Friday 16 January 2015

A Hint of Things to Come

Two snippets that give a hint of things to come as the TR omnishambles moves up a gear:-
I have heard from colleagues who have attended the Purple Futures workshop. Main thing is that from March things will start being implemented but it won't be until November that we will really see the changes. Each OM is going to have a budget per offender to spend as they so wish on programmes - £2k for lower risk ones. It also seems clear that there is going to be a new offender database that will replace Delius and there will be a much bigger emphasis on remote working with encrypted tablets. Minimum requirements per 12 month Order is 6. Very much focused on £ following risk and our current working practices changing almost beyond recognition.
BTH Oct 2011 - Group Photo 2
Partners and Social Entrepreneurs Sought in London and the Thames Valley 
aBandofBrothers are part of the novo consortium that will be combining with MTC to run the CRCs in London and the Thames Valley. As part of the supply chain, we will be expanding our rites of passage based personal transformation and mentoring programme in the region over the course of the next 18 months.We are conscious of how we might be seen by others in the sector. One group may see us as having “sold out” to the corporates. Another may have concerns about us assuming that we know their area and their client group and judge us as arrogant for thinking we should grow.
We want to assure everyone that this is not the case. We know we have much to learn about the unique characteristics of new areas and about the challenges of working with different cultures and sub cultures. However we do believe that we have something of value to offer – both to other organisations and to individual young men, struggling to put their life on track after a period in custody. So we’d like to start by offering people from the wider sector an opportunity to experience our methodology and start to build a relationship with you and also build a network of like-minded souls. 
We are running a weekend residential workshop from 20th to 22nd of February for those interested. We are at this point, primarily looking for senior leaders from the sector who would be in a position to commit their organisation to a partnership. We’re also looking for connected and capable social or Civic entrepreneurs interested in our approach. 
Finally, I just wanted to mention and congratulate the so-far-unidentified probation officer who put that pompous arse David Starkey in his place last night on BBC1's Newsnight. During a spontaneous intervention, she made the point that long experience of dealing with sex offenders had demonstrated that "it does no one any good to blurr the boundaries between childhood and adulthood."

The topic being discussed was the astounding sentencing remarks by Judge Joanna Greenberg QC in the case of the 44 year-old male teacher found guilty of having sex with a 16 year-old female pupil. This in the Daily Telegraph:-

Judge Joanna Greenberg QC said it was apparent that the victim had become "obsessed" with Kerner. She told him: "Her friends described her, accurately in my view, as stalking you. "If grooming is the right word to use, it was she who groomed you, (and) you gave in to temptation."

The judge said Kerner was "emotionally fragile" due to complications with his wife's pregnancy. This did not excuse his behaviour, she said, but it did help explain why someone with an "exemplary" character would commit such offences.
Starkey was being rather more obnoxious than usual and basically tried to shift the blame onto the child for 'seducing' the teacher. The robust intervention from our colleague nicely disabused him of this notion. It seems the Attorney General can investigate the remarks, but cannot review the sentence. This in the Independent.

As an aside, I find it hard to believe that Tory junior minister Anna Soubry was ever a barrister as she strikes me as not being particularly bright, but there again, she shares that trait with quite a few politicians in my view. This comment left earlier seems to sum things up nicely:-

Question Time was a crease tonight. David Starkey in fine shithead form referring to Muslims as medieaval & finding teenage girls guilty of seducing (he thought it was a more accurate term than grooming) married men. A Probation Officer in the audience got half a word in about sexual offending behaviour, but it wasn't of interest to the Dimble. Some guy (Mehdi) from Huffington Post (Whats that?!?) was very eloquent in the first instance, but then slipped into making snide asides, which (whilst Starkey deserved them) rather spoiled the first impression. Tory minister in denial about the state of the nation & irritated with LibDem panellist, whilst Labour Minister was forgettable. Is this what we have to look forward to with TV debates?

17 comments:

  1. Me Kerner, let me introduce you to Mr Ched Evans, he'll be able to talk you through the need to retrain, as you will never teach again

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  2. Interesting the need for partnerships in the Thames Valley as MTC have terminated a number of current charity partnership in Thames Valley as of 31 March 2015. Left several small charities high and dry but as long as MTC make a profit what does it matter.

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  3. I thought Huffington Post mans "snide aside" to Starkey - " Katie Hopkins with a PhD" was quite apt. Labour man Douglas Alexander made the most sense of the lot. The Tory Thatcher wanabee was hilarious.

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    1. Anna Soubry, darling of Central TV until Carlton came along. She trained as a barrister, had a few dinners with some posh folks, got asked to the Bar (what'll it be, love?) - probably matey with King Kenny (Clarke) then re-invented herself as a Tory MP, and its been all downhill from there.

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  4. Maybe come 2 Feb 2015 we should apply the Kraft-Cadbury test to probation service provision, i.e. the reduction in staffing (wholesale redundancies), loss of world-renowned quality, use of outsourcing & penny-pinching at every opportunity. Nothing is sacred.

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  5. In derby the RRP private company are also talking about bringing in tablets and changing the IT system.

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  6. Redundancies? There wont be any. Change of term & conditions will make people leave.

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  7. CRC staff are going to hardly be in the office - they seem to want us out circulating in the community - estates are going to be drastically cut back There is going to be DOS (Directory of Services) I think this will contain a raft of voluntary or charity type agencies so with our £2k we can buy services off them.

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    1. Lone working procedures? As a female I'm not at all happy about doing daily HV's with no one having much idea where I'm at or if I'm safe!!!

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    2. loads of responsibility being placed on individuals such as they're you're clients so you're responsible for your assessment however you and I know that real life is not like that.

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  8. anyone else heard that the CRC workload management tool is now operational but only TMs have access to it and information will only be shared in supervision - absolutely outrageous.

    the fact that it was transparent has allowed members of teams on many occasions to use it as a guage against their colleagues. I know in my office there's a click and whilst i'd like to think the TM would not give anyone preferential treatment I 100% believe it should be available for all to see. What do you all think?

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    1. Some people have workload adjustments due to sickness/ disability etc that may be confidential so I don't mind not being able to compare. Saying that, I have a great SPO whom I trust implicitly. Might feel differently otherwise.

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    2. makes no difference - they can still have a 100% weighting of their caseload and in any event we can still see the actual caseload. How come I can see they have 60 cases but not see what their WLM is?

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    3. We havent got a WMT yet; are still evaluating what everyone else is starting to use. The question remains tho', (and it is one I have asked) how can any CRC draw up a realistic WMT before Feb 1st when they dont actually know yet what the workload is going to be - as the new employers havent told us in detail yet what they've agreed to provide under PbR and what we will need to do to achieve this? I would query your WMT on this ground alone for starters, Anon 18:36.
      Deb

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  9. Off topic, but I don't recall this ever being noted on the blog.

    "Transforming rehabilitation contract documentation"

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-rehabilitation-company-contracts

    Zip file with a whole wealth of info about CRC contract terms.

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  10. Umm - with the recent antics in Saudi there does seem to be a whiff of the medieval about this week. If I was beheading an average of one person a week I'd try and keep my sword sharp. I mean - three chops to cut a woman's head off - that's going to take ages. Je suis Raif.

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  11. Interesting that Working Links were advertising for staff to work in Saudi.

    'Our current work is largely focused in the Middle East, specifically in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We are working with governmental and private sector organisations to help them bring labour market initiatives from strategic concept to operational reality. In most cases, we are an embedded team, working as part of existing teams of professionals focused on employment, skills and other labour market projects.'

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