Lets face it, Mr Lawrence has no life time career invested here and will move on, hopefully sooner than later. He cannot understand the devastating impact being robbed of our EVR, pensions and erosion of terms and conditions as he has had none of it inflicted on his own terms. Good riddance to bad rubbish, bring on the election and find someone decent and capable.
*****
What breach of contract? If I recall correctly, Sodexo ran roughshod through the framework agreement and paid reduced EVR. They were condemned on moral, not legal grounds. It's easy to bash Napo, but instead of just throwing out the assumption that there has been a breach of contract, you should explain why you believe there has been a breach.
*****
All we are after from Ian Lawrence is a categorical statement that he has run the contracts past Thompson's and they have confirmed there is no case to answer over our insistence on EVR, (or otherwise). Then we will know where we are. Currently, OUR reading (SSW branch) is that there IS a case to answer. And I, for one, want my (considerable) monthly subs to be used to pay for this legal advice. I have to admit I am completely flummoxed as to why this hasn't happened up til now. The fact the MoJ Contract Managers appear to have avoided the ACAS talks to date suggests there is something to hide and their position is not water tight. Because, if it were wouldn't you rush to prove the Union is wrong with the legal position? Simples!
*****
Oh what a shower of shite. I was at London branch meeting Friday. Dean Rogers attended, nice enough chap but not a trade unionist. Spoke of the positives of CRC and made a pitiful comment about some members deserve being fired. I'm cancelling my membership come Monday.
*****
I have heard on many occasions the General Secretary blaming members in Sodexo controlled CRC's for their redundancies. I can assure you he takes no responsibility for their demise and Dean the same mould. These two shower of shites want to throw members to the wolves and lay claims on the legal advice to support their inaction. NAPO is dead unless it gets rid of these 2 jerks but the chairs are never going to deal with that. Don't forget the members got what they voted for, turkeys for Christmas.
*****
When union members are hamstrung & left in limbo by what seems a union leadership intent on inactivity, then sadly you are right to observe that people become frustrated, angry & ineffective. During the Sodexo clearances I have often wondered if the Napo leadership intentionally dragged their feet such that the VS option offered by the CRCs became the only guaranteed paid exit as compared to the insecurity & uncertainty of "will we win?"... thus Napo (as well as the CRCs) got rid of those troublesome old guard. The current SW scenario seems to be drifting in a similar direction.
*****
About the latest OASys knee jerk in the London CRC: we were told earlier this year we had to do OASys initial sentence plan within 10 days of first contact. Any OASys outstanding from before April we need not worry about. Because of the inspection we have now been told we must do all pre April OASys after all. For most of us these amount to quite a few. They must all be completed within a month. Here are the catches, unresolved and unlikely to be addressed: If we do the backlog OASys, well we are even less likely to be able to keep up with the current on going work than we are already. Hence the backlog OASys are likely to be done really, really badly and not worth the paper they are not written on. What would be the point of that? Still, NOMS and MOJ will be happy to see boxes ticked. Further, if we do all the Backlog OASys as initial sentence plan, we will have thousands of "misses" since all of them will be from before April. I can't wait.
*****
Cannot imagine any well trained Probation staff wilfully not doing OASys as it a key tool (arguably overly cumbersome and difficult to navigate). My experience was one of too few staff, high sickness rates, temps coming and going, not enough hours in day etc. I did manage to just do all mine but I recognise team I was in was lower caseload than most others and we managed some stability re staffing. Quality, now that's a different question as was implementing the sentence plan. We/I were working like stink and doing our best. I am sure same is true for vast majority.
*****
Oh purleese, the sentence plan is already sketched out in broad terms in either the Community Order detail or encapsulated within the licence conditions, as any competent practitioner will tell you. Anyone worth their salt knows exactly the direction of travel in any given sentence and what input is required. OASys sentence plans were only ever a way of trying to quantify this by a Service beginning to lose confidence in its professional abilities and standing and feeling required to justify its self, rather than being allowed to just get on with the job. OASys always has been a repetition of info held elsewhere and a waste of time. Now sentence plans are just meaningless cut and paste exercises completed by overworked court staff in order to hit completion targets.
*****
About the London branch union meeting last Friday: It does worry me when it seems that those who represent us appear to accept uncritically certain things they are being told by managers in the CRC, such as: "there's no money". I would say: unless you show us your accounts to prove this statement I am not prepared to believe it, What I am prepared to believe is that your company is unprepared to invest money, even though all businesses accept that investment is needed in order for profit to be made.
*****
Caseloads in West Yorkshire are 70 to 80 for PSO, sickness levels according to the hierarchy are 1 in 5 staff members. No support from managers or recognition that this is having a negative impact on staff morale or staffs mental health or well being.
6 core modules is the reinventing of the wheel that insults the offender and treats them like a child. The induction paper and sentence plan takes exactly the same amount of time for a 1st time offender or career offender. Once the offender has been released from prison he or she may have had 4 or 5 offender managers. The PSS is causing a bottleneck of offenders that the turnaround time for sorting out accommodation etc is wilfully inadequate and addresses nothing.
The staff who remain are so disillusioned with the job that they have just given up the ghost. There is no scope left to specialise or move into new territory as we now deliver programmes, hold DRR orders, community orders, licence cases, PSS licence, IOM and PPO cases. Can the last person out turn off the lights.
*****
The Conference resolution was very principled but practically useless and toothless. Yes we all love collective bargaining, but the employers don't want to play ball - especially the NPS. The last couple of NNC meetings were poorly attended by employers (read the briefing paper produced at AGM by those who actually attend these meetings) who voted with their feet and those who did attend said nowt because of commercial secrecy. The NPS walked away then came back again to a stony silence and a half filled room. Most of the big players including the NPS are expected to follow MTCnovo and serve notice in the new year and Napo will be sitting in an empty room twiddling their thumbs with Comrade Chas and his sidekick stood outside selling their newspapers and dreaming of the winter of discontent. At least Raho has the balls to see the reality of the new landscape and not kid himself that probation staff will take to the streets and strike - they won't.
*****
Are you not clear that this is a democratic union? This situation splits the union puts London at odds with the national membership and discredits his poor NPS chair colleagues in this political disaster and no doubt Rogers the bodges put him up to it as that is what they wanted at AGM. All the Officials were manipulating. Members are just the bankers we get no say.
*****
It reflects a real live issue that will soon be facing every branch. You can ignore the train coming towards you but if you stay still it will roll over you. You cannot change the fact that the NNC is disintegrating and has been for some time. It is not fit for purpose. The motion was passed in accordance with all the relevant rules.
*****
National collective bargaining is now a farce. Napo members were duped at the AGM into voting for a motion that meant zilch/nudda. If the private companies decide to walk away, no one can make them stay. Do you seriously think the MoJ will force anyone to parley with the unions? Of course London is only interested in London although we can stretch to Thames valley at a pinch. No one has mentioned Manchester going alone.
*****
I would like to suggest that the London NAPO branches apparent willingness to accept the loss of facility time without a murmur (please someone, correct me if I am wrong), would certainly have given confidence to MCT Novo to propose walking away from NNC. The local vote last week has unfortunately only endorsed this position. I have read elsewhere recently of trade unionists not wholly in favour of relying on the law in discussions with management. In my experience however, no amount of hand wringing or special pleading cuts it with the kind of employers we are currently having to deal with. Nicey, nicey won't stop them riding roughshod over our roles or our basic (hard won) terms and conditions. If we are seen not to accept our own internal democratic processes (the motion passed at Conference supporting NNC) then why should management? London has done the rest of us no favours and Dean Rogers role in this is shameful. He should resign immediately because he clearly doesn't accept the AGM outcome.
*****
We will continue to run around in ever decreasing circles until the politicians stop the rhetoric about being 'tough'. Try 'effective'. Try 'credible'. Try 'productive'. Try 'constructive'. But 'tough' is getting us nowhere.
*****
Fully agree, ever increasing applications of stick rather then carrot solves nothing. Indeed, prison is no longer being used as a last resort, but more of a naughty step. But I think the system is so broken now its beyond repair, and so offers great opportunities for a real change. Not just change in the numbers we send to prison or how we build them. But change in what we want prisons to achieve, and being realistic about what they can achieve.
It's my opinion that any success in penal reform must come hand in hand with social reform. Drug laws need to be changed. Mental health issues require a whole different focus, individual wellbeing rather then criminalisation. Questions need to be asked about sending people to prison for 4 weeks or 6 weeks, what does that really achieve? What's the cost? Not just monetary terms, but the cost to the individual going to prison and the potential cost to society when that individual is released.
Rehabilitation is an overused word I feel, because many in our prisons haven't been habilitated in the first place. A whole new way of thinking is needed if we want an effective CJS. One that sees not only the punishment of people, but one that achieves something for everyone too. Unfortunately, to achieve radical changes in the CJS, people in power have to grasp some nettles, and Liz Truss, Gove or Grayling are not the people to do it.
*****
I have noticed a huge increase in the complex needs of offenders over the past 10 years. Most of those I work with now have complex needs such as mental health issues, personality disorders, alcohol and drugs, autistic spectrum, OCD, PTSD, ADHD, DV as victim, childhood abuse, etc. We deserve far more recognition and support for what we do and have become a dumping ground for the disadvantaged, abused and mentally ill.
*****
I have had a tough NPS day so sorry for not being upbeat, actually F*CK being upbeat. Also F*CK being professional and measured in responding and commenting. The IT doesn't work, the systems don't work, the prisons are hideous, the staff everywhere are in despair, about their jobs, their vision, their profession. Of course, this is the same in health, education ... (add your public service here). Our justice system is on a tipping point. I can't decide whether to grieve for the destruction of our public institutions, or for a man who has not got the release he has worked for and deserves, because F*CKING housing is non-existent. Rant over.
*****
I am spending increasing amount of time assisting depressed, suicidal and desperate individuals. Writing letters of support to ESA tribunals, working with bereaved, private company have no interest in this. I could do the minimum, meet the targets, take the money and run but I don't and neither do I see my colleagues doing that. They are on the phone regularly to support people who are quite frankly in a desperate situation regularly. There may be staff out there with that attitude but whoever you are I can tell you I have never known one in 15 years of service.
*****
The thing about "risk assessment": these are now very sketchy when done in courts, the basic layers, the minimum amount of info. Fair enough, that is all the staff have time for. But NPS were supposed to be the risk experts in TR landscape. They work with the risky clients. They alone can determine who is risky enough to be worked with by the NPS. Yet heavy risk assessment work now resides in the CRC, we the non experts must do full layer assessments on cases coming to us, after decision has been taken on sentencing based on very skimpy assessment. Not the court staffs fault. Systemic.
*****
Further problems arise over risk-escalation and ping-ponging between CRC and NPS. Have seen CRC staff, especially PSO's new to post, supervising complicated cases. Recipe for disaster if not receiving adequate peer support and line management. Teams being fragmented in WL CRC's - less staff support? More risky decision making?
*****
It will be even worse when we have no OASys. Too many people now involved in individual cases. The amount of breaches that are withdrawn due admin errors in the NPS. It's more luck than judgement that there are not more SFO's. We've been saying for the last 2 years surely it can't get any worse, but it does.
*****
Court closures have meant more cases going to already busy courts and no extra staff to undertake the expectation of all reports to be done on the day or written up by court staff. Of course they are going to be sketchy the majority of the time. Not the fault of the staff but those that think E3 is the way to go and bugger those who are trying the best they can in an ever increasing target-driven service. Staff should be able to work at a level they are comfortable with and let the targets take a back seat. Then maybe, just maybe the powers that be will see it as it is and decide public protection and staff welfare should be their priorities and employ more staff to squeeze into an already too small a working environment. One looks for 20 female staff and been told to use the public loos in the court foyer.
*****
Oral reports and short format reports are not based on risk assessment, but the formulaic outcome of a couple of risk screening tools.
*****
Another loss from TR: many of those writing reports and making proposals have never supervised anyone on an order or licence. Or they may have had pre-TR supervisory experience, but be totally unfamiliar with CRC post TR. This shows. We have DV perpetrators on 60 RARs but with no BBR although they could easily have done BBR and had never done it before.
Grayling also stopped prisoners families from sending gifts on birthdays and Christmas (commonly known as the book ban), causing more resentment, especially when you consider what things you were allowed to be sent anyway was very little. Grayling also restructured the incentive and earned privilege scheme, making it almost impossible to climb the ladder, removing the feeling of progress achievable for prisoners, making those that did manage to climb the ladder the focus of suspicion (must be a grass or something) because no-one else can manage it, and very importantly, removing the ability of staff to use the threat of loss of privileges through the IEP system as a method of control, and leading to far more adjudications and days lost. Graylings staff cuts, prison closures with a growing population was stupid enough, but he didn't need to shake everything up like a wasps nest as well.
*****
Grayling has a lot to answer for and should be held to account for his evident failings. Prisons and Probation are in a mess as the result of his actions and failure to listen to anyone who actually knew what they were talking about. Evidence now clearly shows 'those on the front line' were right. I don't have much confidence in Truss either, however I would have so much respect if she were to stand up and say "We (Grayling/Tories) got it wrong".
*****
What breach of contract? If I recall correctly, Sodexo ran roughshod through the framework agreement and paid reduced EVR. They were condemned on moral, not legal grounds. It's easy to bash Napo, but instead of just throwing out the assumption that there has been a breach of contract, you should explain why you believe there has been a breach.
*****
All we are after from Ian Lawrence is a categorical statement that he has run the contracts past Thompson's and they have confirmed there is no case to answer over our insistence on EVR, (or otherwise). Then we will know where we are. Currently, OUR reading (SSW branch) is that there IS a case to answer. And I, for one, want my (considerable) monthly subs to be used to pay for this legal advice. I have to admit I am completely flummoxed as to why this hasn't happened up til now. The fact the MoJ Contract Managers appear to have avoided the ACAS talks to date suggests there is something to hide and their position is not water tight. Because, if it were wouldn't you rush to prove the Union is wrong with the legal position? Simples!
*****
Oh what a shower of shite. I was at London branch meeting Friday. Dean Rogers attended, nice enough chap but not a trade unionist. Spoke of the positives of CRC and made a pitiful comment about some members deserve being fired. I'm cancelling my membership come Monday.
*****
I have heard on many occasions the General Secretary blaming members in Sodexo controlled CRC's for their redundancies. I can assure you he takes no responsibility for their demise and Dean the same mould. These two shower of shites want to throw members to the wolves and lay claims on the legal advice to support their inaction. NAPO is dead unless it gets rid of these 2 jerks but the chairs are never going to deal with that. Don't forget the members got what they voted for, turkeys for Christmas.
*****
When union members are hamstrung & left in limbo by what seems a union leadership intent on inactivity, then sadly you are right to observe that people become frustrated, angry & ineffective. During the Sodexo clearances I have often wondered if the Napo leadership intentionally dragged their feet such that the VS option offered by the CRCs became the only guaranteed paid exit as compared to the insecurity & uncertainty of "will we win?"... thus Napo (as well as the CRCs) got rid of those troublesome old guard. The current SW scenario seems to be drifting in a similar direction.
*****
About the latest OASys knee jerk in the London CRC: we were told earlier this year we had to do OASys initial sentence plan within 10 days of first contact. Any OASys outstanding from before April we need not worry about. Because of the inspection we have now been told we must do all pre April OASys after all. For most of us these amount to quite a few. They must all be completed within a month. Here are the catches, unresolved and unlikely to be addressed: If we do the backlog OASys, well we are even less likely to be able to keep up with the current on going work than we are already. Hence the backlog OASys are likely to be done really, really badly and not worth the paper they are not written on. What would be the point of that? Still, NOMS and MOJ will be happy to see boxes ticked. Further, if we do all the Backlog OASys as initial sentence plan, we will have thousands of "misses" since all of them will be from before April. I can't wait.
*****
Cannot imagine any well trained Probation staff wilfully not doing OASys as it a key tool (arguably overly cumbersome and difficult to navigate). My experience was one of too few staff, high sickness rates, temps coming and going, not enough hours in day etc. I did manage to just do all mine but I recognise team I was in was lower caseload than most others and we managed some stability re staffing. Quality, now that's a different question as was implementing the sentence plan. We/I were working like stink and doing our best. I am sure same is true for vast majority.
*****
Oh purleese, the sentence plan is already sketched out in broad terms in either the Community Order detail or encapsulated within the licence conditions, as any competent practitioner will tell you. Anyone worth their salt knows exactly the direction of travel in any given sentence and what input is required. OASys sentence plans were only ever a way of trying to quantify this by a Service beginning to lose confidence in its professional abilities and standing and feeling required to justify its self, rather than being allowed to just get on with the job. OASys always has been a repetition of info held elsewhere and a waste of time. Now sentence plans are just meaningless cut and paste exercises completed by overworked court staff in order to hit completion targets.
*****
About the London branch union meeting last Friday: It does worry me when it seems that those who represent us appear to accept uncritically certain things they are being told by managers in the CRC, such as: "there's no money". I would say: unless you show us your accounts to prove this statement I am not prepared to believe it, What I am prepared to believe is that your company is unprepared to invest money, even though all businesses accept that investment is needed in order for profit to be made.
*****
Caseloads in West Yorkshire are 70 to 80 for PSO, sickness levels according to the hierarchy are 1 in 5 staff members. No support from managers or recognition that this is having a negative impact on staff morale or staffs mental health or well being.
6 core modules is the reinventing of the wheel that insults the offender and treats them like a child. The induction paper and sentence plan takes exactly the same amount of time for a 1st time offender or career offender. Once the offender has been released from prison he or she may have had 4 or 5 offender managers. The PSS is causing a bottleneck of offenders that the turnaround time for sorting out accommodation etc is wilfully inadequate and addresses nothing.
The staff who remain are so disillusioned with the job that they have just given up the ghost. There is no scope left to specialise or move into new territory as we now deliver programmes, hold DRR orders, community orders, licence cases, PSS licence, IOM and PPO cases. Can the last person out turn off the lights.
*****
The Conference resolution was very principled but practically useless and toothless. Yes we all love collective bargaining, but the employers don't want to play ball - especially the NPS. The last couple of NNC meetings were poorly attended by employers (read the briefing paper produced at AGM by those who actually attend these meetings) who voted with their feet and those who did attend said nowt because of commercial secrecy. The NPS walked away then came back again to a stony silence and a half filled room. Most of the big players including the NPS are expected to follow MTCnovo and serve notice in the new year and Napo will be sitting in an empty room twiddling their thumbs with Comrade Chas and his sidekick stood outside selling their newspapers and dreaming of the winter of discontent. At least Raho has the balls to see the reality of the new landscape and not kid himself that probation staff will take to the streets and strike - they won't.
*****
Are you not clear that this is a democratic union? This situation splits the union puts London at odds with the national membership and discredits his poor NPS chair colleagues in this political disaster and no doubt Rogers the bodges put him up to it as that is what they wanted at AGM. All the Officials were manipulating. Members are just the bankers we get no say.
*****
It reflects a real live issue that will soon be facing every branch. You can ignore the train coming towards you but if you stay still it will roll over you. You cannot change the fact that the NNC is disintegrating and has been for some time. It is not fit for purpose. The motion was passed in accordance with all the relevant rules.
*****
National collective bargaining is now a farce. Napo members were duped at the AGM into voting for a motion that meant zilch/nudda. If the private companies decide to walk away, no one can make them stay. Do you seriously think the MoJ will force anyone to parley with the unions? Of course London is only interested in London although we can stretch to Thames valley at a pinch. No one has mentioned Manchester going alone.
*****
I would like to suggest that the London NAPO branches apparent willingness to accept the loss of facility time without a murmur (please someone, correct me if I am wrong), would certainly have given confidence to MCT Novo to propose walking away from NNC. The local vote last week has unfortunately only endorsed this position. I have read elsewhere recently of trade unionists not wholly in favour of relying on the law in discussions with management. In my experience however, no amount of hand wringing or special pleading cuts it with the kind of employers we are currently having to deal with. Nicey, nicey won't stop them riding roughshod over our roles or our basic (hard won) terms and conditions. If we are seen not to accept our own internal democratic processes (the motion passed at Conference supporting NNC) then why should management? London has done the rest of us no favours and Dean Rogers role in this is shameful. He should resign immediately because he clearly doesn't accept the AGM outcome.
*****
We will continue to run around in ever decreasing circles until the politicians stop the rhetoric about being 'tough'. Try 'effective'. Try 'credible'. Try 'productive'. Try 'constructive'. But 'tough' is getting us nowhere.
*****
Fully agree, ever increasing applications of stick rather then carrot solves nothing. Indeed, prison is no longer being used as a last resort, but more of a naughty step. But I think the system is so broken now its beyond repair, and so offers great opportunities for a real change. Not just change in the numbers we send to prison or how we build them. But change in what we want prisons to achieve, and being realistic about what they can achieve.
It's my opinion that any success in penal reform must come hand in hand with social reform. Drug laws need to be changed. Mental health issues require a whole different focus, individual wellbeing rather then criminalisation. Questions need to be asked about sending people to prison for 4 weeks or 6 weeks, what does that really achieve? What's the cost? Not just monetary terms, but the cost to the individual going to prison and the potential cost to society when that individual is released.
Rehabilitation is an overused word I feel, because many in our prisons haven't been habilitated in the first place. A whole new way of thinking is needed if we want an effective CJS. One that sees not only the punishment of people, but one that achieves something for everyone too. Unfortunately, to achieve radical changes in the CJS, people in power have to grasp some nettles, and Liz Truss, Gove or Grayling are not the people to do it.
*****
I have noticed a huge increase in the complex needs of offenders over the past 10 years. Most of those I work with now have complex needs such as mental health issues, personality disorders, alcohol and drugs, autistic spectrum, OCD, PTSD, ADHD, DV as victim, childhood abuse, etc. We deserve far more recognition and support for what we do and have become a dumping ground for the disadvantaged, abused and mentally ill.
*****
I have had a tough NPS day so sorry for not being upbeat, actually F*CK being upbeat. Also F*CK being professional and measured in responding and commenting. The IT doesn't work, the systems don't work, the prisons are hideous, the staff everywhere are in despair, about their jobs, their vision, their profession. Of course, this is the same in health, education ... (add your public service here). Our justice system is on a tipping point. I can't decide whether to grieve for the destruction of our public institutions, or for a man who has not got the release he has worked for and deserves, because F*CKING housing is non-existent. Rant over.
*****
I am spending increasing amount of time assisting depressed, suicidal and desperate individuals. Writing letters of support to ESA tribunals, working with bereaved, private company have no interest in this. I could do the minimum, meet the targets, take the money and run but I don't and neither do I see my colleagues doing that. They are on the phone regularly to support people who are quite frankly in a desperate situation regularly. There may be staff out there with that attitude but whoever you are I can tell you I have never known one in 15 years of service.
*****
The thing about "risk assessment": these are now very sketchy when done in courts, the basic layers, the minimum amount of info. Fair enough, that is all the staff have time for. But NPS were supposed to be the risk experts in TR landscape. They work with the risky clients. They alone can determine who is risky enough to be worked with by the NPS. Yet heavy risk assessment work now resides in the CRC, we the non experts must do full layer assessments on cases coming to us, after decision has been taken on sentencing based on very skimpy assessment. Not the court staffs fault. Systemic.
*****
Further problems arise over risk-escalation and ping-ponging between CRC and NPS. Have seen CRC staff, especially PSO's new to post, supervising complicated cases. Recipe for disaster if not receiving adequate peer support and line management. Teams being fragmented in WL CRC's - less staff support? More risky decision making?
*****
It will be even worse when we have no OASys. Too many people now involved in individual cases. The amount of breaches that are withdrawn due admin errors in the NPS. It's more luck than judgement that there are not more SFO's. We've been saying for the last 2 years surely it can't get any worse, but it does.
*****
Court closures have meant more cases going to already busy courts and no extra staff to undertake the expectation of all reports to be done on the day or written up by court staff. Of course they are going to be sketchy the majority of the time. Not the fault of the staff but those that think E3 is the way to go and bugger those who are trying the best they can in an ever increasing target-driven service. Staff should be able to work at a level they are comfortable with and let the targets take a back seat. Then maybe, just maybe the powers that be will see it as it is and decide public protection and staff welfare should be their priorities and employ more staff to squeeze into an already too small a working environment. One looks for 20 female staff and been told to use the public loos in the court foyer.
*****
Oral reports and short format reports are not based on risk assessment, but the formulaic outcome of a couple of risk screening tools.
*****
Another loss from TR: many of those writing reports and making proposals have never supervised anyone on an order or licence. Or they may have had pre-TR supervisory experience, but be totally unfamiliar with CRC post TR. This shows. We have DV perpetrators on 60 RARs but with no BBR although they could easily have done BBR and had never done it before.
We have people with chronic orthopaedic problems being given 200 hrs Unpaid Work. Time was when end-to-end offender management was the ideal. We took responsibility of the whole experience from start to finish. This way relationship and trust were built, progress noticed, hurdles appreciated, investment in the process by service user as well as worker. Now we fail by fragmentation, by misunderstanding, by confusion and misdiagnosis.
*****
Rehabilitation has been well and truly 'Transformed' from an award winning service to a pile of excrement designed by people so far away from the real world who test out concepts on paper before decided what will work...E3 is the deskilling arm of this model designed purely to get probation work done on the cheap and the beauty of this are the SPO quislings who are pushing the model as if is the prelude to the second coming when in reality they're like the turkeys who voted for Christmas...
*****
Ah, the silent but deadpan Copsey, a behind-the-curtain career civil servant fixed in aspic rather than steeped in probation. I remember the sharp dressed bully from Lincolnshire many, many moons ago. He never liked social work training, was very pro-control & punishment; he will have fitted into the Noms' organism like a missing jigsaw piece. What, pray tell, does Head of Operational Assurance do (other than pocket a £120k salary)?
*****
Dame Glenys Stacey (HMCIP) ....... made a point of identifying impending areas for the Inspectorates attention, the Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR's) being one area of supervisory concern - which followed on from my question on the current lack of accountability & transparency from CRC providers in offering information to sentencers on this 'innovative' option which if unaddressed threatened to undermine judicial confidence.
Certainly in the Magistrates' Court confidence in this disposal is very much undermined already. Sentencers have no idea 1) what is actually involved 2) how much real activity takes place 3) how the amounts proposed by Probation in court reports (eg 15 days, 20 days) are arrived at and 4) no means of relating amount of RAR to level of sentence.
Since privatisation of probation any contact between sentencers and probation has pretty much vanished; reporting of breach levels appear almost non-existent and indeed there is a strong perception that the number of breaches brought to court have substantially reduced.
*****
Greater flexibility in reporting frequency means fewer breaches. I avoid breaching like the plague. I would rather put half an hour into getting someone to attend probation than spend two hours on a breach which then gets rejected. Another thing that puts me off breaching: I don't get that two hours undisturbed, ever. And if I do take that time it will be at the expense of another vital task, which in this plate spinning CRC world in which I now work will result in further delays and frustrations, plates crashing to the floor. When I bend to retrieve one plate, others immediately come off their spinning poles and crash. What a circus.
*****
The RARs: a mystery indeed. The current London CRC wisdom is that the wording says: "up to x amount of days". That means we can do as many or as few as the need and risk of the service user demands. There is some assumption that the ideal would be to "send" the service user somewhere for their RAR. I have only ever been able to do this in three cases, and the service user accessed services which he had already set up in advance of his order: one was a psychological appointment, one was the AA meeting where attendance can be confirmed through a "chitty" system, and one was the local drug centre who are happy to liaise with us re people's attendance and are not perturbed by such a word as "criminal record".
*****
Rehabilitation has been well and truly 'Transformed' from an award winning service to a pile of excrement designed by people so far away from the real world who test out concepts on paper before decided what will work...E3 is the deskilling arm of this model designed purely to get probation work done on the cheap and the beauty of this are the SPO quislings who are pushing the model as if is the prelude to the second coming when in reality they're like the turkeys who voted for Christmas...
*****
Ah, the silent but deadpan Copsey, a behind-the-curtain career civil servant fixed in aspic rather than steeped in probation. I remember the sharp dressed bully from Lincolnshire many, many moons ago. He never liked social work training, was very pro-control & punishment; he will have fitted into the Noms' organism like a missing jigsaw piece. What, pray tell, does Head of Operational Assurance do (other than pocket a £120k salary)?
*****
Dame Glenys Stacey (HMCIP) ....... made a point of identifying impending areas for the Inspectorates attention, the Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR's) being one area of supervisory concern - which followed on from my question on the current lack of accountability & transparency from CRC providers in offering information to sentencers on this 'innovative' option which if unaddressed threatened to undermine judicial confidence.
Certainly in the Magistrates' Court confidence in this disposal is very much undermined already. Sentencers have no idea 1) what is actually involved 2) how much real activity takes place 3) how the amounts proposed by Probation in court reports (eg 15 days, 20 days) are arrived at and 4) no means of relating amount of RAR to level of sentence.
Since privatisation of probation any contact between sentencers and probation has pretty much vanished; reporting of breach levels appear almost non-existent and indeed there is a strong perception that the number of breaches brought to court have substantially reduced.
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Greater flexibility in reporting frequency means fewer breaches. I avoid breaching like the plague. I would rather put half an hour into getting someone to attend probation than spend two hours on a breach which then gets rejected. Another thing that puts me off breaching: I don't get that two hours undisturbed, ever. And if I do take that time it will be at the expense of another vital task, which in this plate spinning CRC world in which I now work will result in further delays and frustrations, plates crashing to the floor. When I bend to retrieve one plate, others immediately come off their spinning poles and crash. What a circus.
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The RARs: a mystery indeed. The current London CRC wisdom is that the wording says: "up to x amount of days". That means we can do as many or as few as the need and risk of the service user demands. There is some assumption that the ideal would be to "send" the service user somewhere for their RAR. I have only ever been able to do this in three cases, and the service user accessed services which he had already set up in advance of his order: one was a psychological appointment, one was the AA meeting where attendance can be confirmed through a "chitty" system, and one was the local drug centre who are happy to liaise with us re people's attendance and are not perturbed by such a word as "criminal record".
If no such options are open those "RARs" become supervision sessions, work for the probation worker. Why that would now be such a terrrible dirty word or undesirable situation I don't know. People who come for their supervision RAR with me get a chance to consider their situation with one other, me. I pay close attention to what they say, I reflect back, I assist with focusing their train of thoughts, I don't judge. Most have not had a chance to do this with anyone since they saw me last. They tell me they are clearer about what they need to do when they leave me. When they return they feed back to me how things have gone. It is personal and bespoke.
I can no longer see people every week or fortnightly, because I have so many and there is so much bureaucracy to attend to when I do see the service user, I spend a good hour usually. I don't think we should be made to discount such bespoke RAR sessions as useless, they are useful and constructive. It is just that we need other things for the service users as well, like affordable housing, employment and social inclusion.
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I've had it confirmed that there is very little time factored into the proposed Working Links model of practice for bespoke 1:2:1 sessions. The assumption is that all clients will be farmed out to other agencies more or less - whilst the practitioners sit in front of their computers furiously logging everything in order to hit cash linked targets. Problem is, the proposed 'suite' of 16 RAR activities (homogeneous across all WL owned companies, is currently nowhere in sight.
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I can confirm that the number of breaches (throughout London) have dropped by 60 percent. The large majority of breaches relate to orders where the service user has not been seen for some months. Enforcement is now an agency whose primary function is to re-establish contact! (EO London).
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The experience in London has been that the majority of CRC breaches are rejected for the smallest of reasons. Many are simply not resubmitted and no one on either side seems to care.
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Staff shortages, overcrowding, and psychoactive drugs are very serious issues in our prison system. Too many people are being sent to prison, and many don't really need to be there. But I think it's worth remembering that Grayling, as well as cutting staff numbers also introduced some other very stupid and unintelligent reforms that I think should be remembered. He stopped many prisoners from wearing their own clothes, which apart from causing resentment amongst prisoners, created a need for extra resources, more prison clothes needed, clothes that need washing, and staff time to supervise kit exchanges. "Its easier to get drugs then clothes" is a common theme in many reports and commentary on the prison crisis.
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I've had it confirmed that there is very little time factored into the proposed Working Links model of practice for bespoke 1:2:1 sessions. The assumption is that all clients will be farmed out to other agencies more or less - whilst the practitioners sit in front of their computers furiously logging everything in order to hit cash linked targets. Problem is, the proposed 'suite' of 16 RAR activities (homogeneous across all WL owned companies, is currently nowhere in sight.
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I can confirm that the number of breaches (throughout London) have dropped by 60 percent. The large majority of breaches relate to orders where the service user has not been seen for some months. Enforcement is now an agency whose primary function is to re-establish contact! (EO London).
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The experience in London has been that the majority of CRC breaches are rejected for the smallest of reasons. Many are simply not resubmitted and no one on either side seems to care.
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Staff shortages, overcrowding, and psychoactive drugs are very serious issues in our prison system. Too many people are being sent to prison, and many don't really need to be there. But I think it's worth remembering that Grayling, as well as cutting staff numbers also introduced some other very stupid and unintelligent reforms that I think should be remembered. He stopped many prisoners from wearing their own clothes, which apart from causing resentment amongst prisoners, created a need for extra resources, more prison clothes needed, clothes that need washing, and staff time to supervise kit exchanges. "Its easier to get drugs then clothes" is a common theme in many reports and commentary on the prison crisis.
Grayling also stopped prisoners families from sending gifts on birthdays and Christmas (commonly known as the book ban), causing more resentment, especially when you consider what things you were allowed to be sent anyway was very little. Grayling also restructured the incentive and earned privilege scheme, making it almost impossible to climb the ladder, removing the feeling of progress achievable for prisoners, making those that did manage to climb the ladder the focus of suspicion (must be a grass or something) because no-one else can manage it, and very importantly, removing the ability of staff to use the threat of loss of privileges through the IEP system as a method of control, and leading to far more adjudications and days lost. Graylings staff cuts, prison closures with a growing population was stupid enough, but he didn't need to shake everything up like a wasps nest as well.
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Grayling has a lot to answer for and should be held to account for his evident failings. Prisons and Probation are in a mess as the result of his actions and failure to listen to anyone who actually knew what they were talking about. Evidence now clearly shows 'those on the front line' were right. I don't have much confidence in Truss either, however I would have so much respect if she were to stand up and say "We (Grayling/Tories) got it wrong".
Will never happen though as this Capitalist Government will 'spin' their next move to make it look like they are improving things rather then state We created this mess and we are going to get out. "We're in this together" b*llocks - if we were in it together and you are reading this Ms Truss, as professionals in an extremely depleted "business" which seems to be the word of the day these days (I joined a Public Service), we would hold more respect for you if you admitted this mess is the fault of the Conservatives in the first place. #Blood on your hands.
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This is part of the great deception....they know that there's a retention problem in prisons.... the trouble is lots of officers are tied up with 'bothersome' rehabilitation work therefore to aid retention, shift all of those officers back onto the wings and fill their places with probation officers - genius...except the void will have to be filled with untrained (forgive me one days training per unit) PSO's who will now know the meaning of responsibility...prisons are dangerous places at the moment and we must resist going in at all costs until things have quietened down again.
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This is part of the great deception....they know that there's a retention problem in prisons.... the trouble is lots of officers are tied up with 'bothersome' rehabilitation work therefore to aid retention, shift all of those officers back onto the wings and fill their places with probation officers - genius...except the void will have to be filled with untrained (forgive me one days training per unit) PSO's who will now know the meaning of responsibility...prisons are dangerous places at the moment and we must resist going in at all costs until things have quietened down again.
08:18 yesterday, I agree with everything you say. I don't feel safe giving further details that may identify my area & office. It is NPS. The difference currently being that it feels to myself and colleagues a deliberate agenda to seek ways to remove PSOs, particularly the longer serving, more expensive.
ReplyDeleteRefers to this:-
DeleteAnon27 November 2016 at 06:38
PSOs in our office are being insulted, harassed and working lives generally being made very difficult for them. There is a feeling of not being valued or wanted. Is this happening elsewhere?
Reply
Anon 27 November 2016 at 08:18
Can you be a bit more specific 6.38 as to the details? For example who is being insulted, harassed and by whom? If you are talking about bullying then is it being reported? My own impression is that bullying can come from any angle. I have seen spo's bully 'lower ranking'officers but I have also seen quite a few admin. Level get away with terrible bullying of 'higher ranking'pso and po grades. In fact I experienced this myself and it was never taken seriously but asking around I discovered that staff had left because of it. Power comes in many forms and not just the obvious. You woukd expect probation services to deal with these matters well but in my experience they don't. For example, does anyone know about or use the whistle blowing policy because we should all have one?
Who would have thought it? Bullying in the ranks? Surely there can't be anybody with bullying, manipulative, psychologically abusive tendencies in the staff of the Probation service? The NPS you say? Involved in bullying? How can this be? Probation Offficers? With? With bullying tendancies? I refuse to believe that anyone involved in such a professional and well respected institution could ever harm another person with such behaviour?
DeleteHow could this possibly be?
04:20 - stop feeding the monkey & take the advice offered on 12 Nov. You never know, the monkey might just climb off your back & leave you alone!
DeleteAnd yes, there are (and always have been) bullies in all walks of life who impact upon lives. The latter years of my career were blighted by eager wannabes who treated service users and colleagues with utter contempt, using them as a means to climb the greasy pole. Sadly they climbed quite a long way up & were instrumental in helping the private companies get rid of the experienced, thoughtful staff.
Just read this letter to inside times by a serving prisoner, and want to flag it up here because it it's just so right, and something that deserves considerable consideration in any prison reform debate.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.insidetime.org/mdts-a-waste-of-money/
'Getafix'
MDTs ‘a waste of money’
DeleteIt would appear the powers-that-be are pulling their hair out over the Spice epidemic, not knowing how to tackle it and just watching it spread through the prison population causing nothing but grief and stress, and in some cases, death. So who is responsible for this? Obviously, the clever dick who introduced Mandatory Drug Testing back in 1994 – ex Home Secretary Michael Howard!
All MDTs have done is cost the system a hell of a lot of expense, not only money spent on the tests themselves, but also money on adjudications and the cost of extra days added to sentences. MDTs caused most prisoners to stop smoking cannabis in prison and choose opiates instead, because they are out of your system a lot quicker.
The introduction of MDTs has led almost in a straight line to the use of legal highs. People use legal highs because they know they cannot be detected by MDT. If there were no MDTs, the majority of prisoners would still be smoking cannabis and there would have been no heroin revolution in our prisons, no newly-addicted prisoners being released with drug habits to maintain. They cannot test for legal highs as there are too many varieties and they keep changing the drug ingredients.
“MDTs caused most prisoners to stop smoking cannabis in prison and choose opiates instead, because they are out of your system a lot quicker”
With budget cuts and staff shortages the prison system is a desperate shambles, yet they can still find staff and money for MDTs, which are a total waste of resources as everyone is out of their heads on legal highs which they cannot test for!
The answer is to abolish MDTs, save the money, put MDT staff back on the landings and hope everyone goes back on harmless old cannabis. No more stabbings, assaults, no deaths from legal highs. Obviously the system cannot sanction cannabis use, but they don’t sanction the use of opiates or legal highs either, so let’s just get real. As it stands, the system is in chaos.
The IEP scheme has been in operation in prisons since the mid 90s. The IEP scheme being called to be scrapped in this article is the IEP scheme that Grayling 'reformed'.
Deletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38126646
'Getafix'