Wednesday 3 April 2019

Great Leadership, But Poor Output?

"No matter how good a senior leadership team is, it is the effectiveness of case management that makes the difference to people’s lives." The Dame persists with her 'senior leadership good, workforce bad' mantra. It's as if there's no link between mgmt & practice. Twitter
There's clearly a bit of a theme developing in these HMI reports. Here's a press release about the latest, but to be honest, I'm completely bewildered. Maybe it's time to give a few of these 'brilliant' managers a caseload and see how they fair?  

Cheshire and Greater Manchester CRC - Reflective organisation capable of addressing weakness in protecting victims.

Strong leadership and hard work by staff have yet to translate into effective work to protect victims from harm, inspectors found in the Cheshire and Greater Manchester Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC).

Publishing the fourth report in 2018-19 on a CRC owned by the Purple Futures group, Dame Glenys Stacey, HM Chief Inspector of Probation, said it was not surprising to find themes similar to those identified in previous reports.

However, Dame Glenys added: “It is disappointing to learn that so little has improved since our last visit in 2016.

“The CRC’s operating model and organisation structure have been designed to enhance opportunities for rehabilitation and to reduce reoffending… However, despite an ongoing campaign by senior leaders to keep the profile of public protection high, they have been unable to embed a culture that recognises and responds effectively to the need to keep people safe from harm.” Weaknesses in work to protect children were particularly highlighted.

Inspectors assessed that the “risk of harm to others was underestimated in too many cases” and that “the quality of planning was variable; plans lacked important detail, especially about how the CRC would keep people safe.”

Resourcing restraints beyond the CRC’s control had led to structural and policy changes. CRC leaders remained positive and worked hard to introduce and embed change, and drive improvement. “However, many practitioners feel overwhelmed by the pace of change and unable to meet the demands of the CRC’s expectations. There is a growing divide between the strategic aspirations of the CRC and the reality of practice. We have seen this in other Purple Futures CRCs,” Dame Glenys said.

The report noted that staff managed “heavy and complex workloads within an environment of constant change”. Staffing levels have reduced by a quarter since 2014 and some teams across the large and complex CRC were managing “far too many” cases.

Some supervised cases “beyond their competence and without the necessary support”. Some were ill-equipped to handle cases involving complex child safeguarding issues and work to address domestic abuse by men was inadequate. Inspectors found that some were “extremely distressed” by their workloads.

Dame Glenys added: “No matter how good a senior leadership team is, it is the effectiveness of case management that makes the difference to people’s lives. Currently, despite pockets of careful, competent practice, there is too much variation in the quality of case management. The CRC needs to do far more to protect victims and the public and to make sure the individuals with whom it works change their offending behaviour.”
More positively, though, inspectors found the CRC’s work to supervise Unpaid Work Orders imposed by courts to be good, though its ‘Through the Gate’ services for those leaving prison were inadequate.

Inspectors, moreover, had confidence in the leadership and staff to address weaknesses. The report noted: “The CRC has a strong leadership team that demonstrates its commitment to quality probation services, its staff and other stakeholders. The ongoing investment with partners, providers and other stakeholders has helped create effective initiatives and interventions. The quality assurance framework provides a fully comprehensive system for driving improvements in policy and practice.”

Overall, Dame Glenys added:

“This is a hard-working, reflective organisation and I have every confidence that leaders will respond positively to this report to improve service provision.”

7 comments:

  1. Almost a copy and paste excersise . Notice how Unpaid Work always get a "good" report , must have an agenda for this.

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    1. This is easily explained, it is drummed into us that first and foremost we have to get people thru their hours because if the financial penalty for failing to fo so.

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    2. Yes so true upw always gets a good report an threre on there knees. CSes loads high no breaches giving out extensions to orders because threre embassrased about the amount of standdowbs due to the lack of contracted staff. 80 percent zero our and twenty full time in some units how can u run a plAce like that. Won't give contracts to supervisors and rather send 20 to 3o service users home saying we got no staff . Simple get some .

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  2. I think we need to think about our Probation Service Officer colleagues in CRCs. They have faced increased responsibility and increased workloads with decreased training, supervision and reward. The realisation must surely be that they, like their Probation Officer colleagues, will choose a different employer or profession. When you create a market in Probation Services (so called) maybe you need to realise that talent will also look to the market and choose accordingly.

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  3. Thank you 18:08 I'm a CM ( PSO in old money ) within CGM - if our management are such strong leaders then why are we in such a mess ( oh it really is ) and why did they say we need to improve , I suppose management can now continue to blame us as staff for letting the side down- I have it on good authority that the inspectors had a 4 hour presentation from our so called strong leaders so I can only imagine they were bored into submission to write good things about them !! - I can only imagine more shit ideas and unworkable models are coming our way in an attempt from our " strong leaders " to bring us into line repeating the current mantra " must do better , must not miss targets and loose the company money "

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    1. Carrot and stick style of writing. There is nothing like good management but poor case management outcome.

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  4. 'For the period of case management being inspected, the CRC had a number of senior case manager vacancies which, despite continued efforts, it had been unable to fill' (page 15, paragraph 4)

    Is that right? Odd then that the 'Strong leadership' were at the same time telling staff that CGM CRC had too many Senior Case Managers, and was actively arranging for several to be seconded to the NPS. Curious that no one thought to mention this to the inspectors....

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