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I agree with Frances Crook and I've not stated whether I'm NPS, CRC, retired, redundant or other. What we're seeing in CRC's is not 'probation'. Now we all know that some of the old Probation Trusts were not greats, but all of these CRC's are awful and they're not even hiding it.
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On top of telephone only contacts, Working Links keep dropping onerous hints about bringing together employability and justice functions. Could the future include CRC staff implementing welfare to work and benefit sanctions while employability staff take on overall case responsibility for community orders?
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This is definitely part of the Wonky Links Way, though if they try it, they'll have a big fight on their hands as everyone I know says they will refuse to do it. All awkward issues around the CRC being a separate legal entity are being well and truly brushed under the carpet.
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So sign on for benefits and probation all in one place. This is possible as I've seen job centre staff sign people on at probation offices in the past, but separate. The danger is the breach, recall and benefit sanction will all be rolled into one and with targets and profit as the underlying motivation. Now we see why the NPS has to authorise breaches and recall as a safeguard. What a mess; this is why CRC's should no longer be called probation.
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The organisational & financial incentives are already in place, they just need to push the button. Why no investment in fancy buildings for CRCs? Because they're holding out for the one-size-fits-all benefit bill to clear the Lords, then they can open their one-stop warehouses into which they can herd "the jobless, the feckless, the homeless & the hopeless", as I overheard a CRC director describe our client group recently. Is that "probation"?
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No, it is no longer Probation, neither "side" can make a claim to that any longer. It starts with NPS court teams, there is one NE court based manager who said "we are not here to make assessments any longer, we are here to deliver reports for the Court and anyone who thinks otherwise should leave". He said this on the back of delivering volume, not quality of delivering a unit of work not professional assessment.
Now when both sides of the great divide get those 'reports' they are faced with trying to decide how to make the sentence work and when it is worth their time to essentially back fill and make good the deficits in said reports, is it worth their time? Now in CRC time is money and that is what drives their process. In NPS it is practitioner fear that drives the process, what has been missed that could mean I get blamed for a SFO?
I know it used to be about the client/offender/service user and rehabilitation. That is now gone, blown to the wind by TR. Shareholders or Senior Civil Servants, neither makes a good master or has anything to do with probation values or ethics. NPS PO.
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I am a court PO and have grave concerns about the implications of E3 in respect of report/court practice. Every court team and individual is monitored each week in terms of the stats; this includes CAs in relation to whether cases have been inputted in the time allowed. With members of teams being required to prepare all reports, both magistrates' and Crown courts, something will give; this undoubtedly being quality of assessment.
I was talking to a barrister regarding arrangements for the client to be interviewed for a same day report that was being transferred to another court in a large city. I was appalled when told by the barrister that they regularly go to this court and the clients are only interviewed for between 5 and 10 minutes by the POs. How can that practice even be called a report? It's an insult to "justice" for all concerned, client, victim, court and society. Units of production now, not professional assessments. NPS and CRC are just opposite sides of the same penny coin.
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The E3 process will soon affect every area of NPS. POs in specialisms graded from band 4 to 3 as in the recent VLO outcome and where will they go if they want to remain at grade 4? Will there be enough posts to filter them into or, most likely, they will be forced to regrade and take substantial pay cuts. The lines between PO and PSO duties are very blurred with PSO completing reports, face to face supervision of offenders already established. The NPS will have a very unhappy workforce when all staff will be moved around in their vision of inter-changeable roles and there is no need to become qualified. Job satisfaction, what satisfaction? Just a My Services ID number on a spreadsheet.
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On the quality of reports, I have to say, how can any court team realistically undertake a proper assessment of those people who have committed serious offences in what could be just a one hour video-link interview? There's two concerns here as far as I can see, firstly there could be an underestimate of the danger someone poses because the interview has been too short for a realistic assessment to take place and secondly, there could be an overestimate of risk because the interview was so limited that only cursory and superficial information was obtained. Either way, it's seriously problematic from a "justice" and "public protection" point of view.
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This is more about on the day reports. It's well known that court duty officers would see offenders for a very short period before preparing a report and proposing sentence. This has been the case for years and yes sometimes interviews can be 10 mins and tell the court what it wants to hear. This was not really a problem when lower level offences/offenders were being dealt with. This is now a problem when the majority of reports are in fast/short format, meaning those with complex issues and serious offences are being dealt with in this way. A recipe for disaster really and those doing the allocations will also suffer when something goes wrong and they will be hung out to dry as the small print in the policy allows for author and allocator discretion in changing report format.
High risk and dangerousness remain as full PSR's. A 1-2 hour interview in the office or by video link is enough. Because of the length of the adjournment period this allows for enquiries and a "proper assessment" is quite feasible. A lot of these cases come with psychological reports, are known to probation already, or a custodial sentence is the only outcome. "Justice" is more likely to be done with full PSR's even with the time/resource restraints we have. I do not understand how probation have managed to justify moving away from full/ proper pre sentence reports.
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It's dictated by NOMS/MoJ. The very same people in NPS who not long ago would have agreed role boundaries are now calling oral reports on the day for DV/sex offences an 'exciting opportunity' for PSOs. As a PSO, when I hear this I feel sick and stressed.
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In a magistrates' court team in NE a PSO volunteered to write a report on breach of SOPO but had to be taken aside and have what a SOPO was explained to her first. Other staff of same grade refused to do the report because they had no training or work with sex offenders. POs in team had, but were too busy for on the day report. The rush in NPS for some PSOs to undermine qualified staff is worrying and dangerous.
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The E3 process will soon affect every area of NPS. POs in specialisms graded from band 4 to 3 as in the recent VLO outcome and where will they go if they want to remain at grade 4? Will there be enough posts to filter them into or, most likely, they will be forced to regrade and take substantial pay cuts. The lines between PO and PSO duties are very blurred with PSO completing reports, face to face supervision of offenders already established. The NPS will have a very unhappy workforce when all staff will be moved around in their vision of inter-changeable roles and there is no need to become qualified. Job satisfaction, what satisfaction? Just a My Services ID number on a spreadsheet.
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On the quality of reports, I have to say, how can any court team realistically undertake a proper assessment of those people who have committed serious offences in what could be just a one hour video-link interview? There's two concerns here as far as I can see, firstly there could be an underestimate of the danger someone poses because the interview has been too short for a realistic assessment to take place and secondly, there could be an overestimate of risk because the interview was so limited that only cursory and superficial information was obtained. Either way, it's seriously problematic from a "justice" and "public protection" point of view.
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This is more about on the day reports. It's well known that court duty officers would see offenders for a very short period before preparing a report and proposing sentence. This has been the case for years and yes sometimes interviews can be 10 mins and tell the court what it wants to hear. This was not really a problem when lower level offences/offenders were being dealt with. This is now a problem when the majority of reports are in fast/short format, meaning those with complex issues and serious offences are being dealt with in this way. A recipe for disaster really and those doing the allocations will also suffer when something goes wrong and they will be hung out to dry as the small print in the policy allows for author and allocator discretion in changing report format.
High risk and dangerousness remain as full PSR's. A 1-2 hour interview in the office or by video link is enough. Because of the length of the adjournment period this allows for enquiries and a "proper assessment" is quite feasible. A lot of these cases come with psychological reports, are known to probation already, or a custodial sentence is the only outcome. "Justice" is more likely to be done with full PSR's even with the time/resource restraints we have. I do not understand how probation have managed to justify moving away from full/ proper pre sentence reports.
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It's dictated by NOMS/MoJ. The very same people in NPS who not long ago would have agreed role boundaries are now calling oral reports on the day for DV/sex offences an 'exciting opportunity' for PSOs. As a PSO, when I hear this I feel sick and stressed.
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In a magistrates' court team in NE a PSO volunteered to write a report on breach of SOPO but had to be taken aside and have what a SOPO was explained to her first. Other staff of same grade refused to do the report because they had no training or work with sex offenders. POs in team had, but were too busy for on the day report. The rush in NPS for some PSOs to undermine qualified staff is worrying and dangerous.
This seems to be indicative of the consequences of living in an impatient, arrogant, greedy society: "I want it now; I'm better than them; I'm worth it."
ReplyDeleteNo apprenticeship, no time to reflect, no training, no gradual progression.
As a Practice Teacher (I won't change my job title for anyone) over the years I've seen a very definite shift in prevalence from those wanting to learn, to develop, to do the job - towards those who simply want a bit of paper to add to their CV so they can apply for managerial posts as soon as possible. The notion of "time on the tools" to understand the job is dismissed as "unambitious"; the idea that you can be a PSO or a PO for a number of years is regarded as "you're a loser". No, it seems the focus now is when can you get to senior management level, how soon can you break the £50K salary barrier, how quickly can you leave those annoying, smelly, uncooperative offenders behind.
This is not to belittle the talents of the ambitious, of the eager to develop, of the keen to progress BUT for goodness sake learn how to learn, take a breath, look around & understand the job before you start telling everyone else what to do & how to do it. Its bad enough that politicians & civil servants have interfered with probation to the point of breaking it; but they were aided & abetted by those who's rapid ascent to greatness meant they missed some of the more fundamental aspects of the job, blinded by the bright lights of self-importance & status: "Weekly travel to London for meetings at the MoJ, briefings with Number Ten, lunch with ministers..." Sadly for some their onanism knows no bounds.
Someone needs to tell them one simple truth: "Its not about you."
im having dreadful trouble trying to get heroin users to complete their UPW, lies after lies about reasons for failing to attend. This is the very nature of those who use Class A - constantly ducking & diving. I am exhausted with it all, in the old days we could breach but now we're told we can only breach as a last resort. Geographical size of area isn't helping - 17 miles one way when you're a chaotic user and don't even really know what day it is. Set up to fail and one of them was sentenced to UPW in absence and court were fully aware of drug status as this person well-known to the court.
ReplyDeleteWhy have they sentenced a chaotic drug user to UPW. Individuals who use illicit substances on a daily basis are surely unsuitable to operate machinery etc and would be a H&S risk on site?
ReplyDeleteRegardless of machinery, health and safety because many heroin users are quite able people, if they're heavily addicted then it's unlikely they'll travel 17 miles each way every Sunday to complete 6 months of unpaid work. Sounds like idiots are working in the courts in your area and this includes your report writers and court duty officers. This is what happens when PSO's and agency PO's are writing reports and manning the courts.
DeletePSO's per se are not the problem. Inexperienced PSO's who hadn't been in the job long before the split and now doing the court work are the issue. They don't know what they don't know. As a result heavy drug users are being sentenced to UPW virtually every week. This is resulting in many return's to court or people just simply not attending and getting lost. Unfortunately many inexperienced staff ended up in NPS and many experienced in CRC. A consequence of the arbitrary or criminal way the split in personnel was decided. Also, some people with connections to NAPO etc knew well in advance what was coming down the road and made sure they were in the right position to get into NPS and are now stressed due to their inexperience and being in the thick of it. And, yes, learning via the job over a number of years is viewed as non-ambitious and standing still. So wrong, when actually the only thing holding this whole shambles together is the knowledge and shear hard work of those kinds of individuals. They are the ones who will actually do well long-term when the ambitious climb-up-the-ladder-whilst-burning-the-rungs-behind fall on their swords.
DeleteIn all the years I've worked with individuals who misuse substances both statutory and voluntary I have never come across a casual heroin user. Their drug use makes them unsafe in a manual work setting and I certainly would not propose an agency placement. Shouldn't be offering UPW as an intervention for drug users whether they are able or not.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call heroin use casual either. Not all heroin users are chaotic drug fiends and I have come across many that live relatively normal'ish lives and those that hold down jobs too. Drug use does not rule out unpaid work; the myth supporting blanket bans of particular groups folded a long time ago.
DeleteIn response to 13:19, I didn't call heroin use casual said I have never come across anyone who uses heroin on a casual basis. Didn't call heroin users chaotic drug fiends either. Haven't come across anyone using heroin on a regular basis remaining in employment. In my view, proposing UPW for people who are chaotic drug users is setting them up to fail.
ReplyDeleteThis is another example of probation officers thinking they know everything. What it won't tell you in the manual is what happens in the real world. It is ridiculous to think that a heroin user cannot work, let alone not be able to complete 7 hours unpaid work once a week. I don't know what type of unpaid work they have in your area but round here it ranges from litter picking, to cleaning to painting. Sarcasm aside, don't rule out the entire group as there are many that are addicted to heroin or prescribed methadone that hold down jobs. I agree with you that many struggle to keep their jobs or gain new jobs, but then we are talking about 7 hours on a Sunday and not a full time office job. I've seen them work, complete probation orders and programmes, and unpaid work too. It's not unheard of to find drug users in the building trade to name a profession, or music, entertainment and medicine for that matter.
Deleteoh haven't you seen the new PI regarding UPW - 28hrs minimum per week for the unemployed. It was released about 2 or 3 months ago. Unrealistic and I didn't join probation to spend half my time chasing people up.
Deleteyes I've just looked on line and section 2.5 reads 2.5. 'Offenders must be instructed to work a minimum of seven hours per week. For unemployed offenders who are not in training or education arrangements must be put in place to facilitate the offender undertaking a minimum of 28 hours per week'.
Deletegood luck getting any opiate users doing 28hrs a week - 28 mins maybe
How can the unemployed undertake 28 hours a week unpaid work, they have to search for work 36 hours a week.
DeleteReading these entries saddens me. I do up to 70 hours a week as a barrister & I am an opiate user - IV & oral. Probation staff were non-judgemental once upon a time. I used to discuss my situation with a PO at court, discourse which I think we both benefitted from. That PO has disappeared and I haven't a clue who has replaced them - seems to be a tag team of new faces every week.
Deletei'm not being a judgemental at all - good luck to all you functioning opiate users. The ones on my books are chaotic, difficult to engage and breaking the law to fund their habit. Fact.
DeleteWhether you're real or not, read my comments above and you'll see I am defending that opiate users can and do work. I am a probation officer and I have known many, although never a barrister but in professions just as worthy. I once knew a heroin user that wrote policy documents for the government. Same goes for crack users, many can and do hold down jobs. Regarding the 28 hours unpaid work where I work, a large city, they are not set up to provide 28 hours work to offenders so most get the standard 1-2 days per week.
DeleteI've been thinking much the same - there are and always have been considerable numbers of people using heroin and other substances whilst holding down good jobs. Probation virtually never sees such people of course because they can fund their useage by legitimate means - our clients by definition have committed offences for monetary gain and tend to be chaotic.
DeleteI happen to believe that we should return to prescribing heroin and I would hope that as a result many former chaotic users could hold down employment and establish positive rlationships.
Jim you're a joker. The tories have rid the streets clean of drugs. There are no new drug problems
Deletedrug treatment as part of CO/SSO is always optional,the court cannot force anyone to address their drug use. This results in a stalemate of them funding Methadone a legal alternative - I've a guy on 70ml per day and gets quite aggressive when I suggest lowering the dosage as it is the 70ml stopping him robbing. Where do you go with people like that apart from reporting the drug service for colluding with the druguser??
DeleteWhy is it colluding and report to whom? The drug user knows himself better than you do. The methadone is keeping him stable and he's not robbing. He doesn't want to decrease it yet so stop banging on about it to him and talk about everything else. You can't make him change, he needs to decide that for himself.
DeleteMy post of 19:01 yesterday should have started with the following quotes. Without them the post is too general. Apologies for the omission (fat fingers, tiny keys, in a hurry).
Delete- This is the very nature of those who use Class A - constantly ducking & diving.
- good luck getting any opiate users doing 28hrs a week - 28 mins maybe
Methadone is prescribed far too widely and many users report that it's much more difficult to come off than heroin. I repeat that there should be a reversal in government policy regarding heroin prescribing. There were some experiments, but I've not heard what the outcome was.
DeleteYou are spot on, JB. Another commercially driven policy that was fuelled by a sense of "righteousness", i.e. that prescribed methadone is medicine which is virtuous & necessary, whilst prescribing pharmaceutical heroin is "giving in". The health issues, physical & mental, were set aside. The damage that the extraordinarily toxic methadone has done is countless, and I suspect the costs both financially and in terms of human suffering will never be known. Its as much a scandal as the widespread use of benzodiazepines, another vile & pernicious prescription drug that is enjoying a revival courtesy of the internet. Similar sales of methadone from production overseas won't be far behind.
DeleteWales CRC Company no. 2624929 or The Wales CRC Company no. 08802571 that is the question? One with assets one without. Makes interesting reading.
ReplyDeleteNow that is a interesting statement! Do you have any links so we can have a closer look. Not that the companies now running CRC's would de so duplicitous.......would they :s
Deletehttps://companycheck.co.uk/search?term=wales+community+rehabilitation+com
DeleteThe unemployed are required to take part in intensive working on Unpaid Work,have done for years.Minimum of 28 hours per week,Unpaid Work us classed as voluntary by Job Seeker rules and is allowed.Anyone unemployed on Unpaid Work has to job seek on the remaining day of the week,and are expected to take the opportunity to also search evenings and weekends.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how this will pan out in areas where the same company runs both the work programme and the CRC?
Deletehttp://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/06/government-to-review-500m-worth-of-atos-contracts-after-it-failure
ReplyDeleteAtos, the controversial outsourcing company, is facing a government review of all of its major Whitehall contracts, which amount to more than £500m, following another serious IT failure.
DeleteThe Cabinet Office told the Guardian it would undertake a full re-examination of every contract worth more than £10m operated by the French-based firm.
Such a review of a single contractor is a rarity in Whitehall and is a reflection of the levels of exasperation both from civil servants and the public accounts committee at the programmes overseen by Atos.
It will come as a blow to Atos, which has faced many public sector IT disasters. Criticisms include its role in implementing the employment and support allowance (ESA), the replacement for incapacity benefits and delays in assessing disabled people for personal independence payments (PIPs).
The decision to launch the review follows severe criticism by the National Audit Office of Atos’s role in the development of an IT system designed to allow the extraction of data from GP practice systems.
MPs on the public accounts committee examined the auditors’ report and found that Atos, the supplier contracted for a key part of the system, “did not show an appropriate duty of care to the taxpayer” and “appears to have acted solely with its own short-term best interests in mind”.
They suggested that although Atos may have complied with the letter of its contractual obligations, it took advantage of a weak client by taking the client’s money while knowing that the system had not been properly tested.
The expected cost of the system rose from £14m to £40m during the planning and procurement phase, and has since risen further.
In its recommendations, the committee urged the Cabinet Office to review Atos’s relationships as a crown supplier and also to ensure that the reasons for the project’s failure “are disseminated widely to reinforce the steps that need to be taken to avoid such mistakes being repeated again”.
How many more enquiries & reviews of utter failures & thievery of public funds by unscrupulous contractors are required before someone takes note of "the steps that need to be taken to avoid such mistakes being repeated again"? NHS, MoD, MoJ - just three government departments who have handed over £Billions of taxpayers' money to overseas companies for failed contracts - predominantly IT.
DeleteAnyone remember Nomis? Public Accounts Committee:
Delete"The Comptroller and Auditor General's Report on the National Offender Management Information System (NOMIS) makes depressing reading. We have taken evidence on cases of poor decision taking and weak project management on many occasions. The same lessons have still not been learnt, making the management by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) of C-NOMIS a prime example of how not to develop a project..."
From the outset those responsible failed to identify the modifications required to the software to meet NOMS' needs. The Home Office assessed it as broadly meeting the needs of the prison service... In respect of probation, there was a serious failure to understand the magnitude and cost of the changes which would be needed, even though the Home Office recognised at the start that the software met only 29% of the needs of the Probation Service. The estimated cost of developing the C-NOMIS application rose from £99 million in 2005 to £254 million by July 2007... Subsequent reviews found that the project was in a dire state: the projected costs had risen from £234m to £690m... Wheatley did not try to defend a spend of £161m on nobody knows what.
It's so simple. Give people community service who have drug problems. If there doing work they won't be out thieving for drugs. Jeeeezzz it's so simple!
ReplyDeleteNo the community service is a punishment and may help with work ethic and job skills. Drug use is a separate issue.
DeleteI am not a PO or PSO just a receptionist and I have had conversations with people who love going to UPW, they feel it gives them some purpose and some have never had a job and enjoy going to work. Others will use every excuse in the book not to go. I feel that there is a frustration in that if UPW is unsuitable for lots of reasons it's very difficult to get the order revoked, which in these cases causes PO's, PSO's a lot of problems trying to enforce an order that is obviously just not suitable for that individual.
DeleteIf an order/intervention is unsuitable then it shouldn't be proposed in the first place. There will always be cases where what seemed suitable later becomes unsuitable. What we shouldn't be doing is excluding entire groups, say drug users from unpaid work, because of preconceived beliefs that particular orders/interventions will be unsuitable. For some/many these will be unsuitable but not for all, and probation officers are paid to deal with the associated frustrations and problems. It sounds to me like the biggest asset to both sides is having you as a receptionist that speaks to both staff and offenders alike.
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