Pick of the Week 37

Good in principle, but 95% of staff now wouldn't subscribe to the above principles...[see blog post The Academics Speak Out]

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I recognise the wisdom in these proposals but, regrettably, cannot see a future carved out in this way. Reason appears to have left the building and there is copious evidence of the willingness of Government AND CIVIL SERVANTS to misrepresent what is starkly obvious to those who have been forced to work (or not work) under these conditions. I have a lot of respect for these two men and completely accept the rationale behind their proposal but, in these days of Gove et al's 'anti-expertise', it is difficult to see those in a position to facilitate such proposals grasping the nettle and making it happen.

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I'm wondering why it's thought that 95% of staff would not aspire to the principles above? I'm asking in a non critical way and only for my own understanding, as I take the view that if the above principles aren't aspired to, then there is really no probation service. The job can be done by anyone that has the capacity to read and write and input data. The principles outlined in today's post 'IS' probation, otherwise, (my opinion only) probation becomes just a post release supervision agency, a continuation of state enforced sanction, a devaluation of professionalism and vocation, and serves no benefit to either the offender or the causes of and reduction of reoffending.

The CJS, particularly prison was always for the bad. Now it caters for the bad the sad and the mad. That may suite current political ideology and austerity where the homeless, the vulnerable, addicted, and mentally ill, the needy that 'deserve', can become the needy but 'undeserving' by imposing criminal sanction. But that's very wrong. It's immoral and I would argue a criminal act in itself. But that's where the principles above are focused, and I believe that's where probation services should be orientated. If it's not, I fear its on its way to probation officers blue uniforms, a name badge, £7,50 an hour and employees that don't give a shit about what happens to their clients as long as they answer their phone when their phoned every couple of months.

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In order to re establish the probation service to its rightful place in the criminal justice system we would need to sweep aside the culture of ‘business,’ the CEOs and SMTs and the lick spittle managers who, forsaking their beliefs, ethics and principles adopted the emperors new clothes and suffered collective tonsillitis as displayed in their unwillingness to speak out or to defend their staff. Well stuffed pay packets, aspirations to ermine and a hankering for the boardroom are the tools of their betrayal. Be gone you plague on the righteous!

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[Devon and Cornwall’s top cop has called for a multi-agency Serious Case Review regarding the murder of Tanis Bhandari. The 27-year-old was murdered by two men on New Year’s Day 2015 in Tamerton Foliot.]

The systems are not in place to prevent this happening again. There is less and less inter agency working and sharing of information as the crisis deepens in Working Links. The problem is endemic. Probation officers seldom hear when offenders have been arrested. I have repeatedly complained about this to no avail. Similarly I see no process for ensuring that police are aware of licence conditions and addresses for released prisoners. It is ad hoc to say the least and you never know if the information you send has been recorded. This is why we need to be working more closely with police, have seconded police or a clear point of access and support within police who can access niche police computer. 

CRC has shrunk back and is a spectre of its former self. An incident like this is inevitable once more and once more there will be evidence that police, CRC and mental health are working in isolation. We need to work together and share responsibility for these complex and risky individuals rather than working in isolation. Time for a complete re-think but with CRC's chronically understaffed, NHS in crisis and police cuts how is this going to happen? Some of the changes may not even need additional costs but simply someone in authority setting up points of contact and accountability. A bit like our previous CPO used to do pre-split! 

Let's be honest here, private companies should stick to what they know, consumerism and making a profit. Probation and policing have nothing to do with that..it is about risk assessment and reducing risk as far as possible. Alien social concepts that do not belong in the domain of private sector. Of course SFO's happened pre split but they seem to be happening at an alarming rate within Working Links at the same time as majority of qualified PO's have now left the CRC or are in the process of doing so. That should be ringing alarm bells at Government level if they were not so concerned about saving their own skins from the embarrassment of admitting they have destroyed the service and reduced teams to a small cluster of remaining PSO's with the odd agency PO who will do a few months before moving on and thus never really get to know the service users.

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Perhaps when offending is linked to, or a consequence of, someones mental health issues, then responsibility for their supervision in the community should lay primarily with mental health services? There's a saying about trying to put the square peg in the round hole, but now all shapes have to fit through the same hole. Just doesn't work.

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The responsibility should be with a multi agency team including probation, police and mental health services..perhaps overseen by an inspectorate body who can do spot checks and ensure everyone is doing their bit and communicating effectively. Organisations do not work well in isolation. Working Links CRC is a prime example of an organisation where staff are mainly working in isolation due to massive staffing cuts, loss of qualified staff and middle managers having too many staff to do their job effectively.

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So sensible, evidence-based submissions that ring true. Much of what has happened was predictable, but it made no difference to the dash for privatisation. As Lord McNally well knows – he was a minister in the MoJ at the time – TR was ideologically-driven and so-called expert opinion was traduced and discarded. The claim about extending supervision and support for the £46-pound-in-their-pocket short-term prisoners was dishonest and cynical. But the likes of McNally, despite knowing the truth, wrote articles promoting rehabilitation fantasies. And it was all rubber-stamped by parliament – who now sit in judgement on themselves.

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With the number of contracts these private companies already have, the vast amount of money the contracts are worth, and the legal and accountancy teams that draft the contracts, I find it impossible to believe that premises or accommodation costs were not a calculation in the original bid. The truth is if they weren't making plenty of money, and able to see more money in the pipeline, they'd be gone already claiming flawed contract or they were misled by the MoJ.

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The assumption seems to have been made that CRCs would stay put. An assumption flying in the face of what has happened with privatisation in the past. Some of us did point out at the time that they only fat in the sandwich was attached to Ts and Cs of staff. Oh how they laughed.....

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Our friends from the private sector bought the contracts for £1 each, cashed-in the realisable assets, threw out what they saw as costly overheads (experienced/qualified staff) & cut every possible corner in order to boost their bonuses & shareholder profits. The whole *point* of 'probation' never featured in their blinkered, financially-oriented consciousness. Nor was it ever going to as the entire TR project was a myth, a Trojan Horse which Grayling & co used to smuggle vast sums of public money into private-sector bank accounts. He did it with employment & training, & he's continuing true-to-form with transport.

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'So badly botched are either the contracting or management arrangements that the private community rehabilitation companies complain simultaneously that they have too few cases and that caseloads are unmanageably high'.

Orwellian, isn't it? What angers me is that pretty much ALL of these failings were predicted by INDIVIDUAL PRACTITIONERS. No research was necessary. We ALL saw what was going to happen and said so again and again. The impact of splitting the service, the lack of insight into the needs of the client caseload, complex relationships with sentencers, the consequences of a commercial aspect of service delivery on the justice imperative. Unions and Trust management saw it all coming and said so, again and again. Despite this, Grayling and his yes men, institutionalised Prison management to a wo/man, supplemented only by the nakedly ambitious amongst Probation management who identified this as an opportunity to climb and who are now almost all gone, despite their arrogance and duplicity (or because of it), continued with their 'hunch' and engineered what appears to be the biggest train wreck in the history of the British Criminal Justice system.

I am not working in Probation, but I speak to many who are. The stories I hear are farcical. Offices with no heating. Services and facilities to NPS buildings being withdrawn because bills weren't being paid. A workload management tool that tells staff that they have a caseload at 240%. The staff involved say they cannot cope and are threatened with 'needs improvement' status on their PDRs and told that they need to build their resilience. Managers accusing PSO of bullying because they said 'no' to massive caseloads. Competent officers 'burning out' within a couple of years of qualifying. Sex offender specialists who have had no supervision for TWO YEARS. It's not just bad practice; it is corporate negligence. These academics are making entirely valid points but, on the ground, you cannot bale out the sinking ship quick enough. It's a very, very bad joke.

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A colleague of mine working in NPS has told me that arrangements are being put in place for the NPS to carry out some of the CRC work, namely applying to extend 3000, yes three thousand, outstanding Unpaid Work orders. At this stage it is unclear how this has come about but the implications of this work being performed by the public sector is interesting to say the least as well of course the 3000 orders not being enforced.

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Rob Allen hits the nail firmly on the head. His potent observation that the demise of the SER/PSR has led to some terrible and inappropriate sentencing is realised on a daily basis. I am part of the CRC project that has to unpick the mess of inappropriate sentencing. I will not apportion blame between NPS or CRC as that is divisive and wrong. We are both devalued by TR. 

I hold 67 cases, 65 are in the community and 2 long term custody cases. Of the community cases, only 2 have a passing resemblance to what could be called a PSR. As a result the wrong questions or no questions were asked or pursued. When I see them post sentence all kinds of issues fall from the tree. Long term mental health issues unresolved and not questioned or looked at pre sentence. The CRC allocates centrally from a spreadsheet algorithm on that flimsy information. I have several cases that take up the vast majority of my time, all because important information was not sought pre sentence. 

The Mental Health Treatment Requirement is now defunct. Why? Because it requires a psychological report pre sentence, that takes time and money. So what practical intervention is available to me. I have to find a work around the system. I get my case to undergo a 30 minute phone interview with the Community Mental Health Provider, on my work mobile phone, I know he will fail the interview as that interview by phone is looking to offer Cognitive Behaviour Therapy which they can provide. When he duly fails They write to him and his Doctor saying he needs a full psychiatric assessment. He eventually gets the Mental Health service he always needed some 9 months into his 12 month order. All could have been done at pre sentence stage. I had to see him weekly for 9 months to keep him from doing something stupid. His initial assessment at court was low risk based on very little....... 

I have been fortunate in my early career with Probation to see really good quality SERs/PSRs that we’re rigorous and well thought through with a serious proposal of a sentence.... for which I have witnessed district judges remark in open court as to the quality of report and well considered proposal... no more me thinks. This rush to sentence we have today based on very little causes no end of problems for any practitioners, new or old, to deliver the right intervention, so old hands like me seek workarounds to get what we know is the right intervention... the problem I have to live with: who has to suffer on my caseload so I can give more time to those who fell through the judicial cracks...... I cross my fingers and hope .....

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We have had three/four academics making representations that are entirely legitimate and well argued. The only trouble is that they present arguments that were rehearsed well before Grayling implemented his folly and were presented repeatedly by ordinary Probation employees in meetings, on social media, on this blog, in trade union NECs, national conferences and in face to face meetings with NOMS/MoJ. The academics have the advantage of some degree of earned credibility but what they are saying is what Probation staff, managers and main grade staff alike, have been saying all along. 

The people who implemented this TR programme were outsiders who did not understand the ethos of Probation and did not comprehend the challenges of effective community rehabilitation. They did not believe the representatives of the existing Probation structures because they were hostile to something that they did not comprehend. It all started when Carter put Probation in the hands of the Prison service. I always said it was like putting an abattoir in charge of veterinary services because they both 'worked with animals'. NOMS was ill conceived and NOMS created this mess. Carter created NOMS ergo it's all Carter's fault. I just can't see them putting their hands up and saying 'Yep. You are right. We screwed this up. What do we do now'.

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The evidence is as true now as it was before TR – and it made no difference. Nothing unsurprising there, as TR never rested on evidence – it's driven by free market ideology. Just as no one with Bible Belt faith will be swayed by scientific evolution, so evidence will never provide a TR tipping point. I admire those who plough away with sound, rational arguments, though one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. The only thing that will shift TR is political power.

Maybe the JSC will help to get the ball rolling, but once they have their hands on public service delivery, private companies fight hard to stay in the game. Even when their practices, as with tagging, are tantamount to fraud, they bounce back and continue to accrue more contracts. They may even have loss leaders, but they know that once they monopolise they become too big to fail and know they will have to be bailed out. They can't lose.

I do not believe TR can be fixed and any remedial changes would come with demands from CRCs for more cash. The only remedy is to take a reintegrated probation back into public ownership, along with the forensic science service and other functions that have been degraded in the private sector. Unfortunately, it's likely that probation and other services will just have to limp on and on.

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It seems almost incomprehensible that a company with zero understanding of criminal justice system has the audacity to suggest taking over NPS or was that some kind if sick joke? Do they read the probation inspectorate reports? They must be as dysfunctional as Donald Trump to voice such beliefs. As for the remarks about public sector!! Again, read the inspectorate reports comparing NPS and also Youth Offending Service performance over CRC and it tells you everything you need to know, the latter in particular standing out as doing well and making good progress. It just goes to show in what low regard they consider government bodies such as probation inspectorate and that they cannot be trusted. As you say, it is shocking to see the statements of the likes of Working Links whinging about lack of funds when staff continue to leave in droves, offenders being interviewed in libraries and basically whole WL 3 areas are on their knees.

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There is no such thing as a privatised company running Probation. What we really have now is the continuance of probation with half of the work chopped out to a management structure who are there to sack, cut and waste away all what was great. They cost more in the mid term to run public services but actually they won't be around for the long terms. If they were to be, for sure they are just parasites sucking of the public accounts and making blood money for a nothing contribution. Now if you asked me what I want from CRCs is for them to Fu** OFF.