I gather that the subject of he-who-cannot-be-mentioned came up, Jonathan Ledger, the erstwhile and disgraced former General Secretary. Apparently Napo had written to him asking for some of the cash back, but it seems this met with a polite but sympathetic negative response citing the fact that the whole episode had 'ruined his life', but that he did regret not informing his employers earlier of the relationship. It should probably come as no great surprise that the NEC have decided that trying to chase him earnestly for money would be both a waste of time and money. I wonder if the membership will ever get a full explanation?
Finally, given the on-going loss of members, together with the need for a strategy to see the union through these difficult times, many might find it surprising that I gather no report was forthcoming from Campaign Committee. Is it any wonder that some members might feel there are some serious shortcomings in management at the top of this union?
So NAPO membership failed to look after the interests of the GS? You selfish bastards!! Why not offer him enhanced VR (maybe about £135K?), thank him for his kind words & let him join The Other One in pitiful self delusion.
ReplyDelete0648 A bit strong ! The GS and the top team are well within their role to blame the membership. Despite the 98% ballot result in the Sodexo areas. What is odd is they do not appear to have told us where those talks got to and why exactly the top table closed down any action despite the mandate. I think the problem is related to the skills and capacities of the Chairs mixed ideas no single account holding and clumsily drifting along appeasing their GS who they adoring stare at. Blow hard, he may be but the AGM will not posess what is required to challenge him as he will dig in and the blame will still be placed on to membership. Any reason as long as its not the top table responsibility for the failings.
ReplyDeleteNo mobilisation of the members. The idea of a two day split strike only added to a mess well made by a pathetic series of leadership gross misjudgements errors and failures.
They could have done so much more than strike. Work related related task failures working to contract reduced evening hours everything that puts the goodwill in the dustbin. That would have cost membership nothing but the effort to resist and strategic overview was just not communicated or managed well by NAPO or their fresh out of the tin PR official. The history is gone lets look forward .
The only fair thing to do is ask what is the GS strategy now to protect areas from further aggressive sodexo style copycat cuts? Why has he not managed to have considered a national redundancy policy ? Why did he not put one in place before the TR fiasco? What talks discussion and think tank proposals had gone on to ensure our staff were protected. Why has some areas got their own incredible protections and the rest have a statutory minimums to look forward to should the worst come? What were they leadership thinking to have not made this issue one of the priorities. What is being in that role about if they do not have any idea to the tactical longer term forecast.?
If the GS is delusional he will get away with it as no one is going to challenge. The chairs will hold aggressive order no doubt. Besides the AGM will be filled with motions that take NAPO nowhere. Do members not realise it cannot do the basics as it is. Napo could not protect our jobs nor mount a decent campaign to involve all members at every level or put in place a minimum redundancy policy model for us to have been protected from the onslaught. They are not delusional just foolish naïve and weak where it counted against the employers and the government.
933 I think your on the wrong blog or your an advert .
I wonder if the AGM will get a quorum.
DeletePrisons and Probation Minister Andrew Selous sounds as if he is living in dreamland - unrealistic nonsense from him as well as bigging up the Lord McNally reminding us again Liberal Democrats are equally responsible for the damage wreaked in prison and probation in recent years.
ReplyDelete" Ministry of Justice, National Offender Management Service and Andrew Selous MP Delivered on:23 September 2015 (Speaker's notes, may differ from delivered version) Location:QEII centre, London First published:23 September 2015 "
" The future of criminal justice. "
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/criminal-justice-management-2015
It is probably true that Mr Selous is told that all of these things are in place and that things are progressing well,, his managers, lackeys et al are not going to tell him they are failing / have failed are they ?
DeleteSome things are in place but they are NOT working, there are too many people in place that do not know how the system works nor how to do whatever role it is they are supposed to be fulfilling. There may well be systems and processes loaded up into a map or whatever, but people can neither understand them, have no time to access them and in any event many of these just do not join up or make sense practically or otherwise.
The systems and the people within it are breaking, many have already been broken. It is simply not possible and yet those 'at the top' keep churning out huge and unreadable documents , not uncommonly followed by a revised version a short time later. The 'tools' are time consuming, inefficient and are years behind the current need, evidently first developed during a different era and of even greater concern, actively act against the ability to complete accurate and fully informed assessments.
The previously , not brilliantly, but joined up working between the CJS organisations and partnerships are fractured and as people simply have too much to do it is becoming close to impossible.
The CRC's are working towards bonuses , payment by results etc and yet the NPS work and achievements are just taken for granted.
NAPO was originally a professional body, not a Union and yet now it seems to be doing neither role effectively, if at all.
There was room for improvement, Probation Services and Trusts had been the people fighting for many of the changes, some of what is proposed would be beneficial. However, the way this has been done has been the most appallingly,horrendously, disgustingly, inefficient, ineffective, detrimental, damaging, poorly considered, badly implemented and downright dishonest period of change that could ever have been contemplated.
I hear HMP Winchester is ready to blow. That Nick Clegg has a lot to answer for.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to know why the GS blames the membership. In the post by 13.16 the 98% vote against Sodexo is mentioned, but the key figure is the turnout figure which as far as I know has not been shared. As for JL, why should he compensate his former employer for their monumental error of poor governance?They gave him a pay-off knowing that he had strung them along until the morning of the tribunal. That was the time to hold JL accountable, not years later.
ReplyDeleteWell he wont take responsibility for selling us out over that involvement with the TR and the failures to take any appropriate legal action at the right time will he. He minimize and self talk like many behaviours we see daily.
DeleteFrom Twitter: -
ReplyDelete" Frances Crook @francescrook 5h5 hours ago London, England
Shameful:private company running #probation in Thames Valley cuts funding for successful work with women Alana House http://pactcharity.org/news-events/latest-news/funding-women-ex-offenders-alana-house-cut … "
Clear off Hatton. Your probably the most annoying blogger going. To Jim, I'm sick of your ill informed blogs or guest blogs. I'm shocked one of the CRCs or Napo haven't sued you for some sort of libel as you openly allow people to criticise and curse CRCs without checking whether your sources are accurate .your blog cab be irresponsible and misleading!
ReplyDeleteSorry 20:23, can't see what your beef is, when all Andrew does most of the time is provide links to other probation related tweets, articles or government pronouncements.
DeleteDeb
Calm 20 23 although your right about Hatton. Many people blog here because the situation is as they describe. Hosting a forum like this is no different to any other where people use assumed names. Same as the NAPO site.
ReplyDeleteThe point is the CRCs are all different now. There is no combined sense of the service anymore. Soon no senior management or older staff to be left with either identity or a Job. People can rightly feel the need to express the story on here. JB is , as I understand capturing the unofficial record .
In the future some day people will look back and say something like this country can never afford ever again to have a Tory government of filthy rich spoiled rotten public school boy chums playing with ordinary working peoples lives. Without a care in the world as they use their government knowledge to syphon off the cash into their rich beyond rich banker friends offshore accounts. Your protest will be ignored alongside hattons rubbish.
From TWitter: -
ReplyDelete" Danny Shaw @DannyShawBBC 5h5 hours ago
Ch Probation Inspector Paul Wilson tells criminal justice conference his "real concern" is that resources will become so "stretched"....
..there'll be more "inexperienced staff" with "unrealistic workloads" & "more distant managers" in probation.It's a "worry" says Paul Wilson
https://twitter.com/DannyShawBBC/status/646702824349401088 "
Due to an outbreak of puerile comments, moderation in place I'm afraid.
DeleteAndrew, from what I see everything that the Inspectorate fear is already happening. By the way, I hope you can rise above the rudeness that appears here from a minority and continue to add your posts.
DeleteI do Andrew, not all but many. I don't have time to search it all out, so thank you.
ReplyDeleteThink there are some fools - or likely just the one having a pseudo debate with himself - deriding Andrew and the blog. You've seen them off before and I'm sure you will again, Jim. To paraphrase above, in years to come, people will look back and wonder at the maggots who were a self-appointed fifth column for the destruction of the service. Wouldn't surprise me if they are part of the much-vaunted 'nudge' unit. Wonder what their initiation ceremony comprised?... Tony
ReplyDeleteComments against Andrew are unjust and unwarranted and this blog brings together the reality of working in the CJS.
ReplyDelete