“I would have preferred to have read your views on practice and the current state of probation. Maybe something around the impact of the ongoing deprofessionalisation of probation officers, the NPS strategy to replace us with non-qualified staff and tick-box style Pre Sentence Reports, or the CRC strategy of heavily cutting staff and replacing interview rooms with American diner style areas.”
Naturally I’m sorry that my topic was not what some people wanted to read. Whereas I can understand that some may want this site to be solely about repeatedly letting off steam about the current very unsatisfactory arrangements (which indeed they are), I thought I’d offer a change from that – sorry to disappoint.
“Instead we get the badly worded “Three Purposes of Probation” and an analysis of what I recall as a pointless discussion about enforcement. Considering TR and the recent Offender Management Act which did away with “supervision” as we knew it, maybe it would have been better to analyse whether Grayling and Gove have a view on what the purposes of probation should be, or maybe the probation chief officers that helped them do away with probation as we knew it. I've always found the HMIP idealistic about what probation practice should be, and blinkered to the climate it is practiced in. In reality, the “Three Purposes of Probation” have been displaced by TR and made impossible by the CRC drive for profits and the NPS drive for “more for less”. Now the distorted purpose and culture that is forced into us is 1. Meet targets, 2. Meet targets, 3. JFDI. And as I said in detail in Guest Blog 52, the probation qualification and professionalism has been slowly eroded over the past two decades. This is what the HMIP, the Probation Institute and every other “expert” seems to ignore! As I heard an academic recently say, the only solution for a probation service and “Work” (to truly rehabilitate) is to sever the MoJ control, to reduce the extent of privatisation and to absorb the probation officer training back into social work.”
I note that the Inspectorate’s focus on quality of Probation practice is described here as “idealistic” – I would certainly loudly and proudly claim this description, provided that it’s recognised that in our idealism we specifically did not look for perfection; instead we looked for “Sufficiency” in the quality of practice, according to the needs and circumstances of the case. Whereas I’m very keen indeed on developing and accrediting skills in this job I take a very different view about the traditional “probation qualification” which perpetuates a rigid two-tier workforce and a barrier to many of the talented newcomers who want to build their career in-service. However, the point this contributor makes about targets is important – see more below.
“Thank you, a good read. However, as a practitioner I have never had any problem with negotiating and compromise, but I think what is becoming a huge problem is the lack of autonomy to make such decisions v dictates which feed the monster – target driven practice. I never really had any problem when targets promoted best practice, for worker and client, but the worst kind of target are those rigidly organisational or financially driven targets! CRCs are in a no win situation, they have no time to develop the kind of relationship that promotes compliance, and I must say it, positive change in people! Their employers demand staff provide a facade of respectability and integrity but their financial targets trump those of integrity and decency, so colleagues are in a no win situation and our clients confused and disenfranchised by the targets!”
Targets is a whole new topic, and one of critical importance. Some of the current ones are shockingly bad – some of us knew in the 1980s that ‘successful completions’ was no measure of anything. The contributors are right to criticise them strongly. The knack is to set the right ones and also to promote the right ethos in how the organisation works towards them – surprise, surprise I have written about this. Anyone who worked with me in Berkshire 1998-2001 will tell you what they think about whether or not we got our targets broadly right, by ensuring that they were congruent with good quality Probation practice. Because the ‘right’ targets are difficult to measure, policymakers keep repeating the mistake of instead employing proxy [“near enough”] target measures which are easier to monitor but in their effect on practice are worse than useless, as many of the contributors have rightly reported.
“An interesting blog but very simplistic and doesn't account for what's happening in probation now. Those of us who endeavour to work to the aims are severely disabled by managerialism. Also can't see the purpose of the prescriptive monthly minimum especially after 2 years supervision it can become counter productive.”
‘Simple’, yes, but not easy, though I believe it can still be done. And even as a main-grade PO with 60+ cases and 12 SIRs a month in the 1970s I never thought it acceptable to require a meeting at less than once a month – it was a Court Order after all.
*******
“I agree: the underlying motive is fundamental and if making a profit is fundamental then this will be secondary to the public good. And if they cannot make a profit, they will, as we have have seen in other sectors, walk away.”
*******
“This is the problem. 'Independence' is available to the highest bidder. Whilst the Government colludes with this and, equally important, whilst the media do not hold these Ministers to account, the practice of self funded advocacy will remain a corrupt force with which the money-makers will be able to justify their actions. If one remains opposed to the fundamental profit motive in CJ, the debate rages on. If we accept that 'we are where we are', the debate is ended and the dysfunction remains in place.”
*******
“A few years ago Mr Grayling said something like, 'I don't want to pay for a service, I want to pay for results.' On the surface this sounds appealing. The author of this guest blog on his website / advertisement states something akin to, 'I don't care who does the job as long as they do it well.' Again this risks sounding appealing. For example, do you really care who comes out to the fire if your house is ablaze as long as they arrive in the prescribed time and put the fire out. You might say, 'well I suppose not.'”
One of the curious oddities of probation work is that while by necessity it requires an ability to see more than one side of a story, and arguably believe both in rational analysis and that everyone has a ‘better side’ to their nature, many of its practitioners appear to claim exclusive moral high grounds to their own beliefs while assuming a morally corrupt position in anyone who disagrees with them. If you are making the assumption that my independence is simply venal you might also consider the possibility that that assumption is wrong.
I see no intrinsic virtue in having a binary view of the world, and have always found that “Truth has more than one face”. My personal emotional attachment to public service is very strong, but I’ve seen enough over the years to know that it doesn’t have a monopoly on virtue, and could sometimes benefit from learning from the private sector. There is an irony that whereas I spent much of the 1990s repeatedly arguing with policymakers that there was no inherent benefit in purchasing a service from an external contractor (if you can do it yourself better and cheaper), I’ve also had to spend much of the time since then arguing that there’s nothing inherently wicked about it either – you have to judge it by how it is worked in practice. I found over the last 15 years that poor commissioning, especially poor targetsetting, (together with shockingly poor IT) was much the greater cause of problems than the profit motive itself. The “risk” of assessing a service by how well it is actually delivered, rather than simply by ‘who delivers it’, could perhaps be seen not as a “risk” but as a benefit, a sign of a rational approach rather than one driven solely by ideology.
I would like to believe that many of the contributors who let off steam on this website have nevertheless managed to do some good quality work – despite all the difficulties. Would anyone want to write a short description of a recent piece of Probation practice that you’re particularly pleased with, perhaps achieved against all the odds?....
“Thank you, a good read. However, as a practitioner I have never had any problem with negotiating and compromise, but I think what is becoming a huge problem is the lack of autonomy to make such decisions v dictates which feed the monster – target driven practice. I never really had any problem when targets promoted best practice, for worker and client, but the worst kind of target are those rigidly organisational or financially driven targets! CRCs are in a no win situation, they have no time to develop the kind of relationship that promotes compliance, and I must say it, positive change in people! Their employers demand staff provide a facade of respectability and integrity but their financial targets trump those of integrity and decency, so colleagues are in a no win situation and our clients confused and disenfranchised by the targets!”
Targets is a whole new topic, and one of critical importance. Some of the current ones are shockingly bad – some of us knew in the 1980s that ‘successful completions’ was no measure of anything. The contributors are right to criticise them strongly. The knack is to set the right ones and also to promote the right ethos in how the organisation works towards them – surprise, surprise I have written about this. Anyone who worked with me in Berkshire 1998-2001 will tell you what they think about whether or not we got our targets broadly right, by ensuring that they were congruent with good quality Probation practice. Because the ‘right’ targets are difficult to measure, policymakers keep repeating the mistake of instead employing proxy [“near enough”] target measures which are easier to monitor but in their effect on practice are worse than useless, as many of the contributors have rightly reported.
“An interesting blog but very simplistic and doesn't account for what's happening in probation now. Those of us who endeavour to work to the aims are severely disabled by managerialism. Also can't see the purpose of the prescriptive monthly minimum especially after 2 years supervision it can become counter productive.”
‘Simple’, yes, but not easy, though I believe it can still be done. And even as a main-grade PO with 60+ cases and 12 SIRs a month in the 1970s I never thought it acceptable to require a meeting at less than once a month – it was a Court Order after all.
“The 'imperfections' of TR cannot be compared to previous imperfections. There is a massive difference between something being fundamentally wrong and the negatives arising out of that, and something being fundamentally cohesive with problems that can be worked on and resolved. TR creates its own unique problems which push good practice way down the list of priorities. My priorities now are carrying out insane IT tasks in order to meet targets, while the associated work which requires those old fashioned notions of thought, reflection and decision making gets neglected resulting in a rushed, poor quality outcome. OMs don't seem to have the discretion to manage their own cases resulting in Judges asking 'what does the case manager really think?' It's a pile of shit and it's those who go around telling us it isn't that seem really creepy, as if they don't have their own minds any more.”
*******
“He does not like TR. Yet in considering the previous arrangement, the bar is immediately raised and we are told they were not 'perfect'. Fairer to say that the previous arrangements were better, open to improvements and preferable to TR. But when not 'taking sides' you need a clever verbal formula to stay above the fray. If not taking sides you have to try and be even-handed.”
********
"There is a saying I can't recall verbatim but is along the lines of 'for evil to triumph, it does not require evil men to do evil but good men to do nothing'. The trouble with 'reasoned' debates on Probation practice under TR, they fail to acknowledge the starting point which is that the profit motive in Probation and other forms of social services undermines the very purpose of those services and compromises all forms of intervention in favour of profit or the minimisation of loss. "
It is suggested here that my position is a case of doing nothing and therefore allowing “evil to triumph” as per Edmund Burke (the very conservative politician who may not have envisaged a British Government enacting its own policy as the kind of evil he was thinking of.) For my part I had said my piece in September 2014 about TR being the “most gung-ho reorganisation that Probation has ever faced”, and was quoted accordingly on Radio Five. For the record, I think that while the various previous arrangements were “not perfect either” they were certainly less bad, though also nothing to idealise.
But our constitutionally elected Government had made a decision and was acting on it accordingly – you have to be a heroic optimist to believe that this will fundamentally change in the next five years. So I focus on the ‘making it work anyway’ option. Since we have started bandying quotes: “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails” (William Arthur Ward). It is a matter for each of us to choose whether thereafter we want to talk about how to make practice work well (despite the changes) or just carry on repeatedly letting off steam.
*******
“He does not like TR. Yet in considering the previous arrangement, the bar is immediately raised and we are told they were not 'perfect'. Fairer to say that the previous arrangements were better, open to improvements and preferable to TR. But when not 'taking sides' you need a clever verbal formula to stay above the fray. If not taking sides you have to try and be even-handed.”
********
"There is a saying I can't recall verbatim but is along the lines of 'for evil to triumph, it does not require evil men to do evil but good men to do nothing'. The trouble with 'reasoned' debates on Probation practice under TR, they fail to acknowledge the starting point which is that the profit motive in Probation and other forms of social services undermines the very purpose of those services and compromises all forms of intervention in favour of profit or the minimisation of loss. "
It is suggested here that my position is a case of doing nothing and therefore allowing “evil to triumph” as per Edmund Burke (the very conservative politician who may not have envisaged a British Government enacting its own policy as the kind of evil he was thinking of.) For my part I had said my piece in September 2014 about TR being the “most gung-ho reorganisation that Probation has ever faced”, and was quoted accordingly on Radio Five. For the record, I think that while the various previous arrangements were “not perfect either” they were certainly less bad, though also nothing to idealise.
But our constitutionally elected Government had made a decision and was acting on it accordingly – you have to be a heroic optimist to believe that this will fundamentally change in the next five years. So I focus on the ‘making it work anyway’ option. Since we have started bandying quotes: “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails” (William Arthur Ward). It is a matter for each of us to choose whether thereafter we want to talk about how to make practice work well (despite the changes) or just carry on repeatedly letting off steam.
*******
“I agree: the underlying motive is fundamental and if making a profit is fundamental then this will be secondary to the public good. And if they cannot make a profit, they will, as we have have seen in other sectors, walk away.”
*******
“This is the problem. 'Independence' is available to the highest bidder. Whilst the Government colludes with this and, equally important, whilst the media do not hold these Ministers to account, the practice of self funded advocacy will remain a corrupt force with which the money-makers will be able to justify their actions. If one remains opposed to the fundamental profit motive in CJ, the debate rages on. If we accept that 'we are where we are', the debate is ended and the dysfunction remains in place.”
*******
“A few years ago Mr Grayling said something like, 'I don't want to pay for a service, I want to pay for results.' On the surface this sounds appealing. The author of this guest blog on his website / advertisement states something akin to, 'I don't care who does the job as long as they do it well.' Again this risks sounding appealing. For example, do you really care who comes out to the fire if your house is ablaze as long as they arrive in the prescribed time and put the fire out. You might say, 'well I suppose not.'”
One of the curious oddities of probation work is that while by necessity it requires an ability to see more than one side of a story, and arguably believe both in rational analysis and that everyone has a ‘better side’ to their nature, many of its practitioners appear to claim exclusive moral high grounds to their own beliefs while assuming a morally corrupt position in anyone who disagrees with them. If you are making the assumption that my independence is simply venal you might also consider the possibility that that assumption is wrong.
I see no intrinsic virtue in having a binary view of the world, and have always found that “Truth has more than one face”. My personal emotional attachment to public service is very strong, but I’ve seen enough over the years to know that it doesn’t have a monopoly on virtue, and could sometimes benefit from learning from the private sector. There is an irony that whereas I spent much of the 1990s repeatedly arguing with policymakers that there was no inherent benefit in purchasing a service from an external contractor (if you can do it yourself better and cheaper), I’ve also had to spend much of the time since then arguing that there’s nothing inherently wicked about it either – you have to judge it by how it is worked in practice. I found over the last 15 years that poor commissioning, especially poor targetsetting, (together with shockingly poor IT) was much the greater cause of problems than the profit motive itself. The “risk” of assessing a service by how well it is actually delivered, rather than simply by ‘who delivers it’, could perhaps be seen not as a “risk” but as a benefit, a sign of a rational approach rather than one driven solely by ideology.
I would like to believe that many of the contributors who let off steam on this website have nevertheless managed to do some good quality work – despite all the difficulties. Would anyone want to write a short description of a recent piece of Probation practice that you’re particularly pleased with, perhaps achieved against all the odds?....
Andrew Bridges
