Monday 8 October 2018

Some News on Pay

Seen on Facebook:-

Any pay rise news that NAPO members can share yet?


Nope. Email from Monday said in the next couple of weeks...


Can't come bloody soon enough. But won't be enough either as we all know, instead will be the bare minimum they think they can get away with before we all quit wholesale.

There will be comms out early next week, or alternatively speak to your local NAPO rep as they were briefed at AGM. If you’re not a member join up and vote on the deal. As if it’s not agreed by members of all three unions, we won’t get it as it includes amendments to Ts & Cs.


Amendments - or as it is known in the real world, reductions. I gave up 3 days leave for that big rise we got, I gave up essential car user allowance to protect jobs. Now they are going to impose conditions before giving me my first substantive pay rise since 2013.

No the amendments are that the bands have changed and that from 2021 there will be no automatic progression but a new professional framework. By 2021 most current employees will be at the top of the new band structure as it is. But perhaps wait until next week when the full details are shared and if you’re still unhappy then come on and comment as opposed to this pre emptive fatalism.

Pre emptive fatalism, or the cynicism of long experience? No automatic progression worries me (well not for me, I am on band max anyway).

So I am right I thinking much like social workers we will now have to complete a list of competencies to progress up the pay scale.


I've been a PO for 18 years and I'm nowhere near the top of the pay band so I'm intrigued to hear how I might be in 3 years time as by the current rate of progression it will take me pretty much until retirement age!

Well you’ll be pleased to hear that the band maxima is increasing then. It worried me too, but when it was explained fully I was more comfortable with it. The expectation is that people will progress unless already in a capability process (which already exists in the NNC handbook so not a huge sea change). The model being adopted is the NHS one if you’re interested in looking at it in more detail and they have said that they will work with NAPO to develop the competency framework together (NAPO will want members involved in this as they acknowledge that we are the experts). But they have said until the details are agreed an finalised automatic progression will continue on the new reduced scale structure.

Yes like NHS staff and teachers. Not sure of the Social work structure but we are working to the Principles of the NHS model.

If you pm me your current salary I will look at the scales for you. I would stress this still has to be approved by union members so if you’re not one and want to see it passed now is the time to join and vote.

Here is a link about the NHS pay progression that I have just found that was introduced this year. Might be helpful to get some idea of what is likely to be offered.


So linked to completion of appraisals.

No not at all, quite explicitly not.

Thank you. I am a NAPO member so will wait for info to come out.


One of your reps was fully briefed on the pay deal so you can get them to go through anything you’re unsure about. Anecdotally those who have worked for a number of years in a role but still find themselves languishing mid band are likely to make the biggest gains. Any issue of competency will have to be fully evidenced with a structured right of appeal and representation. Unlike the appraisal system which is subjective, interpretational, inconsistent, with no evidential requirement and no right of appeal. Also the way competencies will be structured is that you won’t be expected to be fully competent in all areas from year 1. The NHS model build quality in as it is expected that staff become more experienced and knowledgable, the theory being that you will be fully experienced and competent at the top of your band to consistently produce high quality work. That’s a simplified version of it. As I said though after 2019/2020 this will start to be developed with the unions and automatic progression will continue until it is finalised, everyone is trained on it and it is fully implemented.

Hey Xxxxxxx went to the briefing. I don’t know full details but it seems worth accepting and deffo sorts some of us out who have been ‘stuck’ on the pay scale x


I qualified in 2010..... earning 29,000 ...... now I'm earning 30, 500. They knocked the bottom out 2 years running. I'm hopeful for a significant increase my pay is a joke after 8 years qualified.

Hi I'm on £30,500 after 8 years qualified..... pitiful. How will it be looking from now on ???

After 7 years l was at the top. What you are on is insulting. They are paying you 80% of your worth and demanding over 100% workload l am guessing.

What keeps me
1 my pension
2 control of my hours
3 my immediate team
4 top whack is ok. Getting worse but ok.


Top band is jumping up by just over a £1000 as of April 19 which means you’ll finally be getting a consolidated pay rise.

Some people will find that their consolidated pay rise is lower than other bands one year and this will then be topped up to bring it to parity with the other rises. In this instance it means that next year (April 19) their consolidated jump will be much greater. Add to that a non consolidated amount of 300 for all NPS staff as compensation for the lack of award last year.

This is just due to them being closer to the new reduced band threshold.

So your pay as of April 2019 will be 31,421 but you’ll also get over this year and next a non consolidated pay rise of just over £900. You’ll then reach the top band of 37 in 2022. With a pay rise of about 1200 a year for two years then a big jump of over 2.5k in the last year. You’ll also get an extra 300 non consolidated this year on top of all that. That’s 900 total 600 this year (to bring this years pay rise up to just under £1000) and 300 next year (to bring the pay rise up to just under £1000) Meaning 6% over 2 years some consolidated some not. Or about £1900 in cash terms. Plus your 300 this year.


I'll take that ......!! Was hoping for a little more I'm not going to lie but better than a cold slap in the face with a fish......which is what I was expecting.  .....Also thank you for the maths.

You’re like me in that you’re in the bracket closest to the new bands. But it does mean future jumps feel more significant and that you’ll be top band in a few years which was likely to have been at least 11 before the restructure.

But £1900 could buy you a lot of wet fish.

How many years will it be now then before we hit the top ??

3 years

Well 3 from April 19 that is

Oh really?? 36,000??

No it’s gone up to over 37 now.

The last jump in two years is a couple of thousand.

London Weighting? As this appears to leak like a colander?

Hey a few years of pay rises like this and we might even qualify as skilled workers for May's much vaunted Immigration Restrictions!

London weighting couldn’t be agreed in time (this negotiation was time bound by the treasury and they wouldn’t allow to talk to us for 15 months) but the deal includes includes commitments to negotiate on allowances.

That's pretty good that it won't take much longer to get there. Appreciate your time!

No problem, glad to shine some light on it, just make sure to vote on it! Or we might not even get the fish!

Thanks for your input xx

Can I ask does it roughly equate the same for us still under £30 k? Been qualified over 4 years, although I am coming up for 20 years service in April. 

Hi Xxxxxxx, yes everone will get at least 6% over the two years. So your pay as of April will go up to 31421 and you’ll get a non consolidated amount of 600 or 300 depending which scale point you’re on, with those amounts bringing the award for this year up to just under 900 depending on your consolidated jump. Then as of April 2019 you’ll get a fully consolidated pay rise of £1200 to bring you up to 31241

Thank you for that. Glad we are getting something at last. Pay freeze for last 8 years has been pants as it is.

Agreed. I think for me it’s not even the pay rise but the restructuring that’s the best part.

Definitely needs a restructure. As a CA I have been at the top of the scale for 10 years!!! Finally some reward for loyalty and experience??

Or more likely the fear of being taken to court on an equal pay claim!

We'll be earning the same?? That doesn't seem quite right does it.

You will be earning more than me..... but enjoy xx hopefully CRCs will follow.. xx

It must feel shit for the CRC officers mate.... but I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time before you join us xx

I'm really glad there's progress for NPS colleagues - it's been a long time coming for all of us xx

31 comments:

  1. Thanks for publishing this but it’s all a bit unclear Unfortunately it’s too late for me as I’m planning to leave before April 2019 and after 15 years I’m nowhere near the top! I did take them to a tribunal at my own expense to try and address the infusticecof the long pay scale without success I’m pleased for my colleagues though that they’re finally looking at the issue seriously however I fear it will be at some cost

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    1. To 08:24 although this is a small recompense, if the offer is accepted by Union members, you will accrue the arrears of increased pay owed from April 2018 plus a £300 sum which is a compensation payment for the delay in sorting out pay claim as I understand it. Because the offer includes a significant shortening of the pay scales your arrears might be pleasing depending on your pay band. Bands 3 and 4 I understand are most likely to do best. The increase in payments are phased between asap/ next April and next November. Is your leaving date set in stone? Maybe worth waiting till figures etc come out in your area and thinking about it?

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  2. That is a secret Facebook website, open only to the informed, I have looked for it before and not found it, but then I have always felt uninformed, with there being a missing link beyond my grasp, have you got it dear reader(the missing link)?

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    1. Nope. No one here will say which group it is. I keep asking.

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    2. Why is it secret?

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    3. I wonder if Jim doesn't want to lose traffic

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    4. A secret group since 2013 The 2595 odd members include Jim, Napo Officers and Officials, probation workers new current and past, politicians, influencers, academics etc who mostly post or comment in their own names. Jim often re-posts the more interesting exchanges on here so you are not missing much. It is a relatively polite group accessible by invite only.

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    5. Pretty much sums up 'modern' probation - 'invitation only' cliques.
      Reminiscent of the special few invited to pocket EVR?
      But not quite the spirit of Probation, however "polite" they may be with each other.
      Self-defined elites are everywhere these days, always to the detriment of those they exclude.
      The arrogance of such passive-aggressive bullies is breathtaking.

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  3. https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politicians-need-to-lay-off-stop-interfering-and-let-the-justice-system-do-its-job-says-former-prisons-chief-1-9383604

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    1. Nick Hardwick might not be employed in the justice system any more, but he’s still got plenty to say about it. And after a high profile fallout with the Government, he’s determined to remain a thorn in its side.

      As former chief prisons inspector and chair of the parole board, he has held two of the most high profile jobs in the UK justice system. He hit the headlines earlier in the year when he was forced to resign over the release of serial taxi-cab rapist John Worboys from prison - even though he had no direct involvement in the release.

      A high court subsequently quashed the decision to release Worboys in the light of other victims coming forward. Hardwick, who is now working in academia as a professor of criminology, still believes he was the fall guy for the debacle - a view since backed up by a judge’s ruling in August that the Justice Minister David Gauke was wrong to push him out. The judge also said that the parole board - an ostensibly independent panel - lacks the necessary autonomy from Ministerial influence and diktat, an issue that Hardwick himself has repeatedly pressed on. He remains circumspect in the aftermath of his unceremonious departure.

      “You have to take the rough with the smooth, “ he tells The Yorkshire Post. “The high court ruled on quite a narrow point of law that the panel had been in error in the way it made its decision and it needed to be made again. “And there was - as everybody knows - a lot of public concern about Worboys, who had committed some very serious offences. And so the Justice Secretary told me I had to resign. He has subsequently been criticised in the courts for doing that. “My own personal view is that the victims in the case were very brave and courageous in the way they dealt with it, and I’m very grateful that they have been pretty supportive of me personally.

      “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the Worboys decision has to be made again. I think it’s a good thing - and its something I have been pressing for.”

      Asked if he is still angry at the Justice Minister, he says: “I’ve never been angry. My view is don’t go into the kitchen if you don’t like the heat. “But I think he (David Gauke) was wrong to do that. “And in the Paul Wakenshaw case (a prisoner who sought a judicial review in the aftermath of the Worboys controversy) I think the judge there said that the decision to force me out breached the act of independence of 1701, which is as emphatic as you can get.” His run-in with Mr Gauke is not the first time Hardwick has clashed with a Minister.

      When leaving his chief inspector of prisons job two years ago, he accused Gauke’s predecessor Chris Grayling - now the beleaguered Transport Secretary - of attempting to remove criticisms of government policies from an independent report before its publication. “I do think that the courts should make their decisions based on applying the law to the evidence that is before them. They shouldn’t make their decisions on the basis of newspaper headlines of what the politicians are saying,” he says. “I think it’s a very unhealthy thing if politicians interfere or try to undermine the independence of the court. “And I do think there are some concerns now about the independence of the parole board. “It’s important that politicians kind of lay off, basically.” He continues especially to call on Ministers to allow the parole board - or “junior court” as he calls it - to have more independence from Whitehall. “The critical principle here is of judicial independence,” he says. “Decisions about whether your liberty can be taken away - however awful a crime you are accused of - are ultimately decided by the court and not the politicians.”

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    2. Hardwick’s lifelong career in the justice system actually began indirectly via Yorkshire. He studied English at Hull University - where he still has links - and had been contemplating a career in journalism. But he got a summer holiday job working with young people who had just been released from Borstal, as young offenders institutes were then called. “I was planning to do it for a few weeks but ended up doing it for six years,” he says. It seems that when it comes to his championing of efforts to rehabilitate ex offenders, things have come full circle.

      Last week, Hardwick was in Leeds to visit Tempus Novo, a charity - set up by two former prison officers - which teams up with local businesses to get ex-offenders into work. Its employee retention rates are high, and re-offending rates of people who have gone through its programme are a fraction of the national average. Hardwick believes the Tempus Novo model, rooted very much in local knowledge and partnership working, could and should be a national exemplar. “I think there is a lot of really important work that happens that isn’t really dependent on Government decisions,” he says. “For instance, the work of Tempus Novo. It’s not so much about Government decisions, it’s about individual parts of the criminal justice system engaging with it, and employers recognising that actually, they can get some very good and reliable employees and do some social good by working with organisations like Tempus Novo. “We have to rely less on these kind of top-down solutions and more on bottom-up community based responses.” “Whatever you think about criminal justice, we all want people to leave prison less likely to commit offences than when they went in,” he adds. “It’s not just good for the prisoner and their families, it’s good for potential victims too.” Asked if building more prisons is the answer to chronic overcrowding issues, he adds: “What we want to do is reduce the number who come back. “Compared with other countries in Europe, we have a much higher prison population, certainly more than countries in Western Europe. “And like every other public service, there is a choice to be made. “Do we want to spend our money on prison officers and prison places, or on police officers on the streets, or nurses and teachers? There’s always a choice to be made. “For some people, when they commit offences, prison is the appropriate punishment. That’s the only way you can protect society from them. “But we have incredible community based punishments and if we can give people the help they need to change in their community, then often that’s the better and more cost effective option than just prison.”

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  4. If napo (& unison) had got their shit together years ago & fought for a half-decent package for ALL staff, a bit like the one on offer for NPS staff only, then the workforce wouldn't have been split in any sense of the term.

    I think a clever long-game strategy from HMPPS. I don't doubt Spurr & his crones were instrumental & the guiding hands. Spurr's rewards will be manifold.

    - Exploit the turmoil & disconnect of the Ledger incident
    - Assist & befriend the incoming GS
    - Keep pay at arms length with ongoing promises but no outcomes
    - Exercise influence over 'your' new GS to eliminate disruption to your Minister's TR project
    - Push the envelope with Sodexo clearances & no EVR (just to prove how much control you have over your GS)
    - "Win the next election as GS & we'll see what we can do for OUR staff"
    - Finally, some crumbs from the table as a reward

    TR was an invaluable opportunity for Spurr to shed 50%-60% of an expensive staffing group at a time when austerity measures required budget cuts. He will have encouraged Grayling's madness in order to meet his budgetary targets & pocket his bonuses.

    Meanwhile people are dying, losing their mental & physical health, losing family members, losing everything meaningful.

    As they are self-proclaimed Christians, as payback for their greed & cruelty I hope Spurr & all of his ilk are refused access to their final spiritual settlement & spend eternity reliving the misery & pain they have wilfully imposed upon others during their time on earth.

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  5. From The Canary. Wonder what the MoJ figures are?

    "As The Canary previously reported, for 2016/17, the DWP’s total bonus bill was just shy of £43m – almost £1.7m higher than it previously reported. But with estimated staff gifts, The Canary makes this figure £47.2m. This included for regular staff:

    £5.3m of in-year bonuses to 11.5% of its staff. This is a median bonus of £100 each.
    £36.9m in end-of-year bonuses to nearly 92% of its staff. This is a median bonus of £500 each.

    It also gave out 113,133 gift vouchers to staff, with a total of median values of £4.24m (a Canary estimate).

    But now, the DWP has released its end-of-year estimated bonus figure for 2017/18.

    It shows staff will be sharing around a £36m bonus pot this year. The total figure (£36.4m) does include the in-year bonuses for August; for 2016/17, these amounts were on average around £440,000. So it’s safe to say that around £36m will be the end-of-year bonus figures."

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  6. Without any reference to personalities or individuals, NAPO has the same problem as many organisations in society today.
    There's a point when people start climbing the ladder when it becomes so personally rewarding in terms of renumeration and status that it becomes about personal achievement and nothing about why you started to climb in the first place.
    It's a problem that's seriously damaging the third sector today, and the reason many CEOs seem to be on a merry go round moving around company to company, always holding the same position, but getting paid more each time they move.
    I'm sure its not intentional, and many start their progress with fire in their bellies, and a determination to advance whatever cause it is you feel passionate about. But the point comes when personal achievement and ambition overtakes the cause, and personal preservation of your own achievements outweighs the desire to continue the fight. After all, when you reach a certain point, you're fighting battles for other people, it's not really your fight at all anymore. Their struggles aren't your struggles anymore.
    I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think a good place to start would be not to make the top positions so lucrative as to create a transitional process that projects people 'from being one of us" into "being one of them".

    ' Getafix

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    1. Good points can we ask does anyone know how much additional pay the two at the top are being given in their new deal. Who approved it and what are they really doing for this new money when we have halved the membership under them.

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    2. That sort of thing never seems to get a public mention on the grounds it's a confidential matter between employee and employer. However, more than once I've pondered the question 'if I was a GS and my members hadn't had a payrise for years, would I accept one?' You will have to guess what my answer would be and perhaps ask yourself the same hypothetical question.

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    3. Thought provoking question.
      What would I do?
      What should I do?
      What would I like to think I would do?

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    4. So, they have access to information about our pay. They are paid to negotiate effectively on our terms and conditions. They can make decisions on how they spend our subs without our agreement. Something wrong there ?

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    5. NAPO – The Trade Union and Professional Association for Family Court and Probation Staff General Secretary:

      In 2016/17: Salary: £70,202 Benefits: £1,500

      In 2015/16: Salary: £67,102 Benefits: £1,500

      In 2014/15: Salary: £151,236 Benefits: £32,489
      NOTE - "Total paid in respect of two people holding office of general secretary within the period and is not the sum paid to one individual."

      In 2013/14: Salary: £71,324 Benefits: £11,784

      In 2012/13: Salary: £66,192 Benefits: £10,914

      In 2011/12: Salary: £63,573 Benefits: £10,832

      In 2010/11: Salary: £61,734 Benefits: £10,803


      GS salary alone has increased by 14% 2010-2017.

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    6. That is incredible but discussed in circles at AGM there is talk of both both GS and ags getting or had a lift this year of over five thousand pounds .

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    7. Why is it kept secret? There is nothing in law that says it should be, and I can't find anything in the constitution. Seems like a lot of nonsense to me!

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    8. See @19:24 above.

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  7. Something about the drip feeding of information from NAPO has been very frustrating. Feels like the top table are dancing round chanting "I know something you don't know" like schoolyard kids

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  8. So as a crc member of staff am I able to vote on the pay rise as a napo member. Where will this leave crc staff already having different terms and conditions and looked down on by many nps staff through no fault of our own. Napo has done little for staff and even
    Less for crc staff

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    1. CRC get bugger all as there is no money.

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    2. It's not that. The GS cannot understand what union is. It the same for all unity. He should agree to recommend pay when all the members have the same offer his jumbled NPS preference. All for one learn your role.

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  9. Anyone here know their stuff about Stock prices? I'm just wondering what the implications might be of Interserve's stock price having reached an all time low of just over 50p when four years ago they were at £7

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    1. It means now's the time to buy some stock. The only way is up from here.

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    2. i imagine people were saying that when they fell to £2..and then £1....

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  10. I qualified in 2009 and currently on £30,503. I calculated that if progression payments/ competency is honoured I will reach top of scale in 2023, same time as colleagues who qualified a few years ago! Is this correct? As surely after 9 years qualification I should reach top of scale before then?

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  11. Hi 17:44, this will be the result of the shortening of the payscales. I should get to the top of scale in 2020 at the same time as people who qualified several years after me!.

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