer is no ask them to reconsider they have a panel looking at such issues I think so appeal quickly. Remember three months minus one day clock is ticking! Make sure your branch chair is involved too and great good luck!

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