Sunday 22 February 2015

Bleak Futures Week 8

We are struggling in our Court team and continue to deal with the full implications of ORA. For example, Court staff now have to serve licences on people who are released from custody having served their sentence on remand - but I wonder has anyone thought this through at management level? There is the issue of completing CAS + any other forms they can throw at us etc - and of course all the paperwork will be at hand in Court previous convictions etc etc.

I do not see the situation easing and whilst I am the eternal optimist - the situation we find ourselves in has the capacity to sink even further into the mire. We all know it on the coal face - THIS IS NOT WORKING. For me, I think it is time to get out.

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I'm confused. The recent inspection at HMP Northumberland states there are only 9 prisoners serving less than 12 months there. Why then have 7 PSO's from the CRC been put on notice that they may be directed to the prison to manage the Through The Gate cohort? Do Sodexo not know that most of their TTG's in Northumbria CRC will emerge from HMP Durham and the Courts?

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It is absolutely clear that the TTG service applies to all prisoners being discharged from a designated resettlement prison, irrespective of sentence length. MoJ have been clear about this all along - read the Target Operating Model - and bidders have been aware.

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Only 60% of the <12months cohort reoffend. Will we magically identify them and ignore the rest? Or focus on the 40% safer bets to maximise PBR profits? Of course there are the NPS <12months also who will not get TTG.

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Nobody will get TTG as it will not be set up in time for when this whole thing collapses. Why ANYONE would want to join TTG is beyond me and with staff now being directed to work there (some Saturdays included, not sure if your kids mind though) and this can only negatively impact on the desire to do the job properly. I can see TTG having the highest sick record of ANY department in Probation.

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I can't believe that it's not really known who TTG extends to. I thought like above it extended to all those leaving custody that were CRC bound. I hadn't even considered the NPS buying services. There is obviously cost attached to TTG as well as workload. Are the private sector about to realise the meaning of 'poison pill' contracts before they even get started? I think everyone just got so sick of hearing 12 months and under and £46 in their pocket, they just forget to ask.

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I'm not sure how happy the CRC's will be providing services for short sentenced Sex Offenders. There's a lot of them and as we all know, people who start off with lower level offending, eg Exposure, Possession of Indecent Images, Sexual Assault by Touching (adult victim) etc, etc, frequently escalate to more serious behaviour. I think NPS are in for a bit of an unexpected workload increase.

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Short sentenced shoplifters may also be deemed high risk due to previous histories or current circumstances (eg DV propensity) and so will not need to be sex offenders to be NPS. Some violent offences may attract short sentences for all sorts of reasons also and so NPS will have them to deal with.

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It sounds more and more like the script of a Carry On film! It's going to be very interesting to see how many of these organisations running CRC's pull out of their contracts in the next 2 or so years. I have wondered why none of these new organisations seems to have hit the ground running - as previous posters have said surely their bids for these lucrative contracts were made on the basis of research, evidence etc? But apparently not. In my area there is not even a sniff of Purple Futures anywhere in the CRC office and we are now over two weeks down the line since they took over.

I also wonder how many lawsuits there will be brought for failure to provide TTG services and support to people coming out of prison as Grayling promised this and is now failing to deliver. It could be a nice little earner for some enterprising solicitor or two.

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One of the problems for TTG that can't be addressed by CRCs, is the chaos that's happening Behind The Gate. It can't be long before the POA are forced to take action over dire working conditions and a very real concern for staff safety. TTG, if it ever does happen, is a very long way off, and I feel it'll just be an 'ideal' that will just fade away that no-one will remember in a year or two.

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Funnily enough, digging holes only to fill them back in again is available under a RAR in my CRC. Grayling will have sold it to the Saudis as "innovative practice" before the month is out.

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CRCs are clearly struggling to meet basic requirements but what of NPS? Please don't lose sight of what is going on there too with accommodation and especially ETE. The provision has gone and whereas mentors/volunteers are being put in place for CRCs (eventually) there is now a void in NPS provision. All of the partners we had have gone, there is quite literally no provision in my area any more. No-one is working to address this because all management focus is upon trying to make the basic supervision work again. It is a creeping paralysis.

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NPS will no doubt need to consider purchasing such services from CRC, another increased cost.

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Working Links gets a vast amount of money from the government to assist people back to work. If they use some of this funding assisting offenders referred to their CRCs to gain employment, then surely they'll be getting paid twice? Once for the employment 'outcome' and again for a CRC 'outcome'? And the amazing thing is that it's all been government funded in the first place!

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There is unquestionably a view in this Government that everyone's 'criminogenic needs' are employment and accommodation. This view has clearly been transferred wholesale to the 'newbies' and they are consequently throwing everything into these areas. My experience is that many of our most vulnerable cases are not yet capable of employment or even of holding a tenancy with all the accompanying issues like budgeting, managing utilities etc etc. It's all too simplistic and amounts to one of those dumb approaches based on common sense when 'common sense' is anathema to evidence-based interventions.

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Working Links 'park' offenders because they have complex needs and so take up a lot of time and effort to find work. An offender applied online to a well known chain and uploaded his CV on their site. He went to WL where the adviser asked him to take his CV by hand to the same company. He explained he had already applied 2 wks ago. He did as he was told and at all 4 locations was told to apply online. Waste of time. There are ETE experts working in Probation who understand their needs and are able to give expert advice with very good results. These contracts will come to an end soon. Offenders will be referred to the WP and surely it is double funding for WL if they get paid for results in CRC and Work Prog?

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Every statement from Ministers about TR has muddied the waters for the CRCs - constant references to "providing services to offenders". Grayling's ludicrous ideas about working with local slum landlords, and so on, have simply fed the idea that Probation clients are simply widgets to be worked on. Take one 'service user', add enough intervention, and hey presto, you have a shiny new compliant citizen.

The Government evidently believes that rehabilitation is something that you can do to someone, not that they achieve themselves. My CRC's TTG plans involve workshops on accommodation, ETE etc. run on a rolling basis in prison, with a few of these fabled mentors chucked in for the more difficult cases. All well and good - and then the prison gates open and reality arrives. CRCs will put their efforts in the wrong place, achieve nothing but their narrowly-framed targets, and still be paid £millions for it.

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As an SPO I'm slightly disappointed with the tarring us all with the same negative brush approach. I believe 'some' of the concepts of TR have great potential but I also recognise the many flaws and associated risks. I am honest with my staff about my views whilst still presenting the NPS speech. I try to keep us focused on managing risk and reducing reoffending in our own units. I fully support staff to challenge appropriately, including taking out grievances so that we are heard. I also regularly challenge and question decisions and processes, so please stop deciding we are all NOMS brown noses.

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Hear hear. As a former SPO I also was on the picket line, tried to support staff, was a union rep and everyone knew what I privately thought about TR. I was never delusional enough to think I could do the job I wanted to do instead of the one I was being paid to, so that is why I chose to seek alternative employment. The notion that all managers never said a thing against TR is just conspiracy theories gone bonkers.

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Sorry but I cannot think of a single SPO in my area who thinks and behaves as you do. I honestly wish I could. In my area behaviour has simply deteriorated into "do as I say you have to get on board now" but then I am from the former JFDI trust..

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Most of the activists in my area are SPOs. The anti-manager tone is not universal and can, at times, be a cliché.

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Less anti manager perhaps than anti managerialism.....but Kudos if where you are most of the activists are SPOs. I would be interested to know what activist means in your context? Sadly I no longer have any respect for the vast majority of managers in my area.

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There is now a vast gulf and considerable mistrust between staff and managers. It is sad but there we are. Really, this occurred prior to TR and is perhaps not recoverable IMO.

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I am an SPO. I do not and I doubt that I ever will agree with TR, accept it, believe it will work or feel any less angry at the decimation of my profession. I am Probation too. I am also in no more of a position to give up my job on a point of principle than, no doubt, almost everyone else irrespective of grade. I voice my opinions. I support my team to the best of my ability. I do this, as best I can and with integrity. For some that will not be good enough, both those I supervise and for those that manage me.

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In their desperation, the primes will subcontract out to existing agencies working within the CJS who have not provided value for money or been effective in the past.

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They all want a slice of the pie and in the race to get it, will not work together in the best interests of the clients. Consequently, Joe Bloggs gets offered the same thing by multiple agencies, meets lots of different people with false promises and no idea of the complex needs he has, and fails to deliver anything effective, scuttling off into the background because of a failure of understanding the individual and then blaming them for a lack of motivation, leaving them with a feeling that yet again there is lots of talk but no action. Whilst there are some good individual members within these partner agencies, their company ethos, a total lack of understanding and lack of co-ordination of services, means that there is an awful lot of money wasted which could have been better spent if they weren't in competition with one another.

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Working Links have not got their supply chain organised yet. No info on TTG apart from giving PSOs a 'wonderful opportunity' to work in the prisons for a few months to set this up. How can WL be given a contract to run something as important as this when they have no plan or staff to run the service, nor do they know how Probation CRCs are run at the moment? This was all said at the briefing in Wales yesterday. It beggars belief. They will set up working parties to look at what is good practice and how things can be improved over the coming months. Current contracts with Partners will be ending soon, so getting rid of experienced specialists who have worked with offenders over many years.

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The lack of supply chain is a consequence NOT on the concept of outsourcing but of Grayling and the MoJ's approach to it. It is because the timescales were reckless and ludicrous that the work necessary to prepare was unable to be completed in the time available. This is not a failing of the bidders, although they are complicit, it is a failure of the SoS and his ministry.

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It is exactly a failing of the bidders as they err, bid to meet the contractual obligation by the specified date err 01 May.....caveat emptor.

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Staff being disciplined for sickness; capability and discipline all on the increase in our CRC - are they deliberately trying to over-work people so that they slip up and fall foul of these policies? It certainly looks that way from where I'm standing.

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Prison vetting can take months to clear new employees but that won't be too much of a problem at my establishment as there isn't anywhere for the new CRC workers to be based yet anyway. And as community PSOs are directed in, prison PSOs are waiting to find where we will be directed to in the community....

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Man in pub tells me that MOJ are making sure that vetting is being given priority. The cynical part of me would suggest that it will only reduce the time taken from six months to five. Man in pub also claims that there will be a tacit agreement that bank accounts may be monitored for 'suspicious activity', likely due to the amount of drugs allegedly being brought into prison by staff.

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I do not see how TTG staff can routinely have their bank accounts monitored merely as a blanket response to concerns that drugs may be taken into prison. It is not just cause legally and impossible to undertake on such a scale. Can this be verified as accurate information?

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I have always said that Probation Officers are trained from day one to recognise bullshit when they hear it. We smile and nod but, when the chips are down, we recognise the smell.

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The thing is, prior to the split, in probation we knew exactly what our job was and we got on with it - we didn't require a lot of pizzazz or expensive 'pampering' to motivate us. I for one am struggling with what is now being put forward as a fundamentally different model of working (in the CRCs) when a) no concrete evidence is being provided that the structure is in place (or has even been conceived) to deliver said model and b) our core role hasn't actually changed - that is, to supervise those who have been given a sentence in the criminal courts and which comes with statutorily enforceable requirements for the Probationer. How this then will equate to being on a 'customer journey' is completely beyond me TBH. Suspect next we'll be being directed to thank the Probationer at the end of their Order/licence for allowing us to share their journey......pure psychobabble.

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I have to say that one of the factors that is making me seriously consider a change of career is the extent to which I am finding all of this increasingly embarrassing. Emperors New Clothes doesn't go anywhere near it. Chaplin's The Great Dictator maybe? It just gets sillier and sillier.

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In a private prison this morning and it is clear that staff on the ground are no wiser about TTG than we are - it might be a May start but not in 2015 or if they do it will be usual headlong rush just to parrot that it's been done with no thought about the consequences.

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And what about the ORA briefings? Clearly written by someone who hasn't been anywhere near a service user in many a good year. Just the sort of shambles in which the private sector will run rings around contract managers.

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I'm sure Sodexo, Interserve or Purple futures would happily agree to enter a contract with a private sector landlord, where they agree to pay the weekly rent on a property, knowing they'd then be responsible for collecting that rent from the client! Or maybe not!

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Today's post just goes to show how little Selous and Grayling know about prisons, probation and offenders. I hardly think getting local authorities to be "more transparent" about social housing is going to solve a single accommodation problem. Our local street homeless prevention team who we refer clients being released from custody if they don't have anywhere to live, is useless at helping source accommodation in the private sector. If you are lucky enough to get into the town's only homeless hostel, you spend at least a month there in conditions worse than you would be living in in jail and surrounded by more drugs and crime than you see in jail.

Then if you are lucky enough to be thought worthy enough by the mini Hitler who "helps" people move on into their own rented accommodation, you will end up in some damp, flea infested pit and told to suck it up and be grateful for it. If you turn a place down, even if it is completely unsuitable (say for example its on the third floor of a block with no lift and you have mobility problems so you can't climb stairs) you are immediately blacklisted and not offered another property. Unless apparently you are willing to pay a "fee" to this individual, who will then immediately find you somewhere halfway decent. Unless Grayling and Selous are prepared to tackle stuff like this, the accommodation issue simply won't go away.

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Universal Credit and the bedroom tax has vastly reduced the number of landlords that are willing to let to those on benefits. The number willing to let is further reduced if you're leaving custody or on licence. If you also have addiction or mental health issues (and many of the 12month and under cohort will have those issues), the number is practically zero. The only housing that will be available will be that in such poor condition that the landlord can't let it to anybody else, or in an area where no-one wants to live, typically areas where there's high levels of unemployment and anti social behaviour.

These are not the right variables to help keep someone from reoffending or providing a stable social foundation. In fact in my opinion, it's a recipe for the creation of ghettos, where the socially deprived, unable and criminally orientated are all lumped together and left to get on with it. It will promote crime rather then reduce it.

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I just read a twitter conversation that CRCs in the NorthWest have been instructed to complete ISPs within 10 days. This just shows that PF does not have a clue. There have been instructions that we are not allowed to use Professional Judgement for late sentence plans and I'm just at a loss as to how this is meant to work? Somebody has suggested that a 'plan' is all that's needed and PF will be introducing an Oasys replacement in due course but for now we are stuck with it. This job is getting more and more like knitting with soup every day.

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And BGSW. It's a target linked to the CRCs getting paid so I would think that a few missed targets and capability meetings will be the order of the day, no matter what your workload is like.

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Just make sure that you put in the comments at the end of Oasys that plan completed after only x amounts of meetings, to hit targets, and may not be reflective of RISK! Make sure that the RISK part goes in. It might not be much, but at least if the sh*t hits the fan you can always highlight that your assessment aimed at hitting a target, rather than anything else.

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Oh well, that's me up the shoot then. I haven't done a supervision plan (nor barely any Oasys) since the split last year owing to my unreasonably high caseload which (despite my continued raising of the matter at all managerial levels since June 1st) is still not resolved. Now the work is cash linked I suspect something will have to change - either Working Links sort out the woeful staffing situation or (more likely I suspect) I'll be shown the door, for failing to get with the zeitgeist. Sigh......

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Help! I have just returned to LDU work and been told all ISPs target is 15 days, I'm NPS so high ROSH cases. How can target in NPS be 15 but in CRC 10 days? Is this correct does anyone know please?

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Maybe cos CRC are low/med. I know I've completed ISPs on having only seen people once. But ISPs are only that, 'initial' on the information to hand, but the problem is if the ISPs are sparce it means spending more time a few weeks down the line doing a review to make it more fitting and who has time to be doing reviews on top of ISPs and Terminations? - I know I haven't.

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I cannot confirm NSP ISP target dates but can confirm CRC is 10 days - in fact in our CRC we are being told they have to be completed, signed and locked by OM by day 8 - not 10 days from initial interview so if the client does not attend arranged appointment - clock does not start ticking until they do. It can still be tough if you have a number of ISPs and Terminations coming together, which is often the case.

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The thing that really throws my workload off kilter is the custody releases - allocating SPO has no idea when she's giving me 3 new cases that I've also someone being released so in-effect I have 4 ISPs to do plus terminations - as my caseload is so big it's not unusual to need to be doing a termination every couple of weeks.

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ISP target is 10 days from first appointment. If service user fails first appointment clock does not start ticking. I keep a note of a sentence plan drawn up on paper and record it in delius. It's not my fault if CRCs have not found a way of recording this target. Remember, the target is for a Sentence Plan, not an OASys ISP. I'm covered! :-)

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Solution will be universal ISPs, bland generalisations of one kind or another. Superficial defaults to meet targets. That is prison service culture. Pretend, pretend, pretend.

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NPS in Wales all ISPs to be completed within 5 working days of commencement of order or release. If we are lucky we have met them once to go through the 20 page useless induction pack which simply repeats itself over and over again without gaining any useful information. It's even been suggested we should start doing custody ISPs within 5 days of sentence - good luck booking that next day prison visit!

36 comments:

  1. "The thing that really throws my workload off kilter is the custody releases - allocating SPO has no idea when she's giving me 3 new cases that I've also someone being released so in-effect I have 4 ISPs to do plus terminations - as my caseload is so big it's not unusual to need to be doing a termination every couple of weeks."

    I concur wholeheartedly with the post I've copied above. No account is taken of pending prison releases when Community cases are allocated - but then N-Delius do not show prison cases due for release - another flaw in an overall piss-poor IT system

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  2. Britain’s chief criminal barrister will tear into David Cameron and past governments for treating public law “with contempt”, at a lavish £1,750-a-ticket government-backed conference tomorrow marking the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta.

    Tony Cross, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, is expected to demand that no prime minister ever again appoints a non-lawyer as Lord Chancellor. Three years ago, David Cameron made Chris Grayling the first Lord Chancellor without a legal background in four centuries of the role’s existence.

    Mr Grayling’s reformist agenda has been hugely unpopular among lawyers. Mr Cross will argue that from Tony Blair’s premiership onwards, governments have damaged the legal system. He will unfavourably contrast the “wonderful idea of Magna Carta”, with demoralised lawyers who have taken industrial action over legal-aid cuts.

    Barristers and solicitors have been infuriated by the reductions in legal aid from £2bn to £1.5bn a year, as well as policies such as raising court fees, as the Lord Chancellor looked to save money. Much of the legal profession believes these policies restrict access to justice, so is against the spirit of Magna Carta. The document was a charter of liberties signed by King John which placed the monarch (and so, later, the government) under the rule of law. It underpinned the legal system.

    Mr Cross has been criticised by senior barristers for attending the event. John Cooper QC has argued that by attending, the Criminal Bar Association is “tacitly endorsing what Grayling is doing to the criminal justice system”. Mr Cooper’s chambers, 25 Bedford Row, has said that publicly funded criminal lawyers are “key to a ‘fair and just society’ yet will be notable by their absence from Mr Grayling’s celebration”.

    But Mr Cross has decided to embarrass this and earlier governments by being highly critical at the Ministry of Justice’s own event. “I’m going to talk about how successive governments have treated public law with contempt, certainly over the last 20 years,” Mr Cross said.

    “I will look to compare and contrast this wonderful idea of Magna Carta and where we are now: how morale is at an all-time low, how barristers and solicitors feel undervalued. The last few governments have treated the legal aid system as a second-class service, when in fact it should be treated as a first-class service that society demands, from probation to the delivery of services in magistrates’ and crown courts.”

    Mark Leftly Independent 22/02/2015

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    1. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/21/super-jails-inhumane-mark-ignorant-politicians

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    2. The dishonesty of official crime policy cuts two ways. The authorities are treating men, women and, to their disgrace, children with deliberate cruelty. They are stuffing them into ever larger “super-prisons”, run by negligent private punishment corporations and dominated by criminal gangs. You cannot rehabilitate offenders in these anonymous warehouses, and the state’s promise to prisoners that it will try to divert them from a life of crime is nothing more than a pious lie.

      The government’s deception of the public is as great. If David Cameron were an honest man – my fantasy, I know, but indulge me – he would say: “We want to cram offenders into super-prisons because it saves money. We know we’re not just putting them at risk, but the public, too. After the prison riots of 1990, Lord Justice Woolf’s inquiry said Britain needed small local prisons, so that wives and girlfriends could visit inmates, and keep their relationships going.

      “In truth, no one needed a judge to tell them that men with a family that will welcome them home on release are more likely to go straight. It’s common sense. Unfortunately, common sense and austerity don’t go together. I’m slashing funding for the criminal justice system – not just the prisons, but the police, and courts, too. Inevitably, my policies will result in more people becoming victims of crime. For me and my administration, their suffering is a price worth paying.”

      Instead of levelling with the voters, however, David Cameron has put Chris Grayling, a bombastic and ignorant man, even by the standards of the modern Conservative party, in charge of justice. Humane treatment for prisoners no more concerns him than the human rights of the rest of the population. If this sounds like the whingeing of a bleeding-heart liberal, consider that there will be people you meet, who do not yet know that they will be robbed, beaten, raped and murdered as a result of Cameron’s neglect of public safety. Some will even vote for him because they think Conservatives are tough on crime.

      Public and private penal bureaucracies want super-jails because they are grand projects. Cost-cutting politicians like them because there are economies of scale in stacking inmates high and keeping them cheap. The Ministry of Justice plans to open Europe’s second largest jail in Wrexham in 2017. About 2,100 men will be kept on the site of an abandoned factory. The Howard League for Penal Reform estimates that even if all eligible Welsh prisoners were sent there, they would fill only 25% of the cells. The remaining 75% of prisoners will be held far from their families. The jail will be a guaranteed relationship-breaker.

      After Wrexham, the ministry is planning to build one of Europe’s largest children’s prisons in Leicestershire, a coop for 320 children aged 12 to 17. Not to be outdone, Scottish nationalists, who can be as dangerous as English Conservatives, wanted to build a central super-prison for women in Greenock, Inverclyde. The SNP was happy to cut mothers off from their children until a campaign by Jim Murphy, Labour’s new leader in Scotland, and women’s groups forced it to back down.

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    3. at the end of a further paragraph on this article, after the 2nd prison photo, there is a significant quote from David Cameron in 2009- 'the idea that big is beautiful is wrong. I have spent some time at Wandsworth Prison and was profoundly depressed by the size and the impersonality'.- Hmmmm...... Changed your mind David?

      a tile on this page leads on to the 'chief inspectors report on super jails', also from the Guardian, on 18/2, which then directs you to 'Prison UK - an insiders view' -highlighted at the end of the first 'comment' following the report, by Aleckoboy. There is a load of articles in this, worth readiing, on deeper issues within prisons. Scary stuff.

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  3. This blog makes interesting reading when we see practitioners experiences post TR, take for example ISPs. This is a target for both CRCs and NPS and more importantly starts the supervision process by defining what work will be done to address identified issues and also is the baseline risk assessment.
    Given CRCs are now up and running as separate entities, we could perhaps expect some divergence of practice so eg the targets date for ISPs may vary in different CRCs. What is really concerning is that the NPS, one unified organisation seems to have very different target dates for staff to complete ISPs varying between 5 and 15 days - how can that be? Does that means staff in the 5 day area could be placed in capability for missing a target which is 15 days somewhere else in that one organisation?
    It is absolute nonsense.

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    1. Isn't this quite a serious terms and conditions issue that NAPO need to be addressing and seeking clarification on as a matter of urgency?

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    2. It is my understanding that ALL CRCs have same targets and for ISPs it is 10 days - some like my CRC are imposing 8 day as a safeguard since missing a target costs money. In relation to NPS - is it not 5 day for high risk and 15 for those in CRC which are deemed medium risk but due to nature of offence, RSR score or whatever the reason are in NPS. Just a thought - if NAPO is going to investigate it has to be across the board - they represent both sections of this ideological divide

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  4. the writing's on the wall. each week it's getting bleaker and bleaker and the blogs are getting longer, staff are leaving gaping holes that remaining staff simply cannot fill. I cant see Sodemexo or Burple Futures bringing anything to the table that will reverse the mess we are in.

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  5. Well I have only just identified it from reading the posts Jim has collated today. I wasn't aware of the variation until reading this but what do you think NAPO will do? It just seems to me to be an utter failure of management and leaves practitioners vulnerable.

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  6. I am nps in the south west and our target is for terminations . So they get priortused over ISPs, start custody oasys. I've got ISPs stiil waiting to be done as I've also had parole reports addendum, part b and c to all do at the same time. Casenotes written needing to be typed up . Been over wmt since oct and when management retiered to be in line with rest of nps.. Wmt went up to 48% over. Now the wmt is London model not so easy to see. Yet mangement looking at sample of my cases to see where I am at as if it is totally my fault ( it feels like).

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  7. My reading is that community ISP's for the NPS are 15 days. The 5 day ISP is for custody cases; the OM has to get into prison and complete this within 5 days.
    I have a feeling that whoever is stupid enough to apply for TTG will get the honour of seeing all of the new receptions and completing the ISP. This will be between sorting out accommodation/licences and the 1001 other issues that new receptionists in [prison AND those leaving will have. Looking at the work that needs doing in the reception/discharge prisons I have a feeling that most of the CRC will need to be in the prison to cope.
    My own view is that I would have absolutely nothing to do with TTG, and if you are directed just claim you have claustrophobia and cannot work in such an environment!!
    It's for them to prove otherwise and if they would not have a leg to stand on if they subsequently directed you and then you went immediately on the sick!

    As you will no longer has a caseload by this time, you might as well take the whole six month off on full pay.

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    1. I work in Wales and I can assure you that the 5 day target is for all cases in the community whether they have attended or not (we are pretending custody are still done the old fashioned way until directed otherwise). Other priority targets are terminations, parole, part b and c's and home visits. Of course reviews and recording contacts are suffering and there are rumbles of steps being taken to rectify this. ........

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    2. again, how can there be such confusion in NPS, the national organisation? Most areas within NPS do not appear to be doing the same thing....surely it defeats the whole object of being the NATIONAL NPS????

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  8. Off topic but have you seen this on twitter


    http://www.sova.org.uk/documents/uploads/VolunteerTR.pdf

    Company called sova advertising for mentors

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    1. Apparently it already has 789 volunteers. Should be enough to cover one CPA, just twenty more to go.
      By May!

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    2. Look at the roles and salaries with St Giles Trust
      http://site.stgilestrust.org.uk/job-vacancies/p218066-current-vacancies.html

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    3. SOVA is the umbrella organisation for Voluntary Associations and have existed for years. Not CJ focused but well established.

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    4. to qualify for a Probation volunteer you need to commit to giving two hours of your time twice per week. I expect then that'd be 1hr per client. As my team for example has about 500 cases and allowing for a percentage of those not needing the help of a mentor that's still maybe 100 offenders who would mean at the very least 25 mentors. All of these would need expenses, training etc. The numbers do not add up.

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  9. A Plea
    I have just returned to work after 5 months sickness absence and have to tell you it was the worst period of my life and sometimes, in the response of managers, staff and yes, occasionally on this blog I have been made to feel a sense of shame. We really need to have care when making statements that imply colleagues who are certified as unfit for work by their GP and Occupational Health ( in my case) are somehow not honestly too ill to work. When colleagues, perhaps tongue in cheek, refer to "going sick" and "you might as well take the whole six months off on full pay" they clearly have no experience of how ill you have to be to be signed off for so long. It is not something to be spoken of lightly and it is devastating to think that some think of 'the long term sick' as avoiding work.I was ill not dishonest. So please don't suggest colleagues could do this to cause disruption to TR, it just feeds the very worst attitudes of some HR and some Managers.

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    1. I'm the author of that comment. It was not an implication of anything, rather an instruction, albeit tongue in cheek.
      I hope you are feeling much better though and welcome back into the (significantly changed) fold.

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  10. Sick leave a doddle hey. Threatening meetings with the overtones of being sacked. Being off ill is no joke. Come on colleagues where has your humility gone......

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    1. this rings true with me - I was a nervous wreck at work due to the manager taking a dislike to me and ended up going off and almost every week there was a phonecall trying to entice me back with reduced caseload etc etc. Being off was just as stressful but in a different way to actually being in work.

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    2. because of the current crap and job uncertainty I have decided to sell my house, I do not want to be jobless with a mortgage and face the inevitable re-possession. I will rent somewhere so if I go off sick or sleepwalk into a mistake that could lead to disciplinary I do not have to worry about finding somewhere to live. I have a few debts but all under 1k and will be paid off as soon as possible. Hopefully this will improve my approach to work - at the moment I work over and above cos i'm terrified about the house but once my plans are in place I can see my mood lifting and feeling much better.

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    3. It's absolutely heartbreaking to hear, but I hope things work out well for you.

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  11. How sad am I ? To get myself to work I have written my daily salary in my diary and when it all gets too much I look at it and tell myself that's why I have to stay for another day....Honestly I used to love my job.

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  12. Well at least Anony 19:05 you got phone calls, I was off for 10 weeks not one phone call, one letter, nothing. Not until I called in and said I was coming back to work. Then they asked me for a back to work meeting. At the meeting I was to be on phase return. Only to find because they are short staffed I was full time on my third day back. It felt no different nothing has changed for me. They totally ignored why I was off. I said I nearly had a breakdown with the work, there reply lucky you caught it in time. What the hell does that mean.

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  13. I'm in a prison and there is a review by NOMS of the OMU process. Do I stay or do I go because as we stand no one has the foggiest what's going to happen in the next twelve months.
    papa

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    1. Stay in HMP. The field is a NIGHTMARE

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  14. I am fortunate in that being over 60 I have made the decision to take early retirement & leave at the end of March (PO in a CRC) - I just felt I no longer have the mental energy to take on board all the new changes ie not only the split but also ORA & TTG.
    Interestingly, just 2 days after I sent my email requesting early retirement, my SPO (a thoroughly nice & decent chap by the way) came to me following a senior management meeting saying would I consider returning after the end of March as agency staff on £24 per hour!........I am not interested in this, it wasn't about the money for me, but it makes you wonder how much is sloshing around to pay for agency staff....best wishes to all, Bobbyjoe.

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  15. Off topic, but it could prove to be an interesting and difficult week for Grayling regarding Magna Carta.
    It looks like the legal profession fully intend to embarrass him however they can. Personally I hope it hurts.

    Lawyers are poised to take legal action against Chris Grayling over plans to raise court fees by up to 600 per cent, saying they amount to a breach of Magna Carta.At a three-day legal summit in London celebrating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta, legal bodies including the Law Society and the Bar have issued a pre-legal action letter, putting the lord chancellor on notice of a judicial review.

    (from the times, but paywall and can't get the whole article).

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    1. this was also in Independent article - Mark Leftly, - reproduced by Jim at 11 41 this morning- Chief criminal barrister will tear into Cameron - sounds good.

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  16. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2964578/Jailing-criminals-sign-failure-says-Clegg-aims-cut-number-women-drug-users-people-mental-illness-bars.html
    Funny that, given what lib dems have done to probation whilst in government...

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  17. Pigs still have snouts deeply buried in troughs. Nothing changes. HSBC chief manages millions through his own Swiss accounts; Rifkind & Straw whoring themselves for £5,000 a day to anyone prepared to pay them to open doors. Obviously being ceo of HSBC or a senior MP doesn't pay well enough. Still, £7.00 an hour should be okay for everyone else.

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    1. Straw now weasling about what an Honest John he is. Dick!! At least Humphries is doing a good number on him.

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  18. At a Staff Roadshow for London CRC MTCNovo said they made their bid for the contract with no knowledge of exactly what state the office buildings were in or what were the terms and conditions of the leases. This is why the "transition period" from 01/02/15 to 30/04/15 will allow due diligence to be carried out so that they know exactly what they have bought! Reminds me of that TV programme "Storage Wars" where professional buyers bid in an auction for the contents of a storage locker that has been requisitioned when 3 months rent is owing. The buyers only have 5 minutes to peek at the contents and most of the content is kept under cover so he buyer needs to trust their judgement and experience. So now I understand why it it currently "business as usual" in London CRC. This would definitely not happen in the takeover of a private business. Any take over without due diligence would be regarded as reckless. Why is it thought acceptable when bidding for London CRC? Clearly London CRC is so big and inefficient that any economies of scale will be well rewarded. I agree though that some of the smaller CRC areas will fail but I can see MTCNovo hoovering those CRC areas up - for a price of course! Welcome to Grayling's brave new world!

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