Sunday 21 February 2016

The Cull Continues

Seen on Facebook:-

News received - London CRC have announced today a plan to phase out all temps bar 20ish, a loss of approx 100 staff. No offers to go permanent as suggested initially. Leaving permanent staff, some of whom all already on 80+ cases, facing even higher case loads in a backdrop of the highest staff sickness rates ever and failing IT systems. Isn't that because they want to recruit new staff on lower paid contracts rather than paying through the roof for temps and saving some pennies?? Maybe I am too optimistic but I don't think a temp workforce is the way forward.

I saw the cold hearted and disgustingly brutal email announcement, but there seems to be a mixed and confused middle management view on this one. Either way I see it as mismanagement at the highest level that immediately impacted on the morale and stress levels of all staff grades. Now that's BIONIC...

Why is this not immediately responded to with a press release about how our service is in chaos?

The Probation Service have never had much 'press' since I've been around (1990)! We're like the MI5 of the Criminal Justice System, nobody knows what the hell we really do until things go wrong, which, fair play is not that often considering the people we deal with, because we had good staff, but in all probability it'll increase now, unfortunately!!

Apparently they need to make £5million savings. Our office was in 'critical measures' for understaffing but now been told it's fine and those resigning won't be replaced!!!!


And they've just sprung a 10 day target for OASys on us whilst our laptops don't work half the time! Its a joke.

This has happened in my office temp staff that have been working hard meeting targets an have been general dogs bodies working with us all being part of a team for periods of 3 an 4 years have been given a weeks notice. How is this acceptable is this allowed? These people have families an bills to pay like we all do how is this justifiable? 
Shame on you CRC. 

Please remember that these bad news stories are individuals CRC's, not the CRC as a whole. It's not one organisation. Whilst I completely agree what is happening to London is not the way forward and reflects badly on everyone working hard, not all CRCs are going the same way. Some are recruiting, training and valuing their staff.

Staffs and West Mids isn't ...

BGSW are ending all temps at the end of March. Atm they are looking to cull our administration going from 77 to just 28 across the whole area. Not sure how we will manage. I can only guess PSO's will be next.

This is getting beyond a joke now.

A while back I was shown some sort of workload management tool that magically took overworked staff and turned them into ones who all had additional capacity. Still don't know how this happens. Magic wand maybe?


Some of our CRC colleagues in Northumbria are already holding 80+ cases, it's an impossible situation.

I would love to hear some good news from a CRC but sadly I suspect it will be the lull before the storm! Wonder what the result of E3 will be for the NPS? PSO doing previous PO work, dumbing down the job, loss of jobs in community teams........? I so hope I am wrong!

This does not surprise me ... We will all be on our knees soon!! Grrrr

The Probation Service was the oldest of all the public sectors. Proudly it started before the NHS and even the teaching profession .... it's now reduced to a shadow of itself. For those of us who have been around for a few years, it's clearly doomed: Those who are now coming into it fresh on either side now don't know any different.... They think it's brilliant .... with half a qualification, poor training, huge caseloads/ tsunamis to look forward to.


I can seriously say that someone in middle or higher management is either telling lies or shirking responsibilities! Every SPO I speak to is confused!!! I standby that this is mismanagement at all levels. The day that email was sent was the day everyone left my office by 4pm without a goodbye!

The above two entries are a classic lesson in how to unnerve a workforce via mismanagement! Within an hour of that email the CRC office was vacant with heads hung low, despite it being late night reporting! If I'd have replicated this in a case I'd be fighting for my job! I want answers....the emotional fall out of this will be BIONIC.....

They have already done this in Devon and Cornwall. Chaos. No one can cope

--oo00oo--

News from Hampshire - Hampshire CRC.. letters arrived yesterday to re-apply for jobs. Morale is at a new level of low!

Bloody hell.

Coming to us here at Working Links - BGSW-CRC.

The unions seem powerless to me, whilst this out of control tidal wave hits once relatively settled shores.

Oh no

Are they making everyone redundant?

Here in West Yorkshire CRC we are supposed to get our letters this coming week (well phase one).

The Unions are as powerful as the members demand, just look at the effect rail workers are having. It needs a large number to be members and a large portion to be active. It does require a commitment especially getting to Branch Meetings but I suspect that it was because probation workers were unionised that their employment was not casualised decades ago, like cleaners and residential care workers, maybe we should have stood up more for them?

This is terrible news. You're right, a union is only as powerful as its members! The only people to blame for this is mess is the previous coalition and the current government! However in Staffordshire we are finding out that MPS have no idea what is happening as the MOJ are doing a white wash job!

Same for HLNY area as well.

Don't blame the unions. Where were all the members when we were standing on the picket lines! Many were warned but thought they would be OK!

43 comments:

  1. The Napo forum appears to have quietly disappeared during the re-engagement initiative.

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    1. So it does! I suspect Napo were never that happy about it.

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    2. For a second there I thought that was an appropriate Schlacthof Funf reference from you Jim. So it goes/so geht das. Sunday morning bleary eyes to blame.

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    3. Sorry, but I'm nowhere near as well-read as many of my readers:-

      Wikipedia - Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) is a satirical novel by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II experiences and journeys through time of a chaplain's assistant named Billy Pilgrim.

      "The Germans put Billy and his fellow prisoners in a disused slaughterhouse in Dresden. Their building is known as "Schlachthof-fünf" ("Slaughterhouse Five")."

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    4. The chairs and top table must have made that decision. Bet it was a silence matter at the NEC. Problem is they cannot complain that people moan about a site that's loaded in censorship and a leadership unable to listen to its members. Sadly the membership have always elected the wrong leadership.

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  2. Sad and Disillusioned21 February 2016 at 09:50

    Still more devastating news on the culling of staff in another CRC. I've taken out a grievance in my own CRC (SWM) against the compulsory redundancies as the CRC has just ignored our previously agreed policy and gone straight for dismissal/redundancy. Looks like CRCs will just do what the hell they want to without fear of any outside interference. Feels like we are now working for some sort of 3rd world dictatorship. How the hell did we get here.

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    1. Employment Tribunal someone let NAPO know that's what they are supposed to do in the case of sackings. By the way dust off your house insurance legal fees may be covered a better use to you than union dues right now.

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    2. Yes, I met with a solicitor at the time of the split and he suggested considering using house insurance to pay legal fees. Worth looking into.

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  3. The warnings were clear to see but the unions (certainly napo) tried to be cosy up to the government & cut a deal rather than make a clear stand; they were out of their league, behind the gameline & totally out-manoeuvered. In addition plenty of staff members (union or otherwise) either didn't take the threat seriously or believed they were 'safe' if they didn't rock the boat, so a majority just said nothing and kept their heads down whilst criticising the nay-sayers for being dinosaurs, doom-mongers, resistant to change.

    Now, to paraphrase the Pastor's famous words once again:

    "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Trade Unionist... Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me."

    As Jim rightly says, "The Cull Continues".

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  4. The problem does not lay with whether the union is weak, out-manoeuvered or that staff buried their heads in the sand thinking they would be safe, it lies with a total lack of understanding of what Probation does by both the government and those corporate businesses who now own us. They really do not have a clue. I don't know what the letter will say when it arrives next week but if it comes to each of us having to apply for our own jobs, it will be difficult to know what to do. I have loved my time in Probation but seeing it destroyed on a daily basis, to being asked to focus on meaningless targets at the expense of spending time with people, the ever increasing workloads is not the job we signed up for. As much as I need a job, do I want to be left with what aftermath awaits those that remain? I am not so sure I do.

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    1. I honestly don't think it was/is a lack of understanding of what probation does - it is/was an intentional, planned & efficiently delivered transformation because those who are shafting probation have another agenda, and probation doesn't figure in that future. The 'Warning from History' blog shows how efficiently ruthless the system can be when it chooses to make something happen, even to the extent of telling bare-faced lies to parliament to justify their actions.

      They DO have a clue, they just choose to do something else - and probation is at the shitty end of that deal.

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    2. Yes that's about it and the nbaievty of some of the union defence has been to try and join the enemy before the deals of the split had been done. With sort of leadership what real choices have we faced literally none we are following the incompetent let loose by an NEC who endorse whatever they are told. The Chair just endorse what they are told so there we are.

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  5. So very sadly ,09:50 how the hell did we get here? It is historically documented throughout Jim's blog. I am in NPS and feel exposed, vulnerable and waiting. I see no relief or release in the short term. I wish you well with your grievance. Take care

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  6. Any news on what's happening in DLNR crc?

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    1. DLNR nothing to report,but I don't suppose "no news is good news".

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  7. Probation Officer21 February 2016 at 10:59

    "A union is only as good as its members...." Hmmm

    As I remember it, the unions were not very good and so never had full membership. Unison saw probation as an afterthought and Napo never moved beyond the 1990's and was too busy focused on its internal management problems. Don't forget all that money Napo paid to the shamed former GS Mr J Ledger, remember when former national chair Mr T Rendon applied to be a CRC director then resigned, Napo never explained why it got rid of their best exec member ever Mr H Fletcher, and our unions continue to prop up the Probation Institute which has not been supported by members because it quietly supports TR, probation privatisation and the government whitewash of probation practice.

    From long before TR the unions consistently failed to represent its members and this is why membership dwindled. There were many of us on the pickets and we were all against TR. Napo failed to mount the fight until the 11th hour, and when it did this consisted of delivering a cake to Chris Grayling, withdrawing our judicial review and employing a media officer that has failed to get any significant media coverage.

    Even now with all the changes and redundancies being announced in NPS and CRC the union action amounts to a handful of statements, as usual delivered after the horse has bolted. They've said hardly anything about the gagging of staff, the huge payouts to former chief officers, the new McDonald's practices of CRC's, the coming E3 dumb-down, redundancies, office closures, etc, etc. There is so much unions could be saying in the public domain about what our work is and the impact of the changes, redundancies and dumbing-down upon us. Instead probation staff and office continue to get the chop while the tumbleweeds continue to roll past the doors of Napo HQ, and that is why the cull will continue.

    They've even bloody taken away our Napo forum!

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    1. Brilliant review Probation Officer. While on this the forum is no loss really no one was using apart from ex Chairs and some officials who endorsed failed Rendon and what of the true scandal of hios depaerture another officers cover up. Thank crikey some of these people have gone yet the latest chairs are complacent and unable to actually understand what it is they are supposed to be doing. Being a probation officer does not make them able or capable trade unionists. I had heard to save money they want to hang on without elections can this be true?

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  8. Were here because we didnt unite. We allowed our profession to be undermined and sold off.
    Although its late in the day, you still have two choices: Go quietly, or create a fuss.
    If your in a union, let your reps know your anger.
    If your not in a union, grow up and join one, your boss is not your friend. Your colleagues are, so unite with them.
    Together we are stronger, divided we beg.

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  9. Why didn't I go and support my Sodexo colleagues when I heard what happening to them? Why didn't I phone colleagues to ask how it was going in other crcs ? There may be many reasons self preservation, head in sand, denial all a result of the divide and rule carve up of our organisation. We have a legacy of the old Trusts competition left where we were appalling at sharing anything with each other. We have been putty in the hands of our owners but there is stil time to fight but I suspect few of us will be brave enough.

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  10. Mapping Matching and Shafting Letters are Imminent.
    Over time I have felt increasingly let down by Senior Management who should have been the first to resist and say no to some of the unreasonable demands being placed upon us and not support the insulting fiasco of new modules, Masterclasses and half ready IT systems. I am constantly hearing that we are a well educated group of people and knowledgeable. No ones asking me my opinion though.

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    1. In deciding who keeps a job and who is made redundant Purple Futures will use spent warnings in tie break situations. When it comes to spent warnings, it seems you can never be rehabilitated in the eyes of PF as natural justice does not apply.

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    2. using spent warnings is a disgrace, I know of people who didn't want to accept warnings but were advised to on NAPO advice!!! The whole thing stinks and we should all go off longterm sick with stress!!

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    3. legally spent warning can NOT be used

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    4. I am afraid spent warnings can be used in addition to other criteria. Their use would not be automatically deemed unreasonable in law. It's not fair, it's not justice, but it's allowed in law.

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  11. Haven't you heard Jim? NAPO Greater London branch is being starved of cash by NAPO HQ. But who can blame them if they seem to be more concerned about the Middle East than jobs redundancies and what we're going through. More work to save our jobs and less infighting and cozy chats with bosses.

    NAPO has few temps as members but that's no reason to hang the out to dry because they'll be coming for us next.

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    1. I hear our nec reps resigned and we have lots of cash to fund re elections it must be rubbish, as I also hear London branch is in another crisis set to get worse.

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    2. Crisis...... What crisis?

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  12. Hampshire CRC (purple futures) are not offering redundancy. Every member of staff has been matched to a job and therefore if they chose not to take it, they are effectively resigning. Whilst there are not enough senior case manager posts (po posts). Po's are therefore having to apply for their own job but if unsuccessful will be offered a case manager (pso post) with their po salary protected for 3 years. Similar situation wit spos.

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  13. Private companies want to make money. Therefore they want performers. I see some positives of their method, considering there are staff who, quite frankly, take the absolute mickey and others who work their arses off with no reward.

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    1. 16:32 - Well, who needs objective criteria for redundancy selection with such a hit list and your sad readiness to designate the deserving from the undeserving.

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    2. They are making no redundancies. Every one will be offered a job. If it is not as cushy as they would like (I.e a stones throw from their house) they can decline. But they will not be made redundant. Declining = resigning as they have offered you a job.

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    3. Unfortunately, it doesnt even have to be a 'stones throw from their house' to be a reasonable offer. Cant remember the details offhand - but there is an ETA ruling that upheld that a relocation offer of a job up to (I think)about 50 miles away is reasonable. Sad but true - not all ETA rulings have gone in the employees favour. So please dont be fooled into thinking that a job offer 30 miles away from your current one is dead cert grounds to go for constructive dismissal........
      Deb

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  14. In the only not for profit CRC, a couple of weeks ago, a senior manager announced that there would be redundancies and temp contracts would not continue. We know that the caseloads are not what was expected whilst the NPS are managing low risk PPOs and medium risk cases which the POs in the CRCs previously managed.The allocation process is fundamentally flawed, resulting in a payment mechanism which may result in the big players handing the contracts back as there is clearly no money to be made. This could result in even more chaos. We should be alerting our MPs to the situation and include the wide scale redundancies in press releases. The trade unions and I include Unison in this - (there inactivity in our downfall rarely gets a mention) need to act now as the staff cuts are being announced. Every job loss needs to be publicised.

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    1. Wonder when Senior Managers are going to make this announcement to all. Not heard this until now.

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    2. and so the news breaks.

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  15. I love a cull. All those idiots thinking there so smart causing mischief in teams and offices are now vulnerable to the axe. Bet they wont be strutting around the office on Monday morning!!!

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    1. and for those that will remain after the cull. Your reward is what exactly?
      More work to do, more shit to deal with, more stress, and before you know what day it is, another round of culls.
      Well done you!

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    2. Yes exactly and then the coup de grass your terms and condition with rates of pay will be redefined as lower pay bands and you'll have a whole lot more for a whole lot less enjoy you asked for it.

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    3. We have been bad at dealing with the malingerers as all public sectors organisations have been but this doesn't mean that the fit, stable and work horses will be any better off in the new world. As a workhorse I will get old and need time off I expect but so far as a young workhorse I resent the malingerers but we have had impotent HR and SMTs who should have dealt with the passengers and now the survivors will pick up the pieces

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    4. 18:31 I'm worried about you. Inexperienced as you sound you need to know we are dealing with ex NOMS people who don't have a good track record of getting rid of the right people. You could be in luck ( if you want to go)

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    5. Wow, really feeling the solidarity and love here tonight. Must be Monday tomorrow!

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  16. Probation is well and truly finished as a profession when we are reduced to bickering over the scraps.

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