On the day that the charmless Chancellor announces yet another round of public service cuts, I'm fairly sure one lucky visitor to the blog will become the 3 millionth person to click on in order to get the latest news regarding the TR omnishambles. It's another significant milestone without a doubt, but unlike those previously, I'm in no mood to celebrate.
As we discussed a few weeks ago, readership is steadily declining as highly experienced colleagues continue to leave and are driven out of this once wonderful profession. Those remaining feel increasingly scared of contributing for fear of falling foul of bullying management in the privateer world of CRC's and the growing control freak environment of NPS.
It's basically all incredibly depressing, but there's undoubtedly more to come and the blog has to soldier on for a bit longer in it's aim of highlighting and cataloguing the ever-unfolding disaster. As ever, it can only be achieved by people making contributions and continuing to send me information. We haven't really touched on E3 and the Staff Survey, or some of the daft and dangerous new operating models being developed by the privateers.
As always, I would like to warmly thank everyone that has contributed and supported this endeavour through some very tough and soul-destroying times. In the words of all those official responses to negative reports, 'we've done a lot, but there's more to do'. Despite the difficulties and threats, please think about contributing what's going on in your area for the benefit of others and best of all, consider writing a guest blog piece and help fill the empty pages of late.
TR = Crap
ReplyDeleteE3 = Crap
Prison in NE cancelling planned surgical interventions cos they don't have the staff to escort on the day! Governments policies having unintended consequences or just incompetence?
ReplyDeleteWoman in the NOMS know told my friend, the Man in the pub that one of the whole drivers of TR is the bleating coming from CEOs and ACEs over their ever increasing workloads so the simple plan an possibly the real plan underpinning E3 is the down grading of the PPO roll leading to its elimination in its current form with the plan being for SPOs to do more of the ACE work and for POs to undertake more of the current SPO role.....now of course this will be without any additional remuneration and will be seen by many as 'valuing' both roles when actually it's quite the opposite.......woman in the NOMS know how tells of any opposition to this being swept aside and that the only staff group that being listened to are the ACEs......now true or not I don't know but if it is true it places much of what is currently taking place under the guise of E3 into some context......
ReplyDeleteWell done JB and all who travel with you - the three millionth view is very near now - under 400 to go.
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting to look back on what was said by those who brought us TR in the very earliest days when they admitted it was coming - December 2012 and then January 2013 when it was announced as policy.
there are still Tweets accessible - including from some who were then in high places in the old Trusts and some from the Trusts themselves and there is always Hansard to show what was actually being said in the place where the final outcomes were confirmed - Parliament.
There is also the Digital Revolution making it supposedly easier for all in the Criminal Justice System to communicate so everything works in an integrated fashion - I think Blair predicted something about that at the beginning of the century for the public to be able to do all business with the Gov on line before some date that I think is passed - so no telephone calls needed - for routine stuff - I presume that means.
That digital By default linked tweet business - sorry link Tweet omitted in above post.
Deletehttps://twitter.com/Andrew_S_Hatton/status/668573644633821184
What is in a number? 2999639 & not counting!
Congratulations on your 3,000,0000 Jim. Thank you for all your efforts through the bleakest of times.
ReplyDelete��Thank you Jim.
ReplyDeleteThe main thing TR exposes is the shocking way things were done pre TR. RE: sentence plans not locked. Terminations missed. UPW not commenced. No breaches. The service levels give focus and have driven up perdotmsnce
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a game. It's people's lives being put at risk by TR.
DeleteI'm serious some practice pre TR was shocking. From what I've personally seen;things are better than before!
DeleteAnd with no breaches shit will hit the fan when SFOs occur.
DeleteWhat`s "perdotmsnce" is this a new system brought in by TR?
DeleteI think Anon 17:29 makes a reasonable point - if TR has done one positive thing then it has tightened up on some of the recording practices. Anyone who's ever looked at OASys will have seen cases with incomplete assessments, sometimes years after the end of an Order or licence, because basically there was little comeback pre-TR.
DeleteTo say this has driven up performance is a bit of a stretch, however - recording may have got better but it doesn't mean that the quality of work has improved, and in fact the opposite may occur as more of our scarce resource is diverted towards the recording tasks rather than the proper job of working with clients.
to Anon 16:53 just an observation YOU LOGGED IN and had a moan....just lovely that your comment demonstrates the very behaviour you posted about! I love it!!!
ReplyDeleteTo Jim
thank you so much for this place of testament and information
A PO (who is still laughing at the irony of ANON 16:53!)
I was a latecomer to this blog, and more a viewer than a contributor. It has kept me informed where my employer and union have failed to do so. I appreciate the information and views shared and it certainly generates discussion between colleagues. Long may it continue!
ReplyDeleteGood on ya JB. Another million under the belt. An interesting exercise has been to trawl back through early blogs & compare/contrast the tone, content & style of contributions. Perhaps a moment of reflection could be in order, e.g. Re-Visiting a blog from the early days, with contemporary commentary... might help some newcomers/latecomers?
ReplyDelete"Saturday, 4 September 2010
DeleteIn the Beginning
All blogs have to start somewhere - and this is it. I'm fed up with work - a job I absolutely loved has gone horribly wrong and is about to get a whole lot worse. I moan endlessly to colleagues - and clients - they listen politely and think 'poor sod, he'll be retired soon'. Nobody understands what the hell probation is all about - there's never been a decent tv drama series and this void of universal ignorance is ruthlessly taken advantage of by successive governments in order to wreak havoc upon us. We've been nationalised, rationalised, marginalised, bureaucratised and will shortly be privatised. I feel helpless as this madness goes on around me and then suddenly all becomes clear - start blogging!"
So pleased you did, this is a safe place, mostly, somewhere to share, record and as others have said, pick up information not provided by unions or employers! Delighted you've passed the 3 million mark, a testament to your hard work, dedication and integrity! Viva la blog!
DeleteNever a decent tv drama? Surely you're forgetting Jack of Hearts!!
DeleteOn the day of your 3 millionth view milestone ...
ReplyDelete"Chancellor has published the results of the spending review, including details of the Ministry of Justice’s (MOJ's) budget over the course of this Parliament."
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ministry-of-justices-settlement-at-the-spending-review-2015
no mention of probation in all that, what are the budgets like for CRC and NPS?
DeleteProbably not good.
DeleteJust read the MOJ Spending Review press release on the Gov.UK website. Probation is not mentioned at all. It simply does not feature :-/
DeleteVery little reference to probation (twice!), to the extent it doesn't really feature in MoJ thinking. We were once the 'hidden arm of the CJS', but not any more. Thanks to our old Chief Officers for TR, to our new ones for E3, and to Napo and the so-called 'probation institute' for its usual silence.
Delete"Overall resource savings of 15% by 2019-20 including by delivering efficiencies within the prisons and courts systems"
"These reforms will reduce reoffending through more effective rehabilitation, and will reduce the cost of transporting prisoners between courts and prisons, stamp out the organisation of crime from within prisons, and stem the availability of drugs and other illicit substances. This builds on the probation reforms undertaken in the last Parliament, which will reduce the costs of the system and reinvest them into extending probation support to 45,000 short-sentence offenders for the first time, to tackle reoffending."
Okay, so using that logic why not construct a series of vast criminal justice buildings in strategic cities combining mags & crown courts, jails, NPS/CRC, police? SuperJustice!!
DeleteCRC budgets are set by the CRCs themselves, based on the contracts already signed with NOMS - people seem to have forgotten that they are private companies so not affected in the same way by cuts at the MoJ...
DeleteNAPO meeting in Wales CRC tomorrow. Admin to be in 1 central Wales Hub? 40% cut to CRC budget? Fun to come with Working Links!
ReplyDeleteRRP DLNR CRC at present admin are being shipped off to Nottingham and Birmingham
ReplyDeleteNo mention of probation in the budget means no cuts. Not rocket science
ReplyDeleteBrilliant political insight there. So I'm assuming you've had full access to the MoJ's documents detailing their financial settlement with the Treasury, then?
DeleteI do 9.22. It also refers to you being a complete dick head!
DeleteI know you are, but what am I?
Delete...or does that raise the level of debate to a level which is too sophisticated for you?
18.33 you've been destroyed bruv. It's all over now so take it like a man
DeleteWow. I really didn't think anyone could drag the quality down even further, but well done 19:08. Particularly for "take it like a man" when you have no idea of the gender of the person to whom you're responding. Big round of applause for you.
Deletestaff survey was grim. To summarise:
ReplyDeleteDo you love your job=YES
Do you have any respect for your leaders=NO
oh dear