Pick of the Week 28

"The Facebook entries are hand signals that probation staff are drowning, not waving."

Why would anyone who could get out, do this job now? Zero respect, poor pay which has fell behind teaching, social work, policing, prison officers all will be earning more now. I regularly work with probation.staff and to be frank the new breed have no initiative, are robotic and box tickers ... very sad.

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“Hmmm. Here's a thought - what if Probation had a gatekeeping role where they were responsible for making detailed professional assessments of cases coming their way at the point of sentence or release/potential release?"

The Courts & HMPPS could ask professionals trained in undertaking such assessments for their informed opinion, perhaps in a report which offered a view as to an effective way for working with each case in question - a bit like the way in which a specialist psychiatric or psychological report (prepared by a qualified professional) indicates how & when an individual might benefit from intervention. It's not an exact science but it allows for a professional gateway through which the circumstances of cases are thoroughly & individually assessed, where all options for progression are explored & concluding with the suggestion of an agreed, appropriate pathway of intervention. Would such an idea work?“ Well it did from when I started in the late 70s ...

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The 'gatekeeping' role for probation is an interesting idea for me. I believe that making someone subject to the probation service is pretty pointless, counter productive, and a waste of money and time, if the needs of that person (even in part) can't be met. I also believe that many on probation books leaving custody should not be subject to probation supervision. Some simply don't require supervision at all, and those with mental health problems would be better suited by support from alternative agencies.

Nor do I believe that 'risk' should be the prime director of whether someone is allocated to CRC or NPS. Need and level of support required should be just as important as risk in assessing where to place a person. I think that if the government want to make everyone leaving custody subject to supervision, then that should be done by an agency solely with the remit of supervision. That agency should not be probation. Those on supervision could be identified as needing probation interventions, and referred appropriately. It may make for a smaller probation service, certainly smaller then whatever supervisory agency would be in place, but it would at least allow probation services to do probation work, and of some benefit to some people. The current model doesn't really do anything in providing support OR supervision, and the only beneficiaries of the service are the privateers making lots of money from it.

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I can't help thinking the ball is in our managers' court. It must be their turn to tell those above that all those things that are being demanded can't be done. And that the powers-that-be must decide what they want done. The answer cannot be 'everything '. But then even if the powers-that-be agree that not everything can be done they will choose the useless bits so we still can't do our work properly. Then how about all of us together just working our hours? No, same thing will happen. We will be input data clerks at the cost of a high hourly rate + fall-guy when an important person gets robbed or murdered. I do think we are done now.

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In parts it reads like an agony aunt column. At one time support/guidance could be sought within probation offices, as there were experienced officers who could share their knowledge and offer advice. Now it seems the apprentice must go to social media. There is little point in seeking advice on practice issues from managers as they are not hands-on anymore - furthermore, they don't like to leave their fingerprints on any decision that could backfire on them. Yes, corporate probation has been at pains to devolve responsibilities to those on the frontline while taking away those discretionary powers that once enabled staff to exercise professional autonomy. The Facebook entries are hand signals that probation staff are drowning, not waving.

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TR was to be wonderful. Bringing together the best of the public sector, private sector, and the third sector to work in perfect harmony and help those poor souls who are released from prison with only £46 in their pocket to try and rebuild their lives. TR would private offenders with accommodation, an all inclusive wrap around support system, advice and guidance at every juncture. People would even have their own mentor to guide them through troubled times. There would be resettlement prisons where you would be moved to prior to release and have your issues and problems met by the new and wonderful Through the Gate Services. 

The truth is none of it happened. TR's only success was to hand shit loads of tax payers money to private companies. TR reduced the level of support extended to those leaving custody, and the fallout between the third sector organisations and the private companies meant that many agencies that would have previously extended their services to people leaving custody won't anymore if you're on a probation supervision order.

I'm looking forward to tonight's Panorama, but it can't highlight many of the problems TR has caused in half an hour. I agree completely with the comments above. It's important to highlight the failures, but it's even more important to show 'why' those failures have happened. I hope that tonight's programme can point in that direction a bit.

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So Panorama? Jesus - if only they knew the half of it. It was all bang on the money, but they barely scratched the surface. It's much much worse on a daily basis than portrayed in the programme.

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Exactly, it is much, much worse but Working Links lie and cover up. They are dishonest and cannot be trusted to put the public first. Money is their only priority, simple as that. Why are we being left to swim in a stinking cesspit of Working Links bullshit whilst they prance around spending taxpayers money on their sad jigsaw puzzles for PR excercise.

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Working Links lie all the time and from complicit actions of many Probation staff. Sad to see Panorama illustrate it's a cash grab game. This is peoples lives. Worse the lies of Working Links saying they will move the systems to include more offender face to face time. Oh no they will not. That is a lie and they have no skilled staff to deliver anything safe. GOV. UK you fund a call centre on billions of pounds what a racket the Aurelius company think they won the lottery every week until the contract ends.

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NAPO must support the brave whistleblowers that took part in the Panorama programme. It is never right to bully whistleblowers and try to prevent the truth coming out. Panorama programme was good and explained the situation quite clearly. However it is only the tip of a large and unstable iceberg. Working Links CRC's are at crisis point..put simply..it is going under. Dame Glynis is very honest about the situation but fails to give any sense of urgency..what would it take for her to show some animation and state that MOJ must intervene NOW! Same with Ian Lawrence. Come on..show some fighting spirit. We are in the shit NOW and need more than a stick to keep us afloat in the Working Stinks stench.

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If you can manage 75-100 cases remember all their names and details of each client and their issues and which ones you have seen this week and what they have said and what you have to do to help them which referrals to fill which targets to tick which meeting to attend remember which clients have been seen enforce and then record everything above because its all a priority. I wouldn't see anything missed as an individuals negligence more systematic failures which would make me look at the companies. YES IT IS JUST THE COMPANIES.

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Panorama this evening was shocking. As a Mother and Grandmother it was chilling to see what might happen to our innocent family members on our street this was so unsettling. How on earth has this service been allowed to be outsourced to outfits like Working Links? This is selling murder and misery to the highest bidder. I feel so sorry for these grieving mothers and their families. Ian Lawrence came over as out of his depth he will have to do a lot of work to hold these private companies to account. Where is the public protection? He should hold his head in shame.

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I imagine the figures in Wonky Links CRCs would be equally as bad. Overwhelming caseloads mean we have no hope of following everything up, and the broken operating model means when staff are off sick or on leave, no-one is available to cover for them. The message is clearly getting out that if you miss an appointment, you've got a better than even chance of nothing being done about it.

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MoJ, HMPPS, Daily Hate, etc... Look at the root cause, not the symptoms. This whole catastrophic mess was brought about by impatient, incompetent, over-ambitious ideologues, i.e. Justice Secretary Grayling & his political lickspittles including Michael Spurr, Jeremy Wright, Dame Ursula Brennan, Antonia Romeo, Probation Chiefs who collaborated for handsome cash rewards, etc, etc.

The taxpayer & general public have been financially & morally ripped off by the whole TR/privatisation fiasco, and have paid a high price. Any failing or incompetence by staff has been fostered by the inherently abusive organisational approach e.g. overworked, unqualified, exhausted, bullied.

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How the hell can we work in a totally flawed system? The few cases that are escalated to NPS it then takes a few weeks to be allocated. So you then end up with a high risk offender not being seen due to bureaucracy. We've probably all got cases that are not managed as well as we'd like just praying they don't commit a serious crime. It's ok as long as you don't miss a target.

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This is just an indictment of repeated failures across all organisations with a wide body of evidence to support poor practice and lack of quality information sharing. Private organisations are economical with the truth and more into hitting relevant targets, promoting failure (central hubs being typical examples) providing a distinct lack of specific and meaningful training and genuine understanding of staff needs. Unless you have a shared understanding of required goals, accountability top down (desperately needed) experienced and well trained staff with infrastructures to support....not systems that repeatedly fail...then failure will continue to be the norm. Public protection and confidence in what we do is fast becoming a distant memory, but we'll have the comfort of knowing share profits will continue to rise with any additional MoJ monies being used to support wider organisational failure's. In essence an absolute shambles.....

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It's not just about lack of money or TR or the system that causes the problems highlighted in the Panorama programme. It is fundamentally about the attitude of probation staff at all levels to those they supervise. I wrote a guest post a while back about my experience of being on probation and was saddened and disgusted by many of the comments made on the post by extremely judgemental and dismissive probation practitioners who claimed not to recognise my experience of being supervised by probation. 

Yet the Panorama programme brought into sharp relief the unhelpful, judgemental and superior attitude of probation practitioners towards those they supervise. The supervisee they highlighted who was sleeping on friends' couches and got recalled due to failing to attend two appointments he was not notified about is so typical of the nasty attitude of probation practitioners - punishing supervisees for your own failings and flaws. I know a woman who got recalled merely for breaking down in front of her OM when notified of a family death by an OM who decided without any evidence whatsoever that she was going to rush out and commit a crime simply because she was legitimately upset. Neither of these people had committed a further offence; neither was a danger to themselves or others and both were doing their best to turn their lives around without any help whatsoever from their OM's or anyone else in probation. Probation effectively punished them for probation's own failings and for trying to turn their lives around. 

Probation is broken - yes in large part due to Grayling's totally ludicrous "reforms" but there is also something far more fundamentally wrong with those working as probation officers at whatever level. Probation wasn't working before TR and TR has simply exposed the rot in the system. A root and branch rethink of probation is required and one that puts the "client" at the heart of it. You won't change people by imposing ludicrous and ridiculous requirements on people. You need to involve people from the start and work with them not do things to them. If people buy in to things and feel they have a stake in whatever happens they are far more likely to adhere to conditions than if you impose stuff on them.

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"You won't change people by imposing ludicrous and ridiculous requirements on people. You need to involve people from the start and work with them not do things to them."

This is where there is a division between 'old' probation ("dinosaurs") & 'new' probation ("realists"). It invokes bitter commentaries as they wrangle about the validity or efficacy of PO/PSO, pre-and post-social work qualified, 'clients' or 'offenders'. The social work training and ethos of the 80's & 90's gave a focus on working WITH or alongside, person-centred, enabling. Boateng's signature "We are an enforcement agency..." was indicative of the 'new' direction. Those who were recruited in the 'new' era are the product of the time, the training, managerialism & the mixed messages from employers, e.g. SEEDS training, enforcement targets, the influence of NOMS' control & command.

I also think that the 'new' era brings restless ambition. Time-was a PO would qualify after three years full-time study with placements, a year's probationary period under supervision with protected caseload; consideration for holding more serious cases or Lifers would follow if the practice teacher felt the time was right; specialist roles (courts, programmes) would be available after two/three years' experience. A Senior PO (now perhaps Team Manager) position required minimum five years' experience.

I know of too many probation staff who are control/command orientated, who seem to relish authority over others, who are motivated by fear of failure, who respond to targets & 'metrics', who can't wait to become senior management & leave 'offenders' behind. The privatisation & current hierarchical structures is manna to them. But I also know many more who are focused on working with their caseloads, who see that task as their professional role and who would happily spend 30 years as a PO. They are struggling, collapsing exhausted, and leaving. These are the 'dinosaurs', the 'weak', the 'soft'... those that TR is crushing the life out of.

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There must be almost as many competing notions of what the purpose of probation should be or is held by those working in the service itself, as held by the general public. Public protection is mooted often, a bit like 'Brexit means Brexit', but if you can't deliver the practical support to enable change, then I don't think that mantra holds water. The threat of sanction and imposed restrictions really only shifts responsibility for change from the organisation onto the individual. Many just don't have that ability within themselves, or have the social tools at their disposal to instigate that change. Is that where probation can help perhaps? What is the purpose of probation today? What does it achieve? Would society be any worse off if probation in its present form didn't exist at all?

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Last two posters - thanks it's good to see some analysis of the change in the culture from training and the government demands. The way we all shifted to accommodate new requirements. Later on I suspect the 'bash the old brigade' will return to this blog and give us the wisdom of aggressive control directives and breaches as the only way we can and should manage offending. Punishment works whatever form it takes.

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Star comment of the week:-

I can appreciate the points you make, but I think it's wrong to characterise old probation as dinosaurs. Old Labour were also dismissed as dinosaurs and I think it was Donald Rumsfield who dismissed Germany and France as old Europe when those countries refused to get involved in the Iraq war. Behind the labels it's always about ideas and values. - and whilst these wax and wane in the battle of ideas, they never become extinct. Who the Realists are depends on whose winning the arguments at any given time.

I happen to think the probation 'modernisers' were never realists – they were pawns of the management consultants who promoted management practices that viewed people as commodities. This went down well with some probation staff, but many rejected this new model. They weren't dinosaurs: they simply weren't for sale. Many have since left probation, but you only have to read this blog on any day, to see that the ideas and values that animated old probation are alive and well – and in vogue across the political spectrum – from rail renationalisation to free access to employment tribunals.

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Plenty of negative coverage for Working Links but let us not forget that they are owned in all but name by the German 'turnaround investment company ' Aurelius. Gothham City hedge fund research..run from New York have plenty of negative things to say and accusations of impropriety at Aurelius HQ. Clearly this was massive thorn in their side as their shares plummeted by 30% when Gotham City published their findings. They have since rebounded but no doubt GC will be continuing their research into their dodgy dealings and the latest report to be found states 'Aurelius puts Dutch IT provider on the block'. 

I think we can conclude that Working Links is not being financed by an ethical company and their sole motive is profit. If the buck stops at the top then we need to look all the way up to the lofty heights of Aurelius chief executive financier..oh, but hang on a minute..a bit of scratching of heads here as no one seems to know who he/she is! Seems to be one name in theory and another in practice! Given the quick turnaround of Working Links chief executives they are obviously taking their model of leadership from Aurelius. No doubt if they get their way and MoJ continue to take us to the cleaners, Working Links will consolidate into one operational empire, the whole of Wales and South West and then start looking at neighbouring CRC's who are viewed as weak to take over. 

We then see a situation of creeping privatisation into the slippery arms of a few multinational companies. Well done Conservative Politicians..what brilliant innovation..you have taken us back to 1984 and a fiasco of Orwellian proportions..we even have the 'thought police' ..forcing us to use the term 'our people' and trying to persuade weak willed CRC managers to swear an oath of allegiance to Working Links. Perhaps some of them actually did. Sell your soul and moral compass for the sake of a measly pay cheque and use of a company smart phone. Brilliant!

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At least it's good to know that 'public protection is our top priority'. If I had a quid for every time I heard that, I could just about pay enough to Steria to get Delius working properly.

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Right. Can we all agree on ONE point? The top priority of these private companies is NOT public protection. It is making profit, simple but not pure. I have felt this very much as a Working Links employee for the last 3 years since they took over. Or rather Aurelius, the real employer, hiding behind is Aurelius. That was not mentioned in Panorama was it! That MoJ allowed Aurelius to buy them up because WL were broke! So in my mind the real culprits are MoJ and the Government who should be there to protect the public. About time MoJ took them back into public ownership. Dame Glenys is too polite to say it but Aurelius are a corrupt and shameful company full of greedy bankers who know nothing about offenders or public protection. This is not working and MoJ must now step in fast.