Thursday 14 January 2016

Fiddling the Figures?

Once these profiteers accept that they can't make any money from probation and PbR hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of succeeding, they will be handing the keys back pretty quickly. Anyone fancy running a book on when it will be?

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You lot are fools. These contracts are worth mega bucks. I can assure you no one will be handing BACK KEYS anytime soon! I mean every CRCs has an estate strategy. Why be so concerned with estates if you're only going to be around for a short period of time? They are in it for the long term and rightly so. You need to get over the fact probation will never go back to what it was and I for one am glad as I love working in my CRC.

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This delusion is one that is actively promoted by CRC management, whereas the reality is glaringly different...books are not being balanced...money is going in the wrong direction and exit strategies are being looked at in boardrooms..the first signs of this are further staff cuts - look where this is happening right now and of course staff are always the last to know....the dominoes are starting to rock...

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As standalone businesses the CRCs started off in financial trouble. The new owners have only showed the MoJ a fancy bank balance up front, they're not committed to using that cash reserve to prop up the CRCs they bought, and PbR or whatever other "paymech" is undoubtedly not a sufficient means of funding a CRC. The bidders knew this but they are only focused on winning contracts & stripping assets. Existing staff are too expensive, regardless of their performance or attitude. This is how the Thatcherite piranhas demolished the manufacturing industry i.e. buying up businesses, stripping them to the bone then selling off the carcass, or discarding it. MoJ have been either naive or disingenuous - or both - in believing that they could play ball with global bullies and win.

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So true. The writing was on the wall from the start, we all knew about the win at all costs mentality of the various jobbing bid teams and the subsequent asset stripping that the successful bidders (privateers) routinely engaged in. We have all been sold down the river, including our colleagues in the NPS. There is no future for either side of Probation. Get out if you can.


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And before they do jack it in, they will continue to fix the figures to get the cash. Any Case Administration folk in Working Links want to give some details? I'm hearing it includes charging NPS for some ETE classes that haven't been provided, terminating UPW as completed before hours done to ensure a success and then there's the instructions to avoid breach and having to check with management first.

22 comments:

  1. In my CRC, staff are demoralised and dismayed at recently announced redundancy proposals to the more expensive, longer serving, specifically qualified frontline staff, in favour of a cheaper workforce. This is a clear drive towards deprofessionalisation. By splitting the service into two sectors (NPS/CRC) and then cherry picking which staff to lay-off, we have become more diluted and divided, whether we are in a union or not, and therefore less of a threat to employers through TU influence or threat of action? I hate to paint such a pessimistic picture, but this is what I as a local activist have observed during the whole TR debacle. There are those who might trumpet the brave new world of the CRC, with its sweeping new broom of change! I would simply point out the potential for disaster by such dilution of professionalism and increased disintegration of probation provision, by observing the all too frequent incidents of private firms getting it very wrong (G4S - Medway etc...), and the apparent decrease of supervision standards and increase in SFOs, perhaps as a result of increasing challenges to communication and information sharing between both sectors.

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  2. "As a consequence of the constant monitoring and target culture, staff across the criminal justice system manipulate statistics to avoid the penalties of failure." (Harry Fletcher, the Guardian, 8/11/09).

    Set up any system and some organisations and individuals will look for ways of fiddling, cheating and using bribery to gain advantage. We see the long shadow of corrupt practices in sport, business, banking, cash for honours, tax evasion, etc, etc..
    In the public sector the fiddling was more about gaining stars, kudos, foundation status. When the private sector gets involved there is the added incentive of fiddling to boost profits.

    When a practice is commonplace it's usually asserted that it's human nature to do it. But it's not because human beings hate the experience of knowing that they have been fiddled and taken for a ride, it grates and infuriates. But when you get a prime minister asking, in relation to climate change and conservation 'Why should we be the only saint in a brothel?' (Call me Dave, Biteback) you can appreciate that the wrong social norms are being encouraged. Therefore what does it matter if you get caught with your pants down in a brothel? Very little if you are G4S and you have been overcharging for tagging. Mind you it helps to weather such storms when you have Board with lobbying power - members have included former home secretary and defence secretary John Reid (now Baron Reid of Cardowan), former Met police commissioner Lord Condon (who earns £124,600 as a non-executive director of G4S), former prison governor Tom Wheatley and helpfully for G4S' energy meter monitoring arm, the former energy regulator Claire Spottiswoode is a non-executive director (earning £56,800).

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  3. Off topic temporarily, Jim, in a way...
    Staying in Europe now self evidently the right thing to do, as Chris Grayling offers opinion
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35308763

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    1. Well he certainly has lot of experience of what is disastrous having ably presided over it all of his career.

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    2. Like your rationale!

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  4. I'm hearing it includes charging NPS for some ETE classes that haven't been provided,...'
    Not sure this is the case. More like NPS having free classes because staff don't know how to put the NSI on Delius so NPS not being charged.
    'terminating UPW as completed before hours done to ensure a success....'
    Yes
    'and then there's the instructions to avoid breach and having to check with management first.....'
    No breaches can be instigated without asking management first. Anything and everything must be done to avoid a breach.

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    1. terminating orders/cases as completed with UPW hours outstanding has been going on for years. CPROs pre 2003/4 common practice.... UPW has never been taken seriously by Probation Boards/Trusts and now CRCs and NPS. IPPF figures always fiddled, sharp practices not just the domain of the private sector

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    2. Perhaps not but when the private sector are taking money from the taxpayer as a result of these 'sharp practices' doesn't it become fraud?

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    3. Well if you want to nitpick, the salaries of the staff when it was being done by the public sector still came out the taxpayer's pocket - out want a problem for anyone then!

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    4. * it wasn't a problem, rather...

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  5. Islington needs to improve further

    Despite some improvements, youth offending work in Islington was still not effective in protecting the public, reducing reoffending and keeping young people safe, said Paul Wilson, Chief Inspector of Probation. Today he published the report of a recent joint inspection of the work of Islington Youth Offending Service.

    https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/media/press-releases/2016/01/islingtonfjr/

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  6. Staff must incist on management oversight entry on Delius or else it will be they who are punished when things go wrong - if you are not allowed to breach get your managers notes on the logs otherwise breach and let someone else withdraw it.

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  7. New body to take responsibility for social work standards and regulation

    Chief social worker says standards body will help social work become recognised as a highly regarded profession

    http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/01/14/new-body-take-responsibility-social-work-standards-regulation/

    The word Probation is not mentioned in that Community Care article - so much for "joined up Government"!

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  8. chief's blog on Merseyside says that next weds 20th we will all be receiving a letter about the 'flex teams' we'll become part of. It'll also (I think) give locations of said teams. Admin to be told imminently about location and basically it's all systems go except Case Management System not up & running for ages as IT isn't capable yet. Estates high on the agenda and confirmation that county boundaries will be merged ie Cheshire with Merseyside and Manchester with Cheshire.

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  9. Response from SWM NPO Branch to the proposed compulsory redundancies.
    This has not been a good time for some members in the SWM who have been informed at meetings that they are at risk of being made redundant. Those meetings have been held and napo believed the actual and specific details including the number of job loses would be circulated to all staff on Tuesday of this week, This did not happen and members were contacting myself and other reps asking for details of the proposals. My understanding is that other than the e mail sent to CRC staff by the Chief Executive Officer, Catherine Holland no other details have been circulated. My view is that it is not the role of napo to circulate these numbers to staff but the CRC should be doing this. However, the one figure given at all the meetings was the headline figure of the proposal of making 97.3 full time jobs redundant out of an approximate workforce of 800.

    I need to explain that napo are totally opposed to the redundancies and the proposals for implementing them. I would ask you to look at the agreed, negotiated redundancy policy that is being used in these proposals. You will see that before compulsory redundancies occur a number of alternatives should be considered by management and unions I will now indicate whether they have been offered to groups of staff who are at risk of losing their jobs:

    Savings and cost cutting (Have the unions been given these figures) NO
    Freezing Vacancies YES
    Redeployment NO
    Voluntary Early Retirement NO
    Voluntary Redundancy or Reduced Working Hours NO
    Flexible Voluntary Retirement NO

    Now let me tell you why we (napo) and the at risk groups are being told the above cannot be considered particularly voluntary redundancies as alternatives at this time. There is one simple answer, we are continually being told by management that there is no TIME. It is the proposal from the CRC that the majority of staff being made redundant would leave the organisation at the end of March unless they needed your experience skills and knowledge and then you would leave after March. Let me explain why napo are so angry with this excuse about time. For months and months the unions have been asking for the numbers of possible redundancies to be released so that the normal procedures such as voluntary redundancy could be implemented; without success. Why we would ask for this is very straight forward. if you get volunteers there may be none or a reduced number of compulsory job loses. We have been repeatedly told by management that the reason why they could not disclose the numbers is that discussions about the WAV Band (the money RRP would get from the government) were on going and could affect the redundancy figures. You may believe that to be reasonable, however, we are told those discussions are still ongoing so surely it is the CRC who must take full and total responsibility for getting the CRC into this mess because nothing has changed from the middle of last year when if the figures had been released voluntary redundancies could have been considered. We are also told that all the above alternatives to compulsory redundancy were considered by the Board and the Senior Executive Team: at no point were the unions consulted and we have not been involved in the considerations.

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  10. So 22.11 what are NAPO, UNISON and any other trade union in this area doing about it?

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    1. From 22.11 I had to truncate the response from the local NAPO branch chair due to lack of space. However the chair continues;
      So what actions are napo locally and nationally taking. Immediately the figures were announced I contacted our national SWM/CRC rep Mike McClelland who has requested a meeting with Catherine Holland and we await a date for this. Locally the Executive held an emergency meeting yesterday and was the reason that we were unable to attend the CRC Leadership Forum. We have a number of important questions that we will be asking at todays HR/TU meeting and we will feedback back the outcome to members.
      I have been contacted by members who are not at risk of being made redundant as to how they can support and show solidarity with colleagues who are at risk. At the 'at risk meetings' the Operations Director said that case loads in the CRC would not go down. We are aware that members are still going the extra mile and we believe that the RRP are not getting the true picture about the goodwill members are still displaying in these troubled times. Maybe staff at risk and those not at risk could consider just working their contracted hours.

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  11. Thanks. Is this the complete document? I'd like to publish as soon as possible, along with any further info.

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    1. I imagine some horses won't drink even when their heads are dipped in the trough, as for not reminding folks to share their own experience I despair, but we all control the publications we host and are free to reject contributions, even if it means risking losing the contributor.

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    2. Andrew - I think I need to make it plain that whilst many of your contributions are extremely welcome, I have absolutely no intention of allowing this blog to turn into the Andrew S Hatton show - hence my deletions from time to time.

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    3. Hi Jim
      yes it's the full text. Will continue to post as further news becomes available but not a terribly strong response from NAPO.

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