Pick of the Week 7

Adjustments? How can something fundamentally broken and corrupted be "adjusted"? Halt this chaotic farce and re-unite the services. The cost of not doing so is immeasurable.

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I can save them shitloads of time & money. Here's the Review:

"TR was an ideological hors d'oerve for the wholesale privatisation of public services. The timing wasn't ideal, it had to be rushed through pre-election; but it was aided & abetted through the fortunate combination of the vainglorious Grayling's pomposity & Labour's careless wording the 2007 Act.

The TR project was financially underwritten by the Treasury to expedite the process with a limited number of cautious bidders who we knew were waiting to cash-in. The financial losses have been suitably disguised & the unions involved are too timid & small to be of any concern, but we have to be mindful of keeping the CRCs afloat.

In rushing TR through the statute books we had to make empty promises to NOMS to keep them on message. Consequently we miscalculated the likely impact on the retained NPS so are now trying plug all the holes with E3 and agency staff.

All in all it has been okay; no major PR gaffes, no major law suits, Grayling's been shuffled out of the way and we thought Gove would be our man."

But it seems that when Dave publicly humiliated Gove by sacking him from Education, Gove wouldn't let it lie. So now they are worried what's next from the rogue minister post-EU Referendum. Will he explode the TR myth & expose the suspected corruption, nepotism & possible outright profiteering at the public's expense? The constructive dismissal of hundreds of staff, opening the door to a massive class action?

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Today could be life-changing for me. After contemplating leaving on several occasions since June 2014 and sift into CRC, I have recently started applying for jobs outside Probation. Have reached a point where I'm at the end of my tether and due to the nature of my role (not operational) am feeling increasingly isolated and confused about job role. Actively seeking other employment now and who knows, may be able resign after today!

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I agree. I want to know why I am working in a crap organisation, feeling like a second class citizen and new PSOs are able to hold higher risk cases than I can? No doubt I will soon have an unqualified PSO rejecting my breach reports. Does this sound bitter? I am.

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There is a major problem with the whole breach process. I am no longer a Napo member as I burnt my papers post split when I had a nervous breakdown and PTSD from 20 years working with lifers and sex offenders. However I am now back with a new attitude called DGAF in terms of useless directives. Just get on with it and if they don't like it I am ready to be sacked and have all my evidence to take legal action. 

In the mean time I will tell you that the CRC breach process is a farce! We are told to try and avoid at all costs and if we do, ask for order to continue to avoid failing targets. Then NPS who have entirely different targets say, no you have to ask for revoke resentence! Breaches and applications to amend constantly rejected. CRC asking for orders to be extended because CRC have failed to get people through BBR in time before order expires and in goes an app. Approved by CRC SPO only for NPS PSO to say you can't do that and it has to be revoked and re sentenced. So we are damned if we do and dammed if we don't and CRC/NPS are at each others throats. Certainly not working together as they should be but constant friction. Pass this to Napo. They didn't support me then but maybe they will support someone now.

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In my office the NPS works. In most offices which had public protection teams the work and service is the same. It's E3 that's set to make things worse and NOMS wants to portray the NPS as failing so it can hand it to Police and Crime Commissioners who will then sell it off to private companies.

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And they need to stop lumping NPS and CRC in the same sentence. We are now very different organisations. NPS does probation work. CRC pretends to do probation work.

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Hey, we don't even pretend anymore. Contracts are signed and guaranteed for 8 years. After that they will be handed back, profit taken out and the public purse used to patch things back up. If ANYONE thinks the CRC's are in it for anything other than profit then they are deluded! NAPO might be better served by asking to see how much money the likes of Sodexo have made so far and their estimated income over the next five years! THAT will paint a much better picture of TR than people moaning about breaches and TTG!

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Bit harsh. As former colleagues you should know we are doing our best with hand we have been dealt which admittedly is not great. Don't be so sure that your hand cannot be trumped. We need to all focus on pursuing a unified Probation Service again, sum of our parts greater that way.

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That wasn't directed at the probation staff. It's the CRC managers and owners that are pretending. Some that have no idea about probation work and others that do, all working together to fudge the figures and maximise the profits. The NPS will go the same way if the Tory civil servants continue to have free reign over justice.

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It was pretty poorly phrased, and insulting to CRC staff, even if that wasn't your intention. And I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the NPS aren't already fudging the figures.

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I also felt insulted by your remarks. As stated in my previous post, I already feel like a second class citizen. Former colleagues who I previously worked with also look down on the CR without a thought about how we have been treated. To all those people looking down on us, you will probably be joining us soon. Still bitter.

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Sad to hear you feel this way, it certainly isn't how it is in SY. We are all still united in our disgust at what's been done to us and doing the best we can. I haven't heard any comments which suggest one side is better than the other except that the CRC is much worse for colleagues at the moment, but E3 is about to change all that and we in NPS are braced for the next big shafting! I understand we are to have meetings to see how far we can be shafted!!

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I'm a Probation Officer who wants to be "excellent" in all my interactions with clients and partners in the CJS but unfortunately that's not what my masters want They want me to be excellent at filling in forms and meeting meaningless targets They don't want quality reports anymore just tick box templates and minimum time spent with clients I am finding the conflict too difficult to manage anymore.

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I know exactly how you feel. Yet when I raised this with manager was told, no, we do want you to do good quality one to one work! Meaning this is what Working Links expect. They want it all despite stretching us to breaking point. Moving office in two weeks from a suitable building with private interview rooms to one where we will be interviewing in public area! How can I do my job in this completely crap situation!

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The think tank is basically a government way of floating an idea and sounding out reaction whilst allowing them to remain detached from it. Didn't they suggest to scrap Noms, have prison manage cases until 6 months before release and to scrap NPS with CRCs having all cases in the community? I think the E3 review allows report writing to be a separate team which will be merged into HMCS - and staff in court team losing money after a job re-evaluation. Of course this leaves all cases in the failing CRCs. Rumours in Working Links that they are looking to bid for other contract areas. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

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The answer is simple. The NPS should absorb each CRC upon their pending breaches of contract and run as agency in its own right under a separate department of the MoJ, similar to Court services. Forget PCC control, forget local authority control as these will not work.

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"Reform of the offender management system over the last decade and more has sought to deal in one way or another with three inextricably linked issues:

• reoffending rates which have remained stubbornly high; 
• a prison population which has consistently pushed against the available capacity in the prison estate; and
• an increasingly pressing need to improve the value for money of the system, by improving performance and driving down cost"

The OM model was created to legitimise the implementation of OASys. It was a flawed model from the outset but hurriedly imposed by NOMS to bring probation under their control. Any reform over the last decade or so has been about increasing facility for NOMS's command & control remit, NOT addressing the three "issues" as follows:

• Reoffending rates have remained stable for a long time, perhaps more of a reflection of how some people either choose or feel compelled to live their lives in modern Britain, as opposed to any particular failure of probation intervention? Fine default, substance use, education, mental health, child protection - the lack of any forethought by successive governments contributes much here.
• The prison population is informed by sentencing & political will, not specifically by any failure of intervention. Prisons are heavily populated with people who don't really need to be there.
• Probation was a gold standard public sector service; only the interference of political ambition imbued the service with any "need" to improve performance & drive down cost. That is not to be complacent about how things were, but merely to illustrate the futility of the Reform assertion & recognise that TR has both destroyed an established service & increased the costs many-fold.

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You missed out the major issue which is the people hired by MoJ and NOMS to sort the mess out. These people were spectacularly unsuited to do so as they had zero conception of what it is actually like to be in prison or under probation and what would actually be needed to do things like cut reoffending because they consistently failed to consult the users of the service i.e. the prisoners. It wouldn't be hard to design and implement a system that would actually work but you'd have to include prisoners and ex prisoners in every aspect of the process which no civil servant would want to do.

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The fundamental problem with the whole strategy is that the people responsible for managing it failed to engage in any meaningful way with those professionals who had the expertise and experience relating to the management of offenders in the community. There appears to have been a NOMS corporate view that the Prison Service pseudo-military model of employee management was an attractive proposition when measured against the maverick creativity and flexibility displayed by the Probation Service as was. 

By failing to recognise that this knowledge and expertise had evolved over 100 years of management of offenders in the community, those responsible for TR shot themselves in the foot before they got off the starting line. Most of the troubles facing TR were highlighted by Probation staff, both management and frontline staff, long before the process was begun never mind completed but the arrogance of the ministry did not allow them to recognise the value in what they had and the need to engage those in the know in the developing picture. 'Lions led by donkeys', I believe is the expression. 

They can have all of the reviews they like but, until they recognise that a Prison Governor is not and never was the best person to manage a community resource, with all of the flexibility that is required in the 'real' world, where offenders don't behave in two-dimensionally predictable ways, then they will fail to recognise their folly and keep repeating the same mistakes.

I left a whilst ago now and won't be going back (as a former SPO at the top of the scale, I would have to start again at the bottom - in short, the NPS cannot afford me) but, as an interested bystander, I am saddened to see this once great organisation reduced to a farce (I feel the same way about many privatised public services). The problem is clear. the solution is clear. Whilst the drivers are wrong, the business model will be wrong. Keep the wrong drivers and you will always have the wrong business practices.

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Report has the hand of ex prison governor Richard Lockyer all over it. Keep prisons as public sector fiefdoms but hand probation over wholesale to the private sector. Why not privatise all the prisons as well, if it's such a great idea? And why were Probation Trusts never allowed to bid to run prisons?

Report confirms that 'NOMS' is just another name for the Prison Service - controlled by former prison governors with Probation influence now completely eradicated. Even the head of NPS is a former prison governor.

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The biggest problem was that NOMS was created with prison and civil service personnel at the helm. As David Ramsbotham said "the problem with ridiculous NOMS is that it has no probation officers making senior decisions". If it had it would have been a very different story; increased community sentences, decreased prison population, rehabilitation over punishment, etc, etc.

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I am still making my mind up about re-joining Napo after a break in service. The problem you mention above regarding Sodexo is also happening in other CRCs. I don't want to be identified by saying too much, but other CRCs are asking staff to interview at open public areas, not even a booth because they have been moved out of suitable offices to save money. 

Given what has happened in the news recently it does concern me that our personal safety is being taken for granted as is our client's safety. Recently one of my clients who has mental health problems made a comment about a member of the public as we sat at an open table in public area. It made me realise what could happen! Please can Napo do an audit of the situation in all CRC offices? If I felt like Napo were looking out for us I would consider re-joining but I feel they need to be more pro active in reaching people!

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I don't feel they can do Napo at all, let alone Napo Extra. The Sodexo statement is not a disclaimer but very firmly passes the buck to frontline staff viz- "I would like to reassure you that providing employees act appropriately and responsibly, within the remit of their role... then (name of) CRC as the employer will not take formal action against individuals for inadvertent breaches." That's no lack of action, that's a very positive move from Sodexo's perspective; but surely something the NOMS floorwalkers ought to be addressing as part of their remit to keep CRC owners on track & within MoJ guidelines.

But who in NOMS wants to upset the French caterers? Who knows, maybe there's a fast-food franchise lined up for every Sodexo CRC diner to serve coffee, burgers & fries to their new customer stream? MoJ sponsored premises (Modernisation Fund), guaranteed footfall...

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An active union would advise ALL STAFF IN SODEXO AREAS to inform offenders of their right to refuse to attend appointments at Sodexo offices, which would be non-enforceable. This would decimate the targets and put the newspapers into overdrive.

"Data protection principle 6 (Data Protection Act Schedule 1) states that an individual has: ‘A right to object to processing that is likely to cause or is causing damage and distress.’ Both Napo and UNISON interpret this as meaning that a service user could reasonably object to being interviewed in one of the Sodexo booths for the reasons set out above."

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Sodexo's invention of the behavioural act of an 'inadvertent breach' merely underlines their arrogance. A breach of sensitive information is a breach however it comes about and there is a legal responsibility on Sodexo to ensure that the systems it has in place can be trusted to process information safely. The fact that they issued such advice suggests they know their systems (the booths) are unsafe.

It follows that staff are at risk of committing breaches because they are working in an unsafe workplace. Why can't Napo therefore ballot its members on this issue with a view to issuing formal advice to members that could include a refusal to use the booths because they put individual members at risk of breaking the law.

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It doesn't make any difference what Sodexo say. I am moving to open plan interviewing. If I mention something in an interview and someone gets beaten up as a result on the way home, then I could be prosecuted and end up with a criminal conviction. Don"t think it can't happen because it already has to NHS staff overheard at a bus stop. Sodexo etc. Will not back you up they will simply cover there arses by landing CRC staff well and truly in their own shit.

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Until a mass fight occurs in an office and people are hurt, nothing will sufficiently change. We've had flare ups already but the professionalism of the staff have managed the situation, but the environment is open to pub style brawls, and they will happen, just a matter of time.

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Using public spaces to interview offenders in CRC is dangerous to public and goes against our duty to protect the public! How would you feel if you were sat in a library knowing that there was someone coming in possibly carrying a knife? Ok, anyone could do that but the fact is we are playing Russian roulette as at some point member of the public could have bag nicked or worse, be assaulted and then where will we stand?

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There is a game being played out here, a face saving game. Government, NOMS, Sodexo et al, Contracts, Audit, Profit, reputations and regrettably at all our expense. Sodexo not necessarily the issue, they are what they are, just as am I and you. Shambolic, truly shambolic.

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Agreed that the contractors are using this as a springboard. What many want is secure accommodation. Again you don:t give the keys back as a provider. You sell the contract on to another provider. When it's sold on the terms and conditions are then renegotiated. So instead of a pay mechanism you may choose to use what is known as a fee for service with a management fee. This then guarantee's a profit and the other saves face.

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We were told by a MP that none of the CRC have been paid yet as they haven't hit their targets. Also five out of six Sodexo areas failing! Didn't take long. Wonder what the MOJ will do?

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What everyone appears to be ignoring is that the powers that be cannot afford to put it back together. There is a clause in the contracts that states that the CRCs will be paid the full contract amount even if it is taken back. So essentially it's cheaper for them to carry on running things. The cost of amalgamation would far exceed any savings and the bill would still have to be paid.

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The contracts definitely have break clauses for poor performance. It would also not be surprising if one or more contracts failed to run the distance because of a poor rate of return for the owners, although I expect some (especially Sodexo) see it as a loss leader for more lucrative prison contracts. But both situations could arise at the same time, with a contract taken back in one area, whilst another is handed back elsewhere.

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I have a feeling that the contracts will end when one of the CPA's hand back the contract, having milked the very life out of it. Make no mistake, these companies will not hold on to anything which impact on profits or indeed fails to make them. These companies will then be offered further contracts for running (down) other services. It's happened too many times now, and we all know the best predictor of future behaviour.

I give it three years, once the Fee for Service drops down and the Payment by Results for the basis for profit. Not enough has been done, profits have been stripped, staff laid off and a general sense of ennui prevails. Not one of these is conducive to effecting rehabilitation. I've had people on Orders for lesser crimes than our overlords have committed!

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Programmes is where the money is. Why else would they be making sure that all licences have a programme as a licence condition. Even if they don't actually manage to do the programme.

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The contracts wont end or be handed back. Falling wavs are most likely to be remedied by giving CRCs a larger proportion of the client group by pushing up the RSR threshold or giving them Mappa.

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I can confirm there will be no handing of keys. The privateers simply used TR as a springboard to bigger and better contracts. YOU ALL need to get over that our profession is just a means to an end of privateers lining their pockets.

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The new CRC managers have no Probation practice experience so can't understand the impact of reforms on working practices. They draw up lovely flowcharts and speak authoritatively about their planned changes, but when questioned in detail about everyday practice issues that conflict with their ideal plans, they quickly show their naivety. These are risky people, who are inadvertently putting staff and members of the public at risk. They think they know better than experienced practitioners and are too arrogant to actively listen to concerns raised.