Pick of the Week 13

30% increase in deaths in prison, 27% increase in self harm & 40% increase in assaults on prison staff. Those are impressive statistics. Well done Chris Grayling. Well done Michael Gove. Well done David Cameron. Between the three of them they've presided over a grotesque achievement in our prisons. Let's hope they are aware of the impact they have had, of the lives lost or irreparably changed as a result.

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The MOJ statement makes my blood boil. No acknowledgement of the mess Govt created; in fact no actual acknowledgement of the mess per se - just more of the smooth spin, telling us what we know (safe prisons fundamental to proper functioning CJS etc etc). The studied unwillingness to admit anything that has gone before was a mistake is breathtaking in its arrogance. Spin, spin, spin - it's all I hear every day in my CRC and I am sick of it. So if prison officers strike, they'll have my support (as will the junior Drs, actually).

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I don't feel I should be recalling people to prison anymore, it sounds too dangerous for them. Should we not all refuse to recall people? Napo?

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How show our support with the strikers? Walk out with them? Every word written on this blog makes me question what my action could be in response to what I read here, and what I experience daily at work. If I hear prisons are dangerous for inmates and staff, I can condemn till I am blue in the face, but what action to adopt as response? 

If I hear and read lots of spin every day at work I must then "counter-spin", must counter by speaking the truth of what is happening, question what I'm told, ask the spinners not to pretend, not to lie, not to insult my intelligence. And I do. B4B in London CRC is not to "help staff". Oasys ISPs within 10 days is not to improve standards, the risk assessments are not to assess risks. IOM is no longer workable in the London CRC as far as probation is concerned, though we are meant to pretend it is. 

When I speak out in team meetings against the spin even the SPO agrees. Accepting lies when we know we are being lied to makes me feel like I no longer know what is true. I have to say what I know to be true. How shall I meet the forthcoming inspection later this month? The effort when there is inspection is to sweep and tidy what is being looked at. And to conceal what you don't want the inspector to see. 

If I am let anywhere near an inspector I will be inviting him/her to understand the context in which I am working. I will point to all the other cases where things have not been done which should have been done. I will show the inspector how I choose time and again to spend time with the service user, applications for housing, advocacy, liaison with health care, rather than breaches, warning letters, recalls, perfectionist sentence planning etc. I am finding I can't spend time making progress on cases and also oil the bureaucracy. I have to choose.

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When public sector staff strike – the tabloid outrage at the planned doctors' strike, the latest example – they are condemned for putting the taxpayer, patients, etc, at best to inconvenience and at worst to risks of various types. Here is Mears whose profits in the first six months of 2014/5 were £18.7m, an increase of 11%, complaining about being exploited by councils who are simply insisting that care providers pay the minimum wage and travel time. These are also HMRC requirements.

Mears want more money despite signing up to a contract in the first place. It's their fault if they didn't do due diligence and risk assessments. Now, because they can't squeeze money out of some councils, they will simply abandon the contracts. Seems it's too easy for them to walk away, unlike the MoJ with CRCs and the infamous 10-year penalty clauses. It's as the saying goes, they want to privatise all their profits and socialise all their risks.

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I find the Guardian article pretty sickening. To me it reads, "give us more money, and we'll carry on delivering services in the same inadequate way they're delivered now. There's just not enough profit in the deal we have now to make it worth our while". 

But it's not just those that are the recipients of private sector social care that suffers. It's those that are charged with delivering it at the coal face that suffer too. A quote from a participant of the long running 7up series once said, that the real damage to an individuals life comes from not being able to achieve the things that individual is capable of. He wasn't talking about fulfilling your maximum potential, but just doing the things that you know you are capable of. 

For many that now find themselves in a world of employment dictated by maximisation of profit, the deflating and damaging feeling of not being able to carry out your daily work in a way or to a standard that allows you to achieve your own capability, must have a considerable impact on the life of that individual. There's areas of society that the private sector just don't belong, not just because the quality of service they deliver is piss poor, but because of the damage caused to the individuals employed to deliver those services.

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Good point. Every carpenter wants to make bespoke furniture, every artist to produce masterpieces etc. Nobody WANTS to do a half arsed job in any area of work. The contracts above, and the new contracts to which Probation staff are working, are all the professional equivalent of flat-pack furniture and, increasingly, there are parts missing so you can never achieve a satisfactory outcome, even when the aspirations are low. 

I left Probation because I no longer wanted to maintain an illusion for the benefit of Sodemall's shareholders. I think many feel the same way. As a result, recruitment and retention remains a problem in all of these areas of work. People don't want to get up every day to go to work at a job that disappoints service users and practitioners alike. They want their 40 hours a week to MATTER.

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Has there ever been a successful privatisation of a public service in terms of achieving better outcome for the service user? Privatisation equates to crap service, low wage, low morale workforce, fat salaries for top cats, and unearned income for shareholders. Before being elected Camerons favourite slogan was 'broken Britain'... no Britain in 1916 is what broken looks like.

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We all know that HMPS calls the shots and is behind E3-the ludicrous plan for 60% of POs to be shunted into prisons - this is designed to free up prison offers to walk the wings while all the boring paperwork can be done by probation - shows the disregard that the profession is held in and confirms our second class citizenship credentials.

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After being put out to grass by Sodexo last year, I wonder if they claimed my pay award in arrears & pocketed it for themselves? Anyone at MoJ/NOMS reading this & feel like checking if the backdated pay awards for those staff kicked into touch were claimed & trousered by Sodexo?

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Yes, Sodexo trousered the pay rise for many of their employees who were, as you so politely put it - "put out to grass". I am one of many who left but who had worked the entire year April 1st 2015 to 31st March 2016 and theoretically were due the back dated pay rise. However as I, and others, had already signed the paperwork for the voluntary redundancy (another fine euphemism) to accept a sum in "full and final settlement" they would not pay the pay rise, but you can bet they claimed it from MoJ as we were still "on the books" at that time.

Is it fair? - no. Can we do anything about it? - no. All I hope is that Sodexo management sleep well at night knowing they screwed many people not once, but twice over payments due to them. Where were the unions whilst this was happening? - who knows.

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I'm fed up of hearing people complain they didn't get a fair deal from Sodexo when they agreed to the payment. More fool you for signing for less than was originally promised. You accepted it so suck it up and shut up.

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No-one above is asking for anything other than their legal entitlements, e.g. the benefit of pension & NI contributions. The issue initially raised seems to have been that Sodexo may well be pocketing monies that was never theirs, i.e. backdated pay for staff - and as such it's yet another cash grabbing exercise that merits exposure & recognition. People who took the Sodexo offer are no doubt well aware of what they agreed to and I'm fairly sure they don't need life coaching from an intolerant bully.

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Thanks for the understanding comments, but people were made to sign their "full and final" settlement paperwork long before they even knew that the pay rise was going to be paid at the end of March. There was virtually no notice of the pay rise (2 days at the very end of March if memory is correct) and Sodexo pressurised people to sign their documents long before this by enforcing spurious dates for completion - sign by this date or else you won't get any money at all. Solicitor's advice was to take the money on offer rather than risk nothing at all so yes, more fool me, and many others. No-one at all within the CRC or the MoJ or NOMS was prepared to assist and no sign of a union prepared to go into battle. What would you have done?

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"Government funding to CRCs is dependent on them hitting their targets. Their contract states they have to hit target by February 2017." I would think that some very interesting and creative discussions will be taking place in CRC company board rooms over the next few months, developing ways on how to fit the square peg in the round hole so all targets can be met. 

Whilst it's not surprising that CRCs are in a mess with things like UPW, it would be a bigger surprise if all wasn't hunky dorey by February.  I'm also fascinated by Teresa May's announcement of an audit on race and inequality for those involved with public services. The target group the audit focuses on will mostly be involved with public services that are being "delivered" by private companies. Corporate confidentiality, massaged statistics and creative accounting is sure to give an empirical picture of the true inequalities society hold for many. 

But how a CRC can expect one person to supervise up to 120 people (many with an array of social problems) is just ludicrous. Supervising 120 people that were volunteers that wanted to be there would be a hard slog. But 120 people that would sooner be anywhere else, well that's expecting too much from anyone, and it can't be good for their health either.

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Well said, and when a good majority of those 120 are unemployed and being worked intensively, ie 4 days per week and need monitoring for attendance, attitude and performance, the job becomes untenable.The opportunity for breach is overwhelming, the constant bombardment of phone calls, excuses and rescheduling becomes a constant nightmare. Bring in to that DV cases/safeguarding concerns and the daily covering for staff shortages/illness/holidays etc. A recipe for disaster. And this is from a CRC that's hitting its targets.

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Oh you have to laugh at the debacle that is TR as this article so eloquently shows. Private companies are only interested in the bottom line and if they have to fiddle the figures and fail to do the job to protect that bottom line, then that is precisely what they will do. I can only conclude that the Tories are basically very stupid people as anyone with a brain will have foreseen this happening.

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Sorry people, before we jump over CRCs over UPW and its delivery, let us take a step back, well before TR was even a sparkle in Graylings eye. CS/CP/ECP/UPW has been in Probation since 1972 and has never been taken seriously by Probation... These stories can be told going back to the 70s, 80s, 90s and now. Hands up all those senior POs/PSOs who managed CPROs and sidlined the completion of the CP bit. Have a dig around and you will find thousands of hours that were not completed and were hidden by Chief Officers when reporting back. Even the old IPPF reporting hid them.... The number of AAs recorded on CP throughout the land in the 'good old days' will make your eyes water. Why? because the ethos of probation was rehabilitation and CP is punishment and we know its there but we hold our noses. The problem is now it is out of the hands of NPS, the NOMs managers are all over the CRCs with regards to UPW, but prior to TR, NOMS turned a blind eye. So lets give this some balance....

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I'm sure this is across the board (NPS and CRC's) and not just in Norwich. CRC's have been told to fudge the figures and make everything acceptable to avoid breaches. 

I remember good old community service run by local probation offices using local community projects. Custody+ was on the verge of being ushered in and projects were supposed to include vocational skills training. Then it all went downhill because of governments obsessed with making every sentence a punishment and probation trusts eager to earn a bit of revenue. 

Now it's called unpaid work/community payback but there really isn't any work or payback involved. Projects are meaningless, demeaning and unsafe, think 10 people picking up litter where there isn't any, or one group winding up balls of wool while the next group unwinds. We all know there are huge problems in arranging, monitoring and enforcing community payback. We used to walk across the office to speak with colleagues, but now everything is done though a poorly staffed call centre that answers if you're lucky. This is what happens when you take a fairly decent public service and sell it to private companies like Sodexo Links that are only interested in reaping profits.

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Yes, It changed in 2008/9 with Jack Straw, but the central thrust of my point is that these stories from the Norwich Recorder are nothing new and certainly not something that has happened because of TR. I can tell you that there is just as much purposeful work being completed today as there was yesteryear. In maintaining integrity this blog has to have balance, which I know you would agree.

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Well said. It needs balance and to pin the blame on 'privatisation' as the reason for under performing UPW or in fact probation services is somewhat incredulous. I must have missed the records being borken in performance terms or indeed the low levels of re-offending prior to TR.

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The only way CP will succeed under the privateers if it is a money earner. Watch this space for innovative projects with service users either being hired out at a competitive rate or shoved out as a group to work with a "Charity" or similar at no cost to to the CRC, except possibly as a taxi service, and officers to monitor attendance.

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Please read the MoJ/NOMS Delivery of the Unpaid work requirement Manual edition 3.5, boring I know, but it is there for all to read and you can download from MoJ website. It directs all UPW providers that they cannot undertake any work that would replace or take the place of paid work. At best, they can only be cost neutral and must prove that the work they perform is for the good and benefit of the community. Single agency placements are cost neutral. Supervised groups are not. There is no money to be made in UPW, hence the lack of supervisors; they cost money. Part of the contract that CRCs have covers the costs of delivering UPW. If they choose not to employ supervisors, then they end up looking like Sodexo and will have to answer for lack of delivery.

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Whilst in a Sue Ryder shop in Doncaster I overheard a staff member say to the man who was there on CP (I am from a probation background so I know the jargon) that he would only have to do an hour 'cos it wasn't that busy but she would credit him for other hours!!! Some punishment....

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Sounds a bit like London CRC. I'm just surprised there aren't any more magistrates in uproar over UPW. But maybe they choose not to be because they don't know what else to do with those up for sentence. Another problem is that there are many "holes" in many of the projects and some are cancelled frequently and regularly, with service users texted and told not to attend. Slow breaching in our case is not about being told not to, but about not finding enough time to do it. What should we prioritise when everything is urgent?

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Our local courts are starting to ask questions. For UPW breaches they want to know how many of the absences are stand downs. In our area that can be a considerable %. Similarly court not happy to hear of a person up for new DV charges, who has been on the waiting list for over a year for BBR (DV programme). Message comes back via NPS - but do we do anything tangible about it? Nope - have been running with a seriously depleted programmes team since the split - which gets smaller by the month as staff leave. Most DV clients are now waiting well up to and over a year to get on a programme - if at all - by which time, any motivation to participate has long since evaporated.

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Reading this with interest. I prosecute breaches within the London area and speak to offenders daily at court. The recording of hours worked is always an issue with CRC usually having to accept they have missed some worked along the way. With custody looming, how can they get it wrong? Recently I found out that one breach date was incorrectly submitted,the project had been cancelled as it was the supervisors birthday!

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Bristol Crown Court Judges going nuts over poor management of UPW, particularly the amount of applications to revoke as unworkable when they should easily be a breach. Have been summonsing beleaguered Case Managers to Court for a public 'roasting'.

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As far as I am aware, failure to attend on time from Court or late breach is a "Negative", Revoke and resentence is "Neutral" on the PBR. Rather then no breaches at all risking "lates" and any excuse for Revoking. Does that sound about right for the CRC's!

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Certainly does! We're expected to do a review at about the 6 month point (on a 12 month Order with UPW) and if it looks like the UPW wont be completed, then to take it back as unworkable. (Needless to say, I don't). The courts (quite rightly) are querying this rationale (6 months to go - plenty of time!) What's the issue? Resources pure and simple - a fundamental failure to run enough groups to meet the targets. Again, not a 'recent' issue - the UPW team in my area has become a shadow of its former self post split.