Thursday 14 September 2017

Latest From Napo 162

Mailout to all members yesterday:-

Dear member

At yesterday’s debate at the Trades Union Congress in Brighton where Yvonne Pattison and Ian Lawrence are representing Napo, we voted in favour of motions calling for affiliate trade unions to support the campaign to break the public sector pay cap. This campaign will be officially launched on 17th October with regional and London rallies and a Parliamentary Lobby. (Further details to follow).

More pay for Police and Prison Officers but what about Probation and Family Court staff?

Napo members across all of the 24 employers where Napo is recognised will have reacted with anger at yesterday’s news of this minority government’s derisory offer to lift the pay cap in respect of Police and Prison Officers which their respective union leaders have described as an insult.

Our members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are among the millions of public service workers who have suffered from the austerity driven pay policy that has been in place since 2010 which in turn has seriously devalued your pay and your standard of living. This has heaped further pressure on our members who, despite having different employers, have faced the common problems of workloads, increased stress and inept political leadership from a government that simply does not understand the value of the vital contribution that our members make to society.

Officer Group to consider a recommendation to ballot members.

In light of the above developments Yvonne and I will be urgently reporting the outcomes of the TUC debates on pay to Napo’s Officer Group. We can also report that both of our motions on the crisis in Probation were unanimously carried. We will also be making a firm recommendation that Napo ballots our membership on a consultative basis to explore your willingness to take industrial action in support of the TUC Campaign to break the Public Sector Pay Cap. Subject to that recommendation being agreed, more information will be issued to our members shortly.

Standing together

A major theme at the TUC this week has been the need for working people across Britain to stand together in the face of increasing attacks on their pay, terms and conditions and the pay cap policy which is designed to set particular groups of public service workers against others. We believe that Napo should have no truck with such clearly divisive strategies and that all public service workers should receive a decent pay rise. This makes it vital for all Napo members to seriously consider what may be needed in order for your union to play its part in a progressive campaign of opposition against this insidious policy.

Ask someone to join Napo today

Whether you work in the NPS, a CRC, Cafcass or Probation Board Northern Ireland, Napo is working every day to help defend our members against the impact of regressive policies on pay and attempts by employers to get more from you while they give you less. Please offer a copy of this statement to a colleague who you may know who is not currently a Napo member.

Together we are stronger.

Ian Lawrence              Yvonne Pattison
General Secretary       Napo Co-Chair

7 comments:

  1. Yvette Cooper gave G4S a suitably robust grilling yesterday (Home Affairs Select Committee) but Christopher Chope MP was very much on the side of G4S. Here's some wikipedia stuff to get a measure of the son-of-a-judge:

    "On 10 February 2009, he called for the minimum wage to be abolished. His Employment Opportunities Bill, which would, according to Chope, introduce more freedom to the job market and decrease unemployment, was backed by ten other Conservative MPs at the first reading, among them Edward Leigh, David Wilshire, Nigel Evans, Bill Cash and Peter Bone.

    Later that year, in the expenses scandal, it emerged that Chope claimed £136,992 in parliamentary expenses in 2007/08. This included claiming £881 to repair a sofa.

    On 12 March 2010, he was responsible for the blocking of a bill to protect poor countries from "vulture funds", despite his party's support for the bill.

    In October 2010, Chope helped host a meeting of climate-science sceptics at Westminster.

    On 11 October 2011 Chope raised an eleventh hour objection to the Hillsborough debate taking place because he believed a debate about MP's pensions was more important. Cries of 'shame' echoed around the chamber and Labour MP Jamie Reed said that the perpetrator should be 'named and shamed' for raising the objection.

    Chope helped to lead the backbench support for the motion calling for a European Referendum. He has also been heavily involved in the use of Private Members Bills to achieve this aim.

    Chope came under fire in January 2013 for referring to some staff in the House of Commons as "servants". Parallels were drawn between this opinion and his views on the minimum wage.

    Chope voted against the legislation for same-sex marriage in 2013.

    In June 2013 Chope was one of four MPs who camped outside Parliament in a move to facilitate parliamentary debate on what they called an "Alternative Queen’s Speech" -an attempt to show what a future Conservative government might deliver. 42 policies were listed including reintroduction of the death penalty and conscription, privatizing the BBC, banning the burka in public places and preparation to leave the European Union. The Daily Telegraph believed the whips sent Edward Leigh to try and persuade the group not to table the amendments.

    In December 2013 Chope objected to the second reading of the Alan Turing (Statutory Pardon) Bill in the House of Commons. Because of this, the Government decided to act under the royal prerogative of mercy. On 24 December 2013 Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a free pardon.

    On 28 November 2014 Chope, a private landlord, filibustered a Lib Dem bill with cross party support intended to make revenge evictions an offence.

    In 2014 Chope along with six other Conservative Party MPs voted against the Equal Pay (Transparency) Bill which would require all companies with more than 250 employees to declare the gap in pay between the average male and average female salaries.

    He came under criticism in late 2014 for repeatedly blocking a bill that would ban the use of wild animals in circus performances, justifying his actions by saying "The EU Membership Costs and Benefits bill should have been called by the clerk before the circuses bill, so I raised a point of order".

    In October 2015, Chope joined fellow Conservative members Philip Davies and David Nuttall in extended speeches, known as a filibuster against a private members' bill which would have placed restrictions on hospital parking charges for carers. Their actions caused the bill to run out of time."

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  2. Gove, HoC, 27/1/16

    "we are just 12 months into the transforming rehabilitation programme initiated by my predecessor, and it is only appropriate that we acknowledge that that programme has already seen an increase in the number of frontline probation officers, again of more than 500."

    Uh?

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    1. Gove is deluded! Working links as an example have cut frontline staff by a brutal 40%. Since then many more have left so that probably totals around 50% less frontline staff. Can some of those 500 come down to the SW please?

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  3. Remember this load of bollocks by Gove & Grayling in the Torygraph?

    "... This time last year we changed that with the Transforming Rehabilitation programme. We radically reformed the probation service so when offenders leave prison they are given the best possible support to return to society and start to rebuild their lives; making a contribution rather than going back to criminality.

    The service now provides support to those offenders who were falling through the gaps, and has driven greater innovation and efficiency from the private and voluntary sectors. For the first time, almost all offenders now receive targeted support on release, getting the help they need to turn away from crime.

    Major transitions in public services are always challenging, but performance figures published in January show month-on-month improvements at the newly formed Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC) and within the National Probation Service. Innovation has been at the heart of these reforms, which combine the best of the public, private, voluntary and charitable sectors..."

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12155648/Michael-Gove-and-Chris-Grayling-Were-getting-smart-on-crime-not-going-soft.html

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    1. What a load of codswallop! I am sick of the spin and manipulated stats. Through the gate is a shambles and they know it. Ex prisoners cannot be helped if there is no suitable accommodation to place them in post release. I have had to put applications in to awful hostels full of drugs and alcohol because it was either that or the street. Local housing offices can turn people away ifvthey have previously 'made themselves intentionally homeless' which is a very loose term. Standards have gone down. Say what they want about the stats but why don't they ask a research university to do a serious non biased study or better still a pyblic enquiry into TR and they would get a more accurate picture. How many people believed the Titanic was unsinkable and we all know what happened there! You can't suddenly cut staff by 40% and change all the systems ( that previously worked ) and expect everything to go swimmingly.

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    2. Well known that working links were going under and hence the big guys ( Aurelius, a German multi-national ) took them over with a cash injection. Still not enough to sort out the mess so they go cap in hand to the government and are given another large wedge of public money to keep them afloat. The Conservatives will do almost anything rather than admit their monstrous mistake and re-nationalise the probation service! It would be such a huge embarassment that they will cover up the mess for as long as TM can hang on to power. Only with a change of government can their be any chance of the whole sorry situation in prisons and community rehabilitation companies come to light and any chance of resolution.

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    3. Quote from working links justice news after a disturbing inspectorate report into Gloucestershire area of BGSW CRC, ' the report notes that we are performing relatively wrll compared to other CRC's and are performing well against MOJ targets'
      This is highly 'disturbing' given that the report basically said they were doing really badly. So exactly who are the othet CRC's that are doing even worse!
      You cannot trust people who do not accept the results of HM inspectorate and basically lying.

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