Pick of the Week

This blog has a tendency to move along at some speed, covering a vast range of subjects and I'm conscious that some contributions tend to get lost in the haste. With this in mind I'm returning to the practice of picking out some that particularly catch my eye each week. I'm kicking this off with a rare contribution from the other side of the desk:-

There is a distinct stench of irony that a fair few of the lobbyists skulking the corridors of Whitehall are no better than those of us probation officers sit across the desk from on appointments. The only real difference being the lobbyists have someone who listens to them. 

My opinions have changed through my year and a half dealings with NPS. Inside a prison, the others that share the same houseblock have nothing nice at all to say about probation officers, "they are there just to recall you", "Just sit there and tell them what you think they want to hear" amongst many horror and sob stories that would have Simon Cowell in tears during your audition. 

Barring my first encounter with my probation officer using the famed blitzkrieg approach, things have not really been that bad. The majority of people I have dealt with, like many posters on here, seem to have a genuine passion and a degree of care you would hope to meet on entering the system. That being said, I can't see any bright future for NPS. The bandwagon is already rolling. It is no longer about the needs of the community they serve or those on licence. The only statement that matters now is the ones given at the annual shareholders meetings. 

If anyone thinks or hopes for a failure by these companies, to quote Lawrence Fishburn "You're living in a dream world, Neo". This is only the start. There is no opportunity to evolve and adapt. The cause isn't helped by those who wear rose tinted glasses. I am sure there were many things that could have been improved upon within the probation service, although there are a fair few will argue with that. 

I have been passed around from one probation officer to another, from one who you get along with and treats you like a person to, mystic meg with attitude. It can't be helped because that's the way things seem to be at the moment.

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E3 means that Pre Sentence Reports, PSR's are now Fast Delivery Reports FDR's, and written by unqualified staff (PSO's). Probation officers are to be forced to work in prisons (mainly writing parole reports), and replaced by PSO's in the community offices (managing huge caseloads). End of 'End to end offender management' as offenders in custody to have no contact with outside probation officers. Tiering models are to change so caseloads will rise (as if it wasn't busy enough already). Mandatory use of ARMS and VISOR slowly aligning probation with the police.

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A hopeful Inspector hopes the CRCs will see the big picture and not block inspections with confidentiality firewalls. A 'hopeful' inspector will frighten no one.

A muddled Inspector says that policy and probation instructions will not be the cause of any failures as these will be around 'time and priority' and resources. How can policy be divorced from resources? And what a wacky stance where probation instructions are not risk assessed to see if they are achievable in a resource depleted world.

An Inspector actually says something that will allow him to sleep at night:-

"I am worried about the prospects for staff and the future staffing levels and I fear the Sonnex scenario being recreated with inexperienced staff, possibly less trained and qualified than they were before, with larger caseloads, managed and supervised by more remote managers."

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"There is much less emphasis on ‘have you done this, that and the other to the required standard?’ and more on the question ‘have you made a positive impact on this offender?’ and ‘explain to us how you did it’.” - Paul Wilson

What an interesting question, especially with probation services being run by ruthless international catering companies and ministerial incompetents. Professional standards are no longer required, resources hardly exist and probation officers are being sacked en-masse to be replaced by electronic monitoring, Skype and unqualified/inexperienced new recruits. The CRC's Sodexo Links et al has decimated what's left of probation and the NPS' E3 is set to do the same. If there are any positive answers to Mr Wilson's question they may include the words "by a miracle".

I'd like to know what the HMIP expects probation (best practice) work to be, and the ways it expects probation services to provide it. It's very strange it has "inspected" the quality and impact of the current TR-damaged services provided, and there's little comment on what we know to be the failings of these services.

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The latest outrage in this disaster beggars belief! I understand that some PSOs in my NPS area have been "directed" to work for the failing CRC for up to the next 12 weeks. What's all that about?!

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After the long transitional period - honeymoon? Wilson now says no more slack on the 'serious transitional issues' and that in future TR will be held to account. The pressure to fiddle the figures will intensify and hopefully these antics will be widely shared through this blog. The serious transitional issues won't go away, because they are inherent in the design and structure of TR - a crab will never walk straight.

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At what point do "transitional issues" get recognised by the authorities for what they are, which is structural problems? Calling them "transitional" is unhelpful, because of the implication that they will reduce over time - which we simply aren't seeing, just more of the same nonsense, day after day, and it'll only get worse when the various cuts start biting.

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I went through the recent inspection and it was crystal clear that the inspectors did not want to hear about anything negative - not one person in our office commended managers for how they deal with change yet when we saw the feedback it was glowing and hastily transmitted by the ACE....independent my arse.

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Yesterday I was due to have 6 offenders coming in to see me. Only 1 turned up. Travel was not an issue as all were local. I work for CRC and have noticed a steady decline in attendance. Even after engagement panels, no improvement. The attendance rate of my caseload used to be excellent with barely a need to breach. Now I am considering breach on a number of cases many of whom have had engagement panels arranged (not always attended). I don't like breaching and I don't like being in this position. This change is steady and appears to have bedded in. This would seem to be a direct result of the changes in case management and officer status? associated with the changes under TR. I am now so unsure in the work that I do. A position I have never been in before. I do not really know now what my job is. That's the true outcome of TR. My community is less safe from offending of that I am sure. Recidivism is increasing and at a pace.

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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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"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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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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According to G4S, staff thinking for themselves is undesirable – it's just a matter of following correct procedures. This management method may be fine for a production assembly line, but good management of people requires nuanced responses, often using imagination, empathy, compassion, discretion and so forth. There is no correct procedure that I know of that if followed will develop trusting relationships. Such procedures may work with dogs, but not with humans who do think for themselves. Essentially G4S advocate procedures that dehumanise and emphasise behavioural control and creates an oppressive culture.
G4S lies somewhere between Battersea Dog's Home and Guantanamo Bay.

In such a culture the staff are not unthinking, as the Panorama programme showed, they can be quite adept in interpreting the standing orders. They will abuse you out of range of the CCTV, they will squeeze your injured hand because they know it will be more painful, they will punch the wall to demonstrate their power before towering over you. And, later with their colleagues, they will be reflective and boastful: swapping stories and sharing abusive techniques, they will fiddle reports of incidents to reach targets and avoid penalties. This is not unthinking behaviour – to coin a phrase, it's the banality of evil.

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But as we know, unless or until such behaviour is exposed it gets results for the organisation, and so for as long as possible its tolerated, ignored or excused by EVERYONE with a finger in the pie, aka "stakeholders" or "partnerships" or plain & simple political ideology. The Howard League piece above proves that.

All that G4S, Serco, Sodexo etc etc are concerned about is the Bottom Line in terms of profit for shareholders. We know this. Its been hailed on this blog since its inception. The senior managers have no loyalty to anyone but Mammon; just look how quickly they jump into each others' graves once the bullet has been fired.

But why does the abuse & corruption & scandal continue when its so plain to see? Why do G4S lose one contract yet achieve another almost immediately? Why are they even considered suitable for any contracts when, just to give one example, they are by their own admission guilty of defrauding the government to the tune of (probably much more than) £100M. Similarly Serco, and no doubt many others. Where are the criminal proceedings? Likewise with bankers: "Erm, enough time has elapsed that we'll forget about the mass criminality & eyewatering fraud within the banking system."

The celebration of & plentiful rewards for deception & self-deception are beyond my comprehension. Crime DOES pay if you're a wealthy, white collar chum.

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The beneficiaries of outsourcing and TR are the private companies and those individuals who occupy high positions; the politicians and all the well-paid consultants who are ever ready to draw on their experience in the public sector to serve the private sector. When something goes well in the system they are quick to claim credit, when it goes awry they go into denial. But they don't want to reverse any reforms because they enjoy their rewards too much. These are the greedy men/women, they lean together. So when a child is bullied by G4S, the culpability is collective. Sure, your local CEO was not at the crime scene, but the Godfathers never are – they just run the system on behalf of their paymasters.

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No one is pretending or implying that G4S has a monopoly on abuse. Of course it was rife in residential homes in the public sector, in churches and elsewhere. There is focus on G4S because it was the subject of the Panorama programme and G4S is newsworthy because of past criticisms – the Olympic's fiasco, the tagging scandal, and other controversies.

But I agree: when it comes to abusive practices you need to look through a wide lens. In all walks of life, in schools and workplaces, in relationships of all descriptions, there seems to be no end to examples of bullying, predation and abuse of power. I suppose in this context the main difference between the likes of G4S and the public sector, is that the former makes a profit on the £140,000 it charges annually for looking after each child.

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My post was admittedly focused on current scandal but, as others have noted, it applies to any dysfunctional environment. Anon above is spot on that the core elements are "bullying, predation & abuse of power". I and others have previously compared the behaviours of the greedy & power hungry to the behaviours of DV perpetrators, i.e. take control, keep control, bully & humiliate, keep the victim in a state of anxiety, keep changing the 'rules' & deflect all responsibility onto the victim. Just apply that template to NOMS...

I spent over 20 years trying to unravel such abusive behaviour in the broadest range of perpetrators, from professional sports personalities to CEOs of international businesses, from local councillors to police officers and firefighters, lawyers and shopkeepers, drug dealers, welders and civil engineers. In all that time the hardest behaviours to challenge were those within the organisation, e.g. malicious line managers, ambitious ladder-climbers, politically motivated wannabe's. And with role models like Thatcher, Blair, Brown & Cameron, why wouldn't they see that behaviour as the way to achieve "success" ?

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It's inevitable that young people exposed to such horrific abuse at Medway will present with further behavioural, emotional and psychological difficulties on their release. One mother reflected on this fear in relation to her son. Young people such as those filmed will be at a higher risk of harming themselves or members of the public, thus escalating future risks should they 're-offend and become caught up in the revolving door of CJ provision. Ultimately, they will transfer into the adult arena and carry with them further risks to self and others.

Services for young offenders should ensure that provision treats young people as 'children'. They are not exempt from the provisions of the Children's Acts (1989 +2004). This statutory duty has to be reinforced and upheld in any setting where adults work with children. It also made me worry about the behaviour and attitudes of the adults who have now been sacked from Medway when they are away from cctv surveillance in their family and social settings.

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The cull in Staffordshire tactfully announced by senior management yesterday (but NOT for the West Midlands part of the SWM Probation area - at least not for main grade PO's) was made even less appealing as management have admitted there are still around 100 agency staff in post across the SWM area, costing God knows how much. They haven't deigned to consider voluntary redundancy to front line staff, despite offering this to a select group in head office some time ago. What a farce. . however, we are well used to being kept on tenterhooks, as we've been waiting for the chop for years ever since Stoke and Wales were singled out for an ill-fated 'pilot' for TR some time back. Investors in People - NO!!

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They have to do certain things and Napo reps should be all over this with the appropriate rules on the process. The Local reps had better get their fingers out too and challenge the model proposed and dust off the better than EVR rates that you have. The announcement is misguided in that it has to minimise dismissals and show a process to do so. Individual and union ET claims have to be the main ambition for unfair dismissals. Reads like they are making that evidence trail easy to collect and deliver winnable cases.

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Joe says "sentencers do not seem to care too much" about the future of probation. Trouble is sentencers have no public means to express their feelings appropriately. I have no doubt they do care when they see court POs rushing around like headless chickens doing several peoples' jobs. They probably care that monitoring community orders and breach procedures have gone down the tubes because of the split between NPS and CRC and probably also commercial confidentiality. There is a very great danger that sentencers will lose confidence in probation services entirely.

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Whilst I very much admire (and to some extent envy) Joe Kuipers' optimism, enthusiasm & positivity, I also tend to agree with the Anon posts highlighting that inherent in the demolition derby that is TR too many people have gotten away with too much without being brought to book for their actions, e.g. Grayling, Romeo, Brennan, Spurr etc. Ideologue politicians and allegedly political neutral civil servants have expedited a disastrous series of decisions, skirting around any notion of accountability whilst ignoring all evidence that told them it was risky. They toyed with the Public Accounts Committee & it is probably only the General Election that saved them from a further savaging by Ms Hodge. But as highlighted in the extracts posted on this blog today, where is the follow-up by the PAC? This is supposed to be the Committee that protects the public purse & reins in (or at least acknowledges) misuse, malpractice & incompetence.

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Sounds exactly like a DRR to me, formerly a DTTO. Yes probation has been providing these interventions to drug users for years. This was much better under DTTO when probation was better resourced, the Orders were lengthier and court reviews were always attended. IOM built on this model and this has been a success for probation too. Surprisingly none of this is mentioned in the article. That David Hanson MP is a weasel as he was a Justice Minister so his comments should have included all of the above.

Where's NAPO and the Probation Institute in all this, the "probation voice"? I assume their phones just ring and ring when the journalists call for a comment!

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Again, I would expect the Probation Institute to take a lead on setting the record straight on this, probation has been engaging in exactly THIS for YEARS until we were stopped, as pointed out DTTOs then DRRs. I always loved it when Judges gave positive feedback to service users (or more accurately endorsed the Probation Officers positive report when progress was made). Some ignorant Civil Servant will be getting plaudits for bringing in a system the CJS and Probation had been doing for years until they were made to stop. It really would be funny if our professionalism had not been so decimated.

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'A source close to Mr Gove added: “One of the principle aims is to make sure we effectively tackle the root causes of re-offending.'

The Tories need to spell out what they consider to be the root causes and whether these are actually being aggravated by other Tory polices in the fields of welfare, housing, etc... And if they seriously want to reduce the prison population they have to transfer money from the prison's budget to improve social provision and stop shrinking the probation, youth and other services that help to facilitate rehabilitation and community reintergration.

As a magistrate who was involved in the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre observed:

'So very often we talk about the underlying cause of offender behaviour as being substance abuse; but that is not the underlying cause.’ That often comes back to issues to do with ‘welfare benefits, housing, living conditions employment etc.'

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Michael Gove is well aware of probation's history and if not I'm sure the Lord Chief Justice is knowledgeable enough to set him straight. Who is going to be part of this panel?  Surely not any of our TR-friendly former probation Chief Officers that seem to keep popping up?

It was always understood that re-offending is prevented by working in partnership to improve literacy, job skills, employment opportunities, family support and access to housing, etc, and tackling addictions, health problems and mental health are key parts of the process. This was what the probation service did before some idiot came up with silly terms like "public protection", "risk management" and "desistance" to label and change what probation officers do.

Sadly this has feathered the careers of countless politicians, academics and probation secondees to the Home Office, but has achieved nothing for the probation service which is no longer mentioned by the government in the same sentence as "rehabilitation" and "reducing re-offending". It's probably easier to ignore us; out of sight, out of mind and all that. 'Tough on the causes of crime'?! Didn't Blair say that too?!