Pick of the Week 43

I didn't rate the Guest blogger who wants the world to know how horrible it was to be on licence. He says his experiences of the probation service are 100% genuine and therefore all his following tendentious points are legitimate. The truth is the views expressed are based on personal experiences - how far the experiences are shared by others is anyone's guess. There is far too much extrapolation, generalisation and axe grinding. If you are going to write about personal experiences, stick to the facts and don't confuse them with opinions. We all have bad experiences at times and a little perspective helps us to understand what went wrong, why it went wrong and what could I have done, if anything, to have made things go better.

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Actually I think there can be a lot of justified generalisation on the other side of the desk and rightly so. Try and Imagine it from their point of view.

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‘Man down the pub’ saying last night most probation offices nowadays propped up by temps, trainees, PSO’s with few weeks training and handful of old PO workers waiting to retire. Temps there for the money (can’t blame them) hit targets to ensure time sheets are paid. Trainees mostly teenage girls with life experience of getting wasted at uni and work ethic of make up, nails and whining about parents. 

Many PSO’s fall into this group have less education, work experience and common sense than the first lot. Surprised at amount of offenders seen bringing in presents for young naive probation staff dressed for clubbing in work hours, and Court attire now become a little black dress. Young male trainees/PSO’s no better and just as arrogant, but few and far between. 

Old PO’s spend life gossipping in tea room and when put out to pasture return as temps. Staff sickness rates high, bullying managers ever present, and directors sending “what a great service we are” emails whenever taking a break from head up backside of Ministry of Justice. 

Probation now redundant and hides behind meaningless “risk management”, MAPPA, OASys, SARA, RM2000, SOTP, TSP, ARMS, NPS, CRC, HMIP. Not surprised offenders feel threatened by recall because probation no longer designed to build relationships, support, advise, assist, befriend. It’s a tick box exercise where offenders expected to nod and agree, and probation staff only there because they want to exercise power over people and pat themselves on the back.

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As a newly qualified male PO via the PQIP route (having previous work experience as a PSO and in prisons) I would disagree strongly, as well as being concerned at the questionable and borderline chauvinistic comments regarding make up and getting wasted! I accept that the influx of newer inexperienced PSOs is a worry, however would attribute this inexperience not to a lack of work ethic, but rather a lack of appropriate training that was afforded to previous ‘generations’. I also feel that the older generation have a valuable role to play (when tearing themselves away from the tea room) in ‘mentoring’ newer members of staff; if you have issues with their work ethic and knowledge, help shape it in a positive manner!

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'Man down t' pub' at risk of being kicked in the dry roasted peanuts, but probably not too far off the mark as things stand.

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Ho ho. Most of us with experience of team management will have their own stash of amusing memories of having to take someone on one side and deliver the "Appropriate Clothing Talk". Up there with the "Personal Hygiene Talk". Happy days.

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No manager has this talk nowadays from fear of being outed on a #metoo campaign. Nobody seems to care too many pquip trainees and new probation officers are young white women under the age of 25. It’s not the age, race and gender that’s the problem, it’s the lack of life experience. Those that haven’t lived life and still making mistakes shouldn't be telling others how to live theirs. With no experience to fall back on they hide behind probation-speak and what-the-computer-says. 

Most are professional and prime candidates to become automated-nodding-dog-managers in 2 years but it’s not a representative workforce when most offenders are males aged 21 - 40 and disproportionately ethnic minority in some areas. Add in the manipulative, predatory, abusive nature of some and you can see the problem. The prison service has this problem too. Ask a prison officer what life on the wing is like to bang up 60 men when your back-up is a pretty young male or female on a gap year.

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At the risk of being shouted at, and with one eye on the comments made, isn't the brutal truth that actually 'probation' doesn't exist any more? It's now a post custody and parole management service? Probation has long left the building but no body's got around to changing the sign on the shop front.

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Have to say from across the desk (or in the library) this seems about right! Although the two on our reception desk were young 'n dumb looking, but turned out they were the most knowledgeable and 'polite' of the lot. Of course one day they suddenly disappeared (too talented 'n informative) and were replaced by a couple of young ladies who didn't have a clue about having a clue, thus chaos. I did mistake our ETE man for being a homeless person. No wonder he looked at me funny when I said 'have you got yer food bank sorted mate?' Anyway, while I am between inevitable recalls due to your wonderful CRC incompetence, we gotta have a laugh eh? PS send stamps.

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Interesting read about OASys. Always thought that having an evidence based assessment tool was very important. However, always thought OASys was over the top, not particularly easy to navigate and use, unnecessarily time consuming and not easy to share with the person it was written about. The contributor is suggesting that it has become more time consuming. If this is true then this is a backward step, particularly when it means that the emergent risk management and sentence plan does not have time to be fully implemented. I note NPS public protection/risk management well regarded by Inspector, but questioned rehabilitative aspect. In addition, very frequent complaint by Probation workers about excessive time sat inputting information into computers. I wonder how much extra time might be had by simplifying OASys and having a better database IT system for it?

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Before TR, the third sector was part and parcel of the delivery of statutory probation services, which were managed locally. There was never any resistance to commissioning services and forming partnerships to address the rehabilitative needs. Even before there was a statutory obligation to use a proportion of budgets to commission, the probation service was always open to partnerships with other agencies because it was well-understood that effective probation work needed to work with housing, mental health, drug and alcohol, prisoner support and any other service that had something useful to offer. It was always a mix of statutory and voluntary services.

Elements in the third sector arguably did themselves harm when they became bid candy, seeing business opportunities rather than any need to wholeheartedly oppose TR. We need probation services with local governance who can then make decisions about commissioning. I don't think probation needs lessons from Clinks about innovative rehabilitation. It's easily forgotten that during its long history the probation service was a grassroots innovator – from the early days of victim support, joint working pre Mappa and innumerable initiatives throughout the country.

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There was also local commitment embedded in the historical funding arrangement where the local authority was a 'stakeholder' in the local probation service. This allowed for those pioneering innovations to be tailored to local need as opposed to being imposed by external organisations in order to meet contractual obligations. Its all gone arse-about-face, tail-wags-dog, beancounter-determines-intervention, etc.

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Could the 21C equivalent of historical local authority funding = Council Tax precept & under umbrella of PCC? It's a question, not a policy preamble.

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Thing that strikes me is that this is all about rehabilitation rather than risk management. Seemed to me all the answers were in the room and all the blocks (brick walls) are in the current structures in both sides of the split. Somebody better do some serious planning before these contracts end... or just fall over.

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If I were a dedicated Interserve employee I would be considering diversifying my business if I were sub contracted, less exposed to their perilous financial position. Or if directly employed, considering my options. Surely this is a problem with certain public services being provided this way? If the state does not underwrite the liabilities, then the service is not on a sound footing and subject to flight of all kinds with the risk of a service in tatters and adverse consequences for those dependant on those services.

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Interserve have a loaf and two fish and got until the 30th of March to make a miracle worth almost £200m, not to get them out of trouble but just to keep them limping on. The government can say what they like, but they wouldn't have made the embarrassing move to call in Deloitte if they didn't have grave concerns over the future of Interserve.

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If Interswerve collapses what would happen to the CRC's that they are contracted to manage? My hope and prayer would be that we would be handed back to the NPS. Can't wait till March.

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I couldn't agree more to put us out of our misery of having to endure Interserves "Interchange Model" which insists that we do not see service users on a weekly one to one basis (heaven forbid should we try and actually get to know people) but put them into groups in order to complete their RAR days.

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Is the very senior NPS managers' lack of relevant comments on twitter uncharacteristic? As civil servants who have signed something promising to keep stum, I would be under the impression that any work related comment in public on social media would not be allowed. In any case, allowed or not, has anyone lately met a senior NPS manager capable on or off record of making any comments relevant to the many current criminal justice crisis covered in the media?

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I think Worboys, the Parole Board, Venables, pictures of Liverpool prison with rats and cock roach and reports of rising crime rates all touch an emotive chord with the general public. But they're never long lived. However, the collapse of Carillion has done something else. It's focused the public on the whole privatisation debacle. 

The privatisation of public services, sold on the premise of efficiency and savings, was by many accepted as just part of the governments austerity programme, a necessary process to drive down the deficit. (When was the last time you heard a Tory mention the deficit?). But Carillion has shown the world that really austerity doesn't apply to the privateers, and the attention of the public have been drawn like never before to the privatisation of public services.

People are waking up to the fact that the privatisation of public services aren't making efficiency savings - they're costing more, and the services being provided are continually declining. A point well made in the FT yesterday pointed out that central government cuts to public services have now become so severe that its impossible to run them any cheaper. The reason for privatising public services must therefore be for other reasons and not about savings. The public can make their own minds up about what reasons they might be, but they can't be fooled any more about it being for efficiency savings and the best value for the public purse. 

People are becoming painfully aware what the consequences and impacts of privatisation are having on their lives, and their attention has been caught and focused. They've been sold a pup, and one that's not very well. And the more the government try to hide it, the more focus it will bring, and the more lies it will uncover.

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The expenses scandal was not so very long ago. When it suits them - MP’s demand that tax payers know how their money is spent. On other occasions it’s not so important depending on the issue it seems....

In terms of privatisation in sectors that do not lend themselves to being run in a capitalist market, a lot of tax payers money goes on competition lawyers during bidding processes and compensation payments to rich organisations like Virgin when they throw a tantrum about not managing to secure a contract! Not sure how the rest of the population feels, but I for one don’t want my taxes spent in this way! I would much rather it go out to charities to go and support people. Despite this recent scandal that may or may not have been hushed up.

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Interesting to read how pro-privatisation defend the status quo or more privatisation. They point to the past and belligerent and powerful unions frustrating progress, the dead hand of the state and inefficiency. The argument does not wash with Probation people. Union membership was part of a professional association and union services for its members on the whole. The Unions stated their case in respect of TR, protested minimally by work to rule and a couple of half day withdrawal of labour. Beyond that they worked to protect members terms and conditions. 

Probation culture itself had a history of innovation, adaptability and supportive of progressive changes. It must be clear by now that Probation in its former guise was non too shabby in its own efficient running and more than capable of managing further efficiencies given time and some investment. A whole system agenda of bringing core services together around common goals, possibly co located and/or development of joint working protocols would have been one way of delivering results. No different to calls now for social and healthcare to do the same. 

It is difficult not to view privatisation of Probation as myopic and ideologically driven with the present consequence of the fragmented parts all crying foul of their own misfortune. The call from many now to come together against a recognition that the parts of the former whole are now becoming shattered. Leadership from on high is urgently required.

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A study found that when the police wore body cameras, complaints fell by 93%. A camera is a better means of achieving peaceful outcomes than a clicking baton.

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Cameras do not work either and prisons already have cctv. The police were more mindful of their behaviour because they knew they were being cctv monitored.

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Yes because the police were more mindful of their behaviour because they knew they were being cctv monitored. Ask any prison officer, unless you’re Bruce Lee, a clicking baton doesn’t do much against in terms of instilling fear or protection. Let’s see the figures in a year from now as to how many officers have been beaten with their own baton. What works is staffing, resources, humane treatment and rehabilitation. Actually scratch that, why not the officers guns and then we can really join USA at the bottom of the barrel.

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I really worry about culture of video recording absolutely everything. I really don’t know where it will lead. People tend to jump on the bandwagon until it’s them that are being recorded. I seriously doubt many probation officers would be that keen on all their sessions and interviews being recorded.

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Probation staff would not take kindly to body-worn cameras, but then probation, unlike the prison and prison service, does not have a history of being assaulted or doing the assaulting. Cameras make a positive difference and they need to be body-worn because there are too many blind-spots with CCTV, as undercover journalists have documented when exposing abuse in different types of institutions. Whenever there is a suspicion by relatives that loved-ones are being mistreated by a care worker, the first step is always covert cameras. Cameras have been trialed in many prisons and they improve behaviour.

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The MoJ have today responded to the prison inspectors new urgent notification powers raising dire concerns over HMP Nottingham. One of the actions taken is to remove 50 18 to 21 year olds from the prison and locate them elsewhere. That actually equates to the loss of 100 places for operational capacity. 50 places not being used at Nottingham and 50 places having to be found to accommodate those being moved. With an overflowing prison population already, that's a sore loss for the prison service, and it won't take many more decisions like it before the prison estate is housing prisoners in police cells once again.

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The long-term solution is to abolish mandatory supervision for short-term prisoners. We know supervision is cursory, that there is little on offer in addition to the notorious £46, so it's no wonder there is disengagement. But while the state offers little by way of rehabilitation, it's quick to get probation to do the dirty work and punish those who do not engage with a hollow service. The fact that there is a postcode lottery element evident in disparate recall figures, makes the whole process arbitrary and even more worrying.

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I couldn't agree more. If supervision for some boils down to a phone call every 6 weeks, you have to question the merits of being on supervision at all, and consider how much that phone call every 6 weeks is really costing the taxpayer? Maybe if those that don't really need supervision and those who will receive no benefit from being on supervision were weeded out, then the resources that would be saved could be redeployed reducing redundancies and freeing up staff to spend more time and resource on those that actually need it.

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Scotland have, I think, abolished prison sentences of under 3 months. Not rocket science, could be done in England and Wales, but does require a smidgen of political courage.

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Yes, Darren McGarvey (Scots) talked about this at the NAPO event at the Welsh Assembly last week. Probation integral to Social Services, Social Work training and values, and Government legislating away from short term custody in favour of community rehabilitation. I was thinking of moving to Scotland, then I thought I might just sit tight in Wales, where this sort of thinking seems to be catching on.

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Pre-TR, my Probation Trust had a fantastic relationship with a really excellent local women's organisation. Its reach wasn't as wide as the Trust's area. The Trust commissioned the organisation to do the work with ALL women offenders in the patch. It was great: the work was gender-specific, and at arms-length of the state. Then the whole competitive tendering for huge geographical patches came in, then TR, and all that progress, and healing, and rehabilitation, was dust.

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This is clear evidence that women are getting recalled for ridiculous reasons that have nothing to do with increased risk or committing further offences. When I raised the issue that women were being recalled for spurious reasons, I was loudly shouted down by people stating that such things would never happen. Eat your words people cos the evidence is now in that this is exactly what is happening.

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Given the massive gender imbalance in probation, it's likely that in most cases a woman is being recalled by a woman. There is evidence suggesting women are more risk averse than men, so if the probation workforce was gender balanced, recalls may fall.

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"The government should urgently look at differences in current local practice and encourage greater emphasis upon community interventions to stem the growing numbers of people ending up back behind bars."

Which is yet another irrefutable argument for consistent practice, the key to the argument for a unified single service & NOT 21 crc's sending HMGovt monthly invoices with spreadsheets as proof that enough targets have been met; NOT sending £m's of taxpayer money into the pockets of, say, Fairburn, Green, Spurr etc.

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For CRC staff now remaining in their teams this must be an endurance and faith test, one I myself have recently failed. Endurance in the face of excessive workload, the knowledge that no matter how hard you work, you still can't cover it to a standard that satisfies anyone. The knowledge that all your efforts still don't do any of the work you would love to do, ie support and rehabilitation.

You're just a small dysfunctional misfiring cog in a massive machine of nightmare nonsense. Your purpose becomes one of survival, how to avoid being taken for capability or disciplinary by manager with a ladder to climb (or with his/her own survival agenda), how to preserve self respect and work life balance, how to explain to service users that the whole thing has gone to pot and how they themselves can best survive the joke that is now the criminal justice system. How to keep believing that if you hang in there for long enough change will come. 

What little signs to watch out for here in the deep midwinter that spring is on its way. Are the senior managers beginning to take cover? Are they moving from operational roles into administrative ones? Are edicts and decrees being issued with no authority, no insistence, no following through? Are the new senior managers looking younger and more inexperienced? Is there more awareness in the press, are private providers of public services beginning to go to the wall? Yes, these are all signs. But how long still? Will I last?

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When I joined the service in 1990, one of the things that attracted me to the idea of training to be a PO was the variety. I worked out that the various disciplines offered sufficient variety to allow me to experience 2 years in each role without repeating myself for 16 years. Courts, Hostel, Prison, Programmes, Family Court Welfare, Community Service (then headed by a PO), Supervision and Throughcare. I then thought I would have had the option of being an SPO for the same teams. 32 years of variety!

Fantastic. Since the creation of NOMS, however, the jobs have got smaller and smaller and most of these disciplines no longer exist. One programmes SPO in each team? Now there is only one in each region! One SPO per hostel? Now there is one per four hostels. One Court SPO per Court? Now it is one per county. The job, as a career choice, has lost a lot of it's variety and, consequently, it's job satisfaction.

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I largely accepted the message of tough choices given the dire straits of public finances in the wake of the financial crisis. I expected fewer public sector workers, building/office rationalisation and considered filtering to use resources to best effect. I expected a prolonged pay freeze. I expected to work harder. I expected areas merging and finding savings through efficiencies of scale and synergy. Tough choices are choices nonetheless and prior to 2015 those in respect of Probation were made hastily and recklessly.

Significant problems were predicted over and over from the majority of expert opinion but dismissed as having vested interest, being old school and akin to 'the blob'. Now we have a wake of a different kind and it comes with a visceral sadness and anger at the predictable dysfunction that has emerged. It seems to me that the government is wedded to the idea of persevering with the fragmentation and incoherence of the privatised probation services.

They appear to still believe that the problems are transitional, a tweak here and there, a few extra millions allotted forensically, will provide a foundation for the market in Probation services to flourish. It won't. The problems are systemic, any amount of lubrication, work arounds, extensions, unplugging and unblocking the connections, outlets and inlets will I fear always return more problems. On that cheery note, here endeth the sermon. Love and peace to all :)

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The Revisionistas strike again. i.e. in the same vein as their Glorious TR-iumph of kicking fiendish social workers into the gutter, they have now re-imagined HDC as being previously a grey, onerous task that has been magically freed from red-tape & drudgery by the courageous, swash-buckling MuskeTories. Huzzah! Gins all round!!

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I am being told that a number of staff were ordered to attend an open day at a prison in Lancashire this week but after being bullied, coerced and dragooned, not a single one expressed an interest in working there. Meanwhile, in another part of the area, rumour has it that some staff are being directed out of prisons so that others, who have no interest in doing so, can be pushed or forced to take their places. Meanwhile, staff are leaving in droves and coming back on agency rates of pay whilst dictating where and when they will work. What say our great leaders?...,.Nowt!

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“Facebook remains a relatively safe place for probation staff trying to survive in the TR omnishambles to share thoughts, concerns and seek advice.”

Wrong. Many staff are being pulled up for social media comments, particularly NPS as they’re meant to be “impartial”. Managers use Facebook and twitter, some are in the Facebook groups too. I never comment in these groups because of this.

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“The Ministry of Justice has issued revised guidance for its home detention curfew (HDC) scheme, which sees eligible prisoners released under strict monitoring conditions, including a tag and a requirement to be home between 7pm and 7am.”

Oh dear. Not another early release scheme!!! Yes it’s good people are being released and can get on with their lives. It’s not so good there will be no additional probation officers and resources to support/supervise them, no housing support, no employment support, nothing.

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Also not good that risk is not a reason to refuse HDC! Where previously supervising officers were asked their views on whether they support (or not) release this is no longer a question asked on HDC forms. The only issue is whether they have a suitable address. You can comment on risk but it's abundantly clear that release will happen if that address is deemed suitable. I'm currently on my 4th HDC report for the same high risk case. They really want every one with an address out asap.

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I heard that the Napo officials want more pay too, how can that happen? Surely more pay to fund it has to come from a pay increase to subscription?

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You will never get a pay rise this century. Probation is now dominated by robots with degrees in criminology ... in London the YOT I work in, YOS Officers earn more than SPOs.  Jump ship asap!