Pick of the Week 35

"Probation services, including the governmental wing in the form of NPS, completely ignore service user's housing needs as an integral element to preventing re-offending." I'd actually say that probation, in all guises, ignore all service users needs in any area. This is both my personal experience AND the experience of everyone I know who was in prison with me who has been released since 2013 ie pre and post TR. Probation has never given a rat's arse about the needs of the service user. If they did, they'd have a VERY different approach to working with service users which would be working with them not doing things to them, when they bother to do anything at all.

*****
If you know something I don't (PSO with 19+yrs experience) in how I can secure accommodation for all my homeless offenders (and I have a great many) after filling out endless forms attending assessments with them and doing my best to enlist the assistance of community based support and still nothing!! - how can I ensure my offenders with mental health issues are provided with the correct support via the NHS again after doing all the above still nothing!! - the majority of us do "give a rats arse" about the people we work with but are completely restricted due to the lack of community resources (thanks to our GOVT and especially TR) we don't have magic wands and have never had any influence over housing, health etc - with all the changes not to mention benefits that effect the vast majority of people on out case loads we are frustrated and are constantly battling against the odds in order to provide the best support possible to reduce some ones risk of re offending and to actually affect positive lifestyle changes.

Frontline staff are between the devil and the deep blue sea (I work for Interswerve) and we are constantly being told that we need to work less with people on a 1-1 basis and put everyone possible into groups in order that we can have the case loads we do and be able to stick brushes up our arses with everything else we're expected to do, however I am from the old school of working/thinking, good old fashioned building a relationship which is now frowned upon as it takes more of my time. I am not dismissing what you've said but please take a good hard look at what's happening to this country right now and lay blame where it's due.

*****
Thank you for your reply. I was the person who wrote the original post and really want to hear your views and those of anyone who has been on the receiving end of probation. I certainly tried my very hardest to collaborate and do things "with" as opposed "to" the people I was very privileged to be allocated to work with; the sentence plan should be at the heart of supervision, agreed together and led by the person charged with completing the actual goals, tailored to what they want and feel they need. But as for licence conditions, that is very much an organisational "done to you" aspect of the work, though individual probation officers can influence the scope and breadth of those conditions. Thanks for your post, we need to listen to people on probation more often, please do respond.

*****
I think it's true that probation services have very little to offer service users, but I think it unfair to attribute that to those that work in the service. As you say yourself, post 2013 and TR the service has become very different, and that's true whichever side of the fence you sit on. Many comments on here by staff acknowledge the limited capacity that services can offer, and are genuinely concerned by it. The fault lays squarely with the government on this and ill-considered policy, and the privateers who's profits depend on providing as little as possible.

With regards to housing, many companies with government contracts have property portfolios, but it's more profitable to use their estate to house refugees, or emergency accommodation for other groups. It's simply a matter of where the maximum amount of money can be extracted, and unfortunately if you're homeless, an ex-offender or fall into a particular age group you represent slim pickings for the shareholder. Social conscience is an obstacle to the balance sheet bottom line.

If you can't get a doctors appointment for two weeks, it's not because the doctor couldn't give a rats arse about your health, it's the way the government have implemented various policies. It's frustrating when you can't get your needs meet. And it's right to be angry about it, particularly when the rhetoric is all singing and dancing, but don't shoot the messenger, it's the government that's to blame, and the privateers that can make a fortune from social problems.

*****
If I was in a situation where everything I did & said was questioned, was regarded with suspicion, was recorded to be used against me, was doubted; and if I was in a situation where I had little to no hope of access to stable accommodation, access to employment, access to benefits, access to someone who could assist me - I'd be angry & raging at, to or with anyone I could direct it at in the hope of being heard. That's what many probation staff do when they post on here, so there's no reason why someone with a different view e.g. a user of probation services, can't be similarly outraged - even if it isn't necessarily proportionate or correctly targeted.

However overloaded, underpaid or poorly managed people think they are, they are still in jobs paying £20-40k a year; they take home maybe £1500-£2500 a month; they are most likely in stable accommodation. Yes, they've worked hard for it & work hard to stay there but... its many many many privileges up from Universal Credit, living on the street, or in a hostel, or B&B, completing lists of the 40 jobs you didn't get every week to prove you're worthy of £85 a week. Pick on someone your own size.

*****
I'm really sorry you are in this situation. Clearly applying for so many jobs yet with no response, and feeling insecure about your circumstances and future, is taking a huge toll on you. You write eloquently and must have a lot to give. I do hope things work out soon.

*****
Christmas always shows a spike in the prison population. Shops are full of expensive products, and society is full of people who can't afford them. Austerity compounds that problem. There's also the issue with drugs and violence, much of it caused by those that feel the need to demonstrate how much they're enjoying the festivities by shoving copious amounts of white powder up their nose and getting drunk. It's often done by people that rarely drink for the rest of the year.

This year there's also the issue of those subject to recall that are on licence that are likely to swell the prison population. I won't mention those that will intentionally get recalled to provide the Christmas drugs for those already locked up, or those that just see prison as a better alternative to sleeping on the streets. I think by March prison capacity will be reached, and then there's going to be a real shit storm in a teacup. If it's not already being done at the moment, I'd be prepared to begin trawling again.

*****
The situation is going to get worse. Benefits are being denied to thousands of vulnerable people and families. Offenders/ex offenders form a group with highly complex needs but these needs are not recognised. We should be fighting to get ex offenders recognised as a distinct vulnerable group but the public would never accept that would they? I can't see me doing this job for much longer. The TR crisis and on top of that lack of support and particularly housing is bad enough but now the spectre of service users on the street and penniless. What will they do? Fall into the hands of drug dealers and sexual predators. Am seeing this already. I am really worried to be honest. 

Some of the service users I support to best of my ability have been doing so well in recovery but are now due to lose their benefits because they are classed as fit to work despite being nowhere near ready. I have friends who have had their benefits stopped or cut and know how hard they are finding this but they at least have family and friends. Some of our service users are estranged from family or family were abusive towards them. Where do they go?Government policies and austerity are going to push people over the edge and push them further into debt, homelessness or towards crime as the only means of survival.

*****
One of the first things the Tories did in 2010 was to start to dismantle all avenues of resistance or challenge to their ideology. Judicial review, employment tribunals, legal aid, handicapping unions, any route to challenge was blocked. They would have burned books and literature that opposed their ideology too if they could have. Now the country belongs to the privateers, they're the landlords and we're the surfs. But things have never been better. Unemployment at an all time low. Poverty reduced to record levels. Education, health services, everything getting record investment and taxes have never been so low. And that's the worst thing of all. Telling everyone their lives are so much better than the reality. Just a blatant lie with no regard to whether we know different or not. But why should they be concerned, they've cut off all access to challenge. We need a revolutionary change for society, and it may take a revolution to make that happen.

*****
Apparently the London inspection report that is very likely to be damning and controversial will not be published for months. Inside sources indicate that Liddington is under unprecedented pressure and has been taking legal advice about getting out of the contracts that are clearly not producing enough profits for the owning companies oh yes and not Transforming Rehabilitation into anything cheaper and better than what was working before the whole system was thrown into chaos. Grayling and his little profiteering helpers such as Jeremy Wright, David Hood and Micheal Spurr have a lot to answer for and should be answering for it, not getting lucrative jobs and bonuses as a result.

*****
It's good to see the Inspectorate place a high value on the relationship between probation worker and client and see it as central to promoting personal change. It was a solid core value for many years in probation until we had the case management craze and the downgrading of relationships. Probation then was content to fragment service delivery in the belief there was a technocratic fix and that relationships were not so important. This led to clients being passed around like commodities and being obliged to have numerous changes in supervising officer: relationships suffered. Then along came End to End and an implicit revival of the importance of the central relationship. But it struggled to take root in the new probation culture, by then too preoccupied with inputs, outcomes and targets. It's a reminder that when you change a working culture, you can't revert to the former culture by flicking a switch. Probation today is a mess, but the perpetrators of TR had inside help.

Ironically it has taken an outsider, the chief inspector, to affirm a value that probation previously devalued and virtually discarded. Now that this humanist value is ascendant again, it also needs to apply to relationships between staff and management, with management recognising the importance of supporting staff instead of treating them as anonymous cogs in so-called operating models that are failing. These models are an affront to good probation practice and also create disabling working environments.

*****
Today all the criticisms of TR articulated in various ways on this blog have been completely vindicated. If the MoJ fail to act now then they are very blatantly completely failing in their responsibility to the public. They can’t say they didn’t know. They need to put their hands up and admit that the game is over and TR completely failed. We are not talking minor problems but rather widespread failure. They need to produce a road map that quickly puts the Probation Service back together and ends once and for all the ludicrous pretence of a justice market. All attempts to downgrade Probation as a profession need to cease. We need to be using all available resources to reverse the crazy operating model experiments in the CRCs that have no basis in what is known to work in reducing reoffending and start the process of realigning operations and systems ready for rebuilding repairing and reforming Probation back to a unified and functional service. Anything else is just wasting time and further public money.

Liddington get your arse into gear and do it now or face the full force of criticism across the criminal justice system for being demonstrably weak and ineffective when faced with pressure from multinational corporations whilst ignoring the inspectors. Do it now and you will be doing what is right and just and may yet avoid being a footnote. The choice is yours.

*****
Criticism from the inspector is welcome and the tone is appropriate. Will it result in the abandoning of TR? I doubt it. For years now, ministries respond to criticism by stating that changes have already been made and you cannot say that systems and models aren't changing on a regular basis. The model has never worked but they keep trying to breath life into it. The dead parrot sketch comes to mind.

*****
Once you remove the relationship between probation officer and client you effectively leave the client on something akin to bail. Report to whoever and comply with conditions. It's a model the privateers favour because you can process volume. But that model would work if the client was to sign on at the local police station once a week. But that model achieves nothing, no problem solving, no needs met, and no rehabilitation component whatsoever. It's taken a couple of years now to shape probation services into what they are today since TR. It's dismal, unproductive and costly. Everyone and his dog says TR has failed, it has no supporters at all anymore. Pull the plug!

*****
I fear it will take a change of Government to make the necessary changes even though it is plainly obvious that Probation needs defragging. I believe that the present government is so wedded to its ideological world view of private sector and markets ultimately delivering rather than thoughtful mixed economy provision of services that it would be like a stake through a vampirish heart for them to about turn. TR in my opinion will, when it finally draws its last breath, be known as the lost years, a horrible hiatus.

*****
Please end it now, take note of what the inspectors are saying. I am already suffering from PTSD for having been shafted into the CRC.

*****
Hope you are ok. I went through that at work pre TR and it is an awful condition. I am ok now. Well, I have definite work related stress and some anxiety but no PTSD currently. I couldn't go through that again but it does help me relate to my service users, about 20% of whom have or have had PTSD as a result of trauma. For me it took a long break from probation to deal with this. If it started again I would likely have to leave. Hope you are getting some good support from someone who understands this condition.

*****
*Star contribution of the week
I feel so angry. It's an interesting point because there is certainly differential treatment as a result and the staff reductions were foreseen even if a lot of staff seemed reluctant to believe it would happen. One of the big issues for me is that my former colleagues in the NPS who like me are looking towards getting out of the hustle and bustle of London and heading back to where they regard as home can do so via a transfer to that area.

If you work in the CRC you have to apply for work for another company and then you are treated as a new employee and are on different terms and conditions that are less favourable. I don't know anyone who has got a good deal taking into consideration their training and experience. They don't want you and if you as for an equivalent salary my experience is that they laugh in your face and say they have no money.

This is a far cry from what was said to staff prior to the split who in some cases opted for the CRC because they thought their would be opportunities to earn more or get money that recognised their particular skills or experience. In particular I have had a long conversation with CRC HR boss who wondered why I had not ever progressed beyond PO grade after 40 years. I asked her would she ask the same of her GP or Dentist and she said that was different. So instead of spending your twilight years in the service on reasonable money in an area you wish to reestablish yourself in and retire to (all things we know that will lead to a happier and longer life) and retiring after 40 years with good grace you end up struggling and moving after you retire which is very stressful.

I sometimes get the impression that if you are over 50 and male in the CRC then you are seen as past your sell by date. If they offered EVR to the over 50s tomorrow then there would be a stampede just as there was in the prison service when they stepped up privatisation. I feel worn out because I have worked so hard over decades through thick and thin and there is no let up. I have seen my salary decrease in real terms year on year. I really feel us older probation staff have had the very worst deal every time.

If I hear the words 'things are set to improve' one more time I swear they will have to arrest me before I throttle the perpetrator. No disrespect to some of the still wet behind the ears graduates they are now bringing in as PSOs many of whom want to be POs and want to learn from the 'Old Crocs' as we are no doubt affectionately known in our office but they are not getting the depth of training that they need to undertake the work they are being asked to perform. When I read Dame Glenys report I am appalled and I am also appalled at the sloppiness around at the moment where it is evident that very few people chose to work for or would choose to work for and don't actually want to work for the people they now find themselves working for. Their heart isn't in it and they do their best for the offenders but just spend all the time doing admin that even the managers tell us is pointless.

Most days I go in I curse the senior managers to burn in whatever waking hell they believe in that will consist of them being prevented from working in the way they want with no prospect of it ending and forced to type 24 hours a day until they drop only to be revived and start again. However the reality is most of them can look forward to a nice early retirement on a nice enhanced package that will enable them to go where they want and forget all about the profession and the lives they destroyed.

*****
You are selling yourself short. Some CRC's are desperate for experienced staff and would pay over the odds to get you. Let's face it, if they can afford agency staff to fill posts then they can afford you. I have heard of staff coming back in getting top of the PO pay scale. Why not sign on with an agency and look for work outside of London? There are unfilled posts all over the place and someone on this blog was offered agency work doing OASYS reports in a piece work rate= per report. The trick is to know your worth and be prepared to move on if you are not being treated well. Are you SW qualified? That will bring other options too within YOS. You would be surprised what opportunities ARE out there if you take the brave step of moving on and negotiating a fair deal.

*****
Where would we be without social media? Despite all the negatives of connectivity, kindred spirits are able to share their thoughts through social media and maybe sometimes influence the course of events. Without blogs such as this one there would be no immediate way of countering those in positions of power and authority who are accustomed to controlling information flows to serve their own interests. Power's bedfellow is always control and it doesn't like backchat. Thankfully, those holding status and corporate power can have an almost daily dose of Have I Got News for You... our very own WikiLeaks.

Whilst I don't like the term 'safe space' it's what this blog provides to those who work in, and those interested in, probation and wider criminal justice issues. Views can be expressed without fear of repercussions, because gone are the days when it was possible in probation to be a doubting Thomas without having to watch your back. Each individual can make a difference, but what a boost it is to know that others out there are to varying degrees similarly minded. This blog is a tribute to the unremitting efforts of its blogger-in-chief to keep battling for ideas that we all know make sense. Jim deserves a knighthood, but I hope he would refuse it!

*****
Well I suppose some congrats are in order for having the guts and drive to do a blog n keep it going. However, yes we all know CRCs are crap and failing but how can they improve if you are so willing to overlook one of the most important components (perhaps the MOST important). That being the needs of the service users. Where does their opinion come into all this and why are you lot so readily able to rubbish any notion that these people should be listened to. I daresay service users could tell you very quickly where and how the CRCs are failing so why ignore them along with a system designed to do so? Surely thus you are as big a part of the problem as the CRCs

*****
The blog has always been open for service users to make their contribution - of the good, the bad and the ugly. First and foremost is support, and to be able to do that, the officer and user must get to know each other and gain a level of honesty and trust both ways, to be able to open up/listen about current problems, historic troubles, and what the user really wants/needs and what can be offered/directed elsewhere. Of course stopping offending is at the heart of this, but coping with a problematic background and a resulting negative lifestyle needs a darn sight more than an occasional phone call from someone you have probably never met.

The set up of the CRCs makes any of the above virtually impossible so I can understand why you feel ignored. But don't give up, most of the supervising officers feel the same as you - frustrated and angry that their skills cannot be used, indeed in some areas where there are high case loads and no privacy, very little of the above can be achieved. But keep trying, and understanding the frustration of staff who want to do their best. And please add to the blog your side of the story about why CRC's are failing. Good luck.

*****
Agree, the CRC set up makes it virtually impossible, however, my point is lets not have any pretence that CRCs welcome feedback or even have any real or credible facility for that (and no please do not mention feedback forms and they go nowhere). Also there is no real complaint process, that's one of the first things to go when you privatise something, it just becomes a dissenter detector to then be used to victimise the complainant. Key here is the CRCs have no intention of improving towards its users and thus will continue to degenerate until implosion. Then there will be a new lot all smiles n promises and will go round the merry-go-round again ditto, unless there is an intervention to INCLUDE the services users in the make up of how the thing operates.

*****
When the TR train left the station and we had Hobson’s choice in ticket purchase. Predicting the crash was clear: the timing was not. This blog has made the journey bearable. I have made many entries on here, yes anonymously to my shame, but it is the go to place to air the crass stupidity of this madness. Often I look for the humour in the CRCs piss poor attempt in trying to sell their model to us practitioners. We know on a esthetically pleasing power point presentation it looks wonderful, but when you know the IT doesn’t support it and you ignore or dismiss the sage advice of seasoned POs who tell you that we don’t deal in commodities, we deal with people. Dinosaurs they sniggered under their breath. Service levels and spreadsheets is their mantra..... only this week in the great PF Interserve train carriage they fed us the latest workload measurement tool info. 

Apparently your caseload is graded by some weird and wonderful algorithm that spits out percentages... we are told that 110% is the pain threshold.. anything above that needs the manager to review and try to address... now maths was never my strong point; cosines, tangents, Pi and logarithms ...all lost on me..... percentages I got. 100% was top dog, now I find that no, in the world of the CRCs the workload management tool can be anything they want it to be. Why do they publish such things without explanation... surely they must hear the dark humour from staff as some hapless manager tries to spin it out... oh how we laughed....

To conclude, thanks to all contributors to this magnificent blog and thank you to Jim the blog chief facilitator. We are Probation and will always be. This train will stop and go back from whence it came...when is the only question..... oh, Merry Christmas one and all.

*****
I don't often defend my organisation but I will say this, our service users probably have a greater and indeed more respected voice than staff, well unless you are in the "inner circle" that is. "When you walk through the storm, hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark". Light may only be showing dimly through the cracks but it's a start.

*****
"This is not an issue of ideology" I think it is jolly not doneth to accuse a noble Lord of either lying and/or being utterly deluded BUT to cut a departments budget by 40% while simultaneously radically reorganising it, trashing the staff and increasing its workload, and all signed off before a General Election in case the next lot tamper STINKS of ideology. The fact that huge sums of money were then given to private companies to see them through a period of national disgrace and dangerously poor delivery, while departmental cuts continued just underscores the point.

*****
It is ALL about ideology! TR has wasted millions. They could have saved money if that was the objective by cuts and privatisation of UPW or ETE or programmes but putting offender management in the hands of private for profit companies was the biggest mistake. Temporary solution as one of the Lords mentions is to put all CRC offender management back in with NPS. Leave the likes of SERCO/Working Links with ETE and UPW (they can't even manage that properly) but put offender management back where it belongs, a public sector organisation that is classed by Dame Glenys as generally performing well.

*****
I'm sure the CRCs are aware that they have considerable influence on an already very overcrowded prison service. It wouldn't take too many people to be breached before prison capacity is reached in totality. Given the current state of the penal system I'm sure the MoJ are prepared to give considerable leeway to the CRCs (and probably a few quid) to help keep the prison population from overflow. I'm sure the MoJ will make sure Santa visits the heads of CRCs.

*****
It's far too easy for McNally to share his insight in the cloistered Lord's chamber. The chief allegation against TR was that it was ideology and not a sound rationale that drove the break-up of probation. He was on the inside of the MoJ, he knows why the excellence of the former probation service counted for nothing in the drive to privatise. He should write another article and this time speak the truth: tell the public who pay for his ermine robe why he supported ideologically driven changes to a public service that at the time he believed was performing excellently. Otherwise what is the point of the hypocritical McNally's of this world, who say one thing but behind the scenes mean something else?

*****
Which part of the system does the Lord continue to have faith in, assorted Numptyville Probation Services and/or the National Probation Service? Discounting ideology for a moment. the design of Probation is flawed because of its fragmentation. It is flawed because most aspiring Probation workers will naturally want to associate with the real thing rather than QuickQuid Rehabilitation. It won't work because the parts are incompatible and values diverging despite what the glossy brochure says. It won't work because ... In conclusion it won't work at least not very well.

*****
Oi m’lud cloth ears "I put it to him that there is now a strong case for handing probation over wholly to the National Probation Service." Sorry, hearing aide is on the blink so I can't hear a word of reason so I’ll just keep repeating the same stuff I’ve been told to say. We are not going back to the drawing board. Think of all the poor shareholders and people who might be held to account. We don’t want to upset our US friends in MTC who are back on course now that Trump has started giving out prison contracts again. We don’t want to upset our French catering friends in Sodexo. Where would those civil servants like David Hood and ex prison governors with Sodexo employed spouses like Paul McDowell find lucrative work?

I ask you my Lords, who do you think we will be making peers in a few years time and how embarrassing that will be now that you are placing the blame for this utter dogs breakfast of a train crash ideological balls up that is officially a great success despite all the evidence to the contrary? I ask you my fellow Lords to support me wholeheartedly in believing the unbelievable and cooperate with me in attempting to flog you and the public a total non-runner that was and is doomed to continuing abject failure. Sorry that’s all the bollocks May is paying me to tell you today and besides it’s time for lunch. Pint anyone?