Guest Blog 21

We are where we are

I am a second career Probation Officer in my fifties and having qualified fourteen years ago, entered the Service at a time when I believe there was already confusion about identity and poorly managed change processes had become acceptable.  From Michael Howard’s ‘prison works’ stance in the mid-1990s through Paul Boateng’s ‘what works’ directive to The Carter Report in 2003, probation was bobbing about on the prevailing tide responding to rather than setting the agenda.

My initial view of probation management when I joined, having been a manager in the private sector, was that here was a structure intended to be apart from practitioners, always the middle manager never the team leader. People, once promoted, needed to demonstrate a distance between them and the people they would manage to create a deliberate divide in the mistaken belief that it would promote impartiality. It was also intended to demonstrate loyalty to the executive and in doing so, in my view, reinforced a poor quality management structure.

The result of this was that when NOMS formed, probation managers were so grateful to be inside the big tent that they failed to assert their identity and so, defend the value of probation.  Not probation values, but the true value of effective probation with expertise developed over a century and practitioners who were competent professionals to maintain and progress the rehabilitation agenda. Prison management prevailed and probation began to be air brushed from history, its voice dimmed possibly to be eventually silenced. I believe this is the context in which the Transforming Rehabilitation programme was rushed through. We should all be concerned (and the evidence from this blog is that we are) about the process by which this seismic change is being so rapidly introduced. 

Training I undertook in a  previous career taught me that the first rule of change management is thoughtful planning with sensitive implementation and crucially, the engagement of the people affected by the changes. Forced changes only ever cause problems. This, I would argue, is where we are now. There is a pay-off between how the employer treats the employee and what the employee puts into the job.

So the challenge for us all as employees at every level whether within NPS or CRC, is what that ’pay off’ will be.  We are obliged to fulfil our contract of employment and so is the employer. I could argue that the current stress levels that all employees  are being placed under means the employer has frustrated the contract of those suffering ill effects from that, but perhaps that should be the subject of a separate blog. 

Many colleagues have posted previously about resisting the changes and suggested the means of doing so. My personal stance is to recognise that I need my job for family income and to try, within whatever system emerges, to fulfil my duties. My personal ‘pay off’ is no longer delivering the ‘altruism premium’ that meant I worked sometimes with a 200 % work load weighting to deliver whatever was asked of me.  If that does not sound much I can assure you it is a significant financial loss to the business perhaps ten hours of unpaid work on a weekly basis.

To all colleagues I offer my best wishes for finding your way through this chaos in the belief that we are in a change management process likely to fail. We are a body of principled professionals who have the necessary skills to restore our profession when that time comes and my hope is that it will be practitioner led.

A PO