Time For a National Probation Agency

As many readers will be aware, Russell Webster has produced three succinct blog posts regarding the MoJ's plans for a redesigned probation service. Following the last in the series I notice from Facebook that David Raho has continued to make the case for a different direction of travel and one that undoubtedly would find widespread support within the profession:- 

Russell Webster on redesigning probation

I know I’ve said it before but the thinking is now finally edging at glacial speed towards the realisation that what is really required is not for the CRCs to be assimilated into the NPS (like The Borg on Star Trek) but rather the establishment of a brand new service built around the infrastructure and best bits of all probation providers that is both tied into local services and one step removed from direct government interference and Stalinist centralisation. Probation is not a civil service and when Grayling made it one it was another of his failings as it does not sit well with what we are and what we do. We are public servants not civil servants.

Probation regions in a brand new National Probation Agency (NPA) need to have some autonomy from central control to respond to local need but be able to use revamped shared services providing HR and administrative services to free up practitioners as much as possible without unduly reducing their professional autonomy.

It is vitally important that we do not lose the innovations that have been mostly developed in the CRCs as unlike the MoJs plans they have now been tested in the field and are being developed further through practitioner feedback. Time-saving innovations and advances that work reasonably well and that are helpful need to be developed further then scaled up and rolled out service-wide. The MoJ's blueprint is blatantly wrong when it says that it is sticking with Delius and Oasys as better solutions are required and better solutions are now potentially available. However, decisions have to be made now and plans made and actions taken expeditiously to prevent further delays down the line. Going backwards as suggested by the MoJ does not increase stability, by sticking with the devils you know from the 1990s, but rather denies the opportunity to move forward to better things that can be improved more easily and that are fit for the 21st century and the technologies that we are familiar with and would want to use to make our job easier.

There is certainly a place for private contractors under the probation umbrella in a reunified service and it would be naive to believe otherwise. Grayling clearly got it wrong but those of us who knew where the trusts were heading know that CP in London was an example of what Trusts were planning to do on a wider scale just as NHS Trusts contract out service provision to private providers. What the Serco CP experience in London was able to prove was that little or no money can be made from CP as public sector probation were actually able to run it fairly efficiently as it shared resources and did not have to provide separate HR and financial services. Serco slimmed CP in London down to the very minimum and retained staff by paying them more than their equivalents back in the Trust. The unions did not object to employers paying increases over and above what was expected particularly as these increases would be preserved in a staff transfer.

Government plans to reunite probation casework certainly does not mean sending private companies and contractors packing. It makes sense that some key services are provided in-house and some might be contracted out eg IT, HR, financial, facilities management, H&S if it is cost effective to do so. There are also parcels of work that could be provided by others working under the probation umbrella. I for one want to see the trend towards greater integration of electronic monitoring into offender management take place although the private sector will need to be involved to provide technical services. The important thing is to get the best people doing the jobs they are best qualified to do at a reasonable cost to taxpayers. This is how modern organisations function.

Where TR went badly wrong was to go too far by dividing the service and splitting the service users according to a relatively arbitrary assessment of risk at point of sentence. Whereas tweaking and expanding the Trusts and giving them commissioning powers would have been sufficient. Whilst core services should by default be provided by the public sector - for some very good reasons - many colleagues across probation may wish to have the choice to work for private providers provided that they are adequately resourced to do what they are being asked to do. For efficiency, private companies would need to provide specialist services on longer contracts subject to oversight by the new NPA, not the MoJ (who have a fairly poor record). Also, no one should be penalised or prevented from moving between employers whether moving from public to private or to the voluntary sector if they are doing the same sort of work. In order to facilitate this it would be necessary to have some form of universally recognised competency-based accreditation system

Funding to the 3rd sector who had been in partnership with Trusts fell by approximately 50% following TR and we sometimes wonder why former partners and friends are somewhat less motivated to help out than previously. In a new organisation, the 3rd sector needs to play a bigger role in service provision with long term funding contracts again subject to oversight by the new NPA.

David Raho

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I work for a CRC but also have over a decade of NPS experience. I like elements of our IT System Omnia as its case management and risk and needs assessment together. You don’t have to keep logging into different systems all the time. With all the good will in the world it’s a challenge to keep looking at oasys when you are time pressured. However, I prefer oasys as a risk assessment tool. If we improved parts of omnia it would be a good alternative to delius and Oasys.

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I’d put a bet on Serco increasing pay for CP is a one off in the private world. It’s highly likely keeping private providers will create a two tier system, with public sector staff seeing pay rises whilst the poorer cousins in CRCs sit by and watch colleagues celebrate. Oh wait, that’s already happened. I predict it only getting worse with the pay gap widening and career opportunities being stunted for us left out here in the private sphere. Just a thought!

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Serco had their reasons and remember they were keen to repair their image and engage in corporate renewal under a new MD who was happy to get shot of CP as soon as TR was announced. Some staff decided to stay with Serco. Private companies however often do pay more than the public sector for similar work although they tend to pay managers more and like to reward individual high performers with bonuses rather than agree to blanket increases irrespective of performance. There is quite a lot of data that indicates that probation pay fell way behind other similar professions when it was fully in the public sector I remember the pay hikes of the 1980s when we fell behind social workers and as we had a shared qualification people were jumping ship. I have heard estimates of between £6-9000 as about the sum required that would bring a mid career PO up to where they should be in terms of earnings. This gradual fall in probation earnings relative to other professions has been due to a number of factors.

The recent NPS pay settlement was almost unprecedented in the public sector and probably one of the biggest increases in the public sector in recent times although some benefiting from it still had issues with it. CRCs have probably not been able to deliver the rewards they thought they might have been able to because they have been strapped for cash due to a dodgy PbR system etc. On the other hand the NPS just gets more cash from the treasury. It is well known that had it had to operate within the same financial restrictions as the CRCs it would have gone bust at about the 18 month stage. The difference being that despite stories of amusing notes left by departing ministers the government cannot go bust and must keep paying the wages. Meanwhile some CRCs were struggling to keep the lights on. An FOI request to the NPS would probably confirm their financial status. Things like career development and innovation are expensive but some has taken place in the CRCs and I have certainly seen some people now enjoying positions that they could not have dreamt of occupying in public sector probation where there was widespread stagnation and lack of opportunities as well as some good stuff. I think there are more opportunities in the CRCs and a bit more movement of staff around. There are also some more commercially orientated training and job opportunities. It’s a bit swings and roundabouts. 

However not all CRCs are the same and created equal. Over in the NPS some people have failed to gain any benefit from being part of a national service for instance being able to in theory transfer anywhere in England and Wales. Try it. There are also people who have left the NPS after repeated attempts to advance or gain promotion and then joined the CRC where they have been promoted quickly and offered pretty good training and opportunities. Pay is something that needs to be sorted out either through negotiations (preferred) or further action. David Raho

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You make a very valid point. Indeed I came from a private sector company in fostering social work into Probation. However I think the split (#2) has created the unique position that many of us find ourselves literally sat next to those who are again looking at security of tenure in the public sector as well as a pay rise while Interventions/CP (many qualified PSOs amongst us) face uncertainty. At least when we were dumped in the CRCs it was a sense of team work as we’re ‘all in it together’. Despite this post I’m not money focused! I came back to the public sector as a vocational career move. But it offered security. There are things the private sector does better, but making profit from Human misfortune isn’t one of them. And we all have choices so as my loyalty to this profession has been totally obliterated for the second time I now feel able to apply for other jobs as personally there’s no vocation left worth fighting for. Sorry for the whinge but I have found this group to be heavily dominated by OMs mainly in the NPS so I’d like to appeal to you all not to forget your friends who were once your equals who share your office - we are currently uncomfortable and very concerned for the future. Thank you.

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Well said. I am proud to be a PO in London CRC and really proud of my colleagues who have kept professionalism alive and probation's unique identity strong. Indeed I’m having a T-shirt made with the slogan ‘In this one the probation is strong’ with a picture of Yoda. I am very conscious of the professional dimension to our situation and we must keep fighting for our identity every day. Unfortunately I am also aware of the bizarre phenomenon of a minority of influential NPS colleagues organising themselves to protect the NPS against change to their way of working when case management is reunified. There is a odd compromise suggestion to silo CRC staff within the NPS to protect them from the NPS and the NPS from being exposed to more advanced business processes IT etc. Whilst this might mean the former CRC operating in the more or less freed up way the have been used to there is however no doubt that this would not last long. The slow moving but creativity crushing and bureaucratically suffocating mass that is the MoJ HMPPS NPS bloc will, like a large shapeless globulous entity of enormous bulk and weight, bear down upon CRC staff wiping out their will to live let alone work and who will find resistance is futile as the Empire can launch salvos of directives and instructions day and night against the Resistance safe in the knowledge they have the former CRCs staff penned in and unable to move. 

As I have previously suggested the only viable solution is to form a new non pseudo civil service organisation removed from direct government control and operational interference or in fact too much freedom lest we go the other way and where we leave our former affiliations at the door and take up a new fresh unified identity where open mindedness and learning are the watch words and do what research informs us is the most effective way to ensure those we work with are rehabilitated and stay rehabilitated. Leave punishment to others and behaviourist nonsense to others who want to be involved in such things. Our business is rehabilitation and resettlement and we should be given the freedom and resources to go about our work with a minimum amount of interference from the centre - a bit like the Home Office back in the 1980s. It should be the probation services choice whether to commission services from the private or 3rd sector not the government who know little about what works (look at their record). Taking back control of the probation service and making it more accountable to the local communities it serves should be a top priority. When we are back together employment law protections should enable those doing the same job to be paid the same or employers would face legal action. A lot of problems can be solved at a stroke but many others require compromise and understanding and a liberal dose of vision. Vision is unfortunately a thing in short supply. David Raho

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Open mindedness and learning would be the watch words. I’d like to shake your hand and buy you a pint for that last message. I have numerous NPS old friends who do tell me it’s no bed of roses. Let’s just pray/hope that things all come out in the wash eventually... I still like the Irish/Scottish model but I’m sure if we asked their officers they’d shed some light on the state of their own services too.