As the following news reaches me:-
"I have heard on the grapevine that the date to move us back to NPS has slipped to June 2021"thanks go to the reader for forwarding the following:-
SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2 2019
“Goodwill is a reciprocal thing”
As we approach the reunification of Offender Management, planned for 2nd December 2019, there is still much to be clarified and finalised. Your national and branch officers are working flat out to protect both your interests and your profession.
What follows is pertinent to CRC staff transferring to NPS, NPS staff, and staff in interventions and unpaid work.
The recently completed office briefings for CRC and NPS staff have given you a general picture of the future shape of probation both in the reunified OM functions, and in Interventions and Unpaid Work, also moving to the KSS operating model.
We continue to campaign for the full reunification of Probation. Unpaid work and programmes are core probation business, and in the wake of the abject failure of Grayling’s “reforms”, we have yet to hear any cogent argument for, instead of reunifying probation, moving the dividing line between public and private sector keeping unpaid work and interventions in the for-profit sector. This is not over yet, and it won’t be over in December.
We are however where we are, so Napo is on the case to protect the interests of our members and our profession as we go through the planned changes in December.
From our negotiations and from the briefings you have attended, we get a picture of the headlines, the broad shape of the proposed operating model, and that the devil is in the detail and there is much yet to be finalised.
Given how near these changes are, thoughts naturally turn to the basics, namely how much will I get paid, when will I get paid, where will I be based? Suffice to say that we are still negotiating.
All staff have been invited to send questions regarding the changes to these two addresses
For NPS staff futurepsw@justice.gov.uk
For CRC staff comms@ksscrc.probationservices.co.uk
And we strongly urge you to do so.
You have been told in briefings that “nobody will be disadvantaged”. You have also been repeatedly urged to extend goodwill and tolerance through the change process. You may wish to probe these generalisations a bit in your questions to the email addresses above:
- Goodwill is a reciprocal thing: staff moving from CRC to NPS should not under any circumstances have a six-week gap between pay-checks. A modicum of goodwill by your employers (and it will be in the season of goodwill to all that this will occur) would see measures being put in place to smooth this pay disruption. Napo is pressing for interim payments
- Training: There is a planned three-month period during which staff transferred from CRC to NPS will receive induction training in Civil Service processes and policies. The inference is that cover will be provided from those already in situ. Those already in situ look to have full workloads already, so in the spirit of goodwill we are being exhorted to extend, staff shouldering extra work should expect suitable rewards (overtime, TOIL for example). Napo is pressing for this.
- On the subject of caseloads, the very high caseloads carried by (“heroic” according to HMIP) CRC staff will eventually be dispersed across the newly reunified NPS offender management staff under the mixed caseload plans. From the briefings to date we hear that there is “a bigger pool” of staff, and of a new WMT. Napo is seeking clarification of the new WMT calculation
Staff transferring from the CRC need to ensure that their Napo subs are paid by direct debit. There is no facility for NPS members to have their subs paid from payroll: this cancellation of the “check-off” agreement was made by Chris Grayling as a move designed to weaken the position of Unions. Don’t let him get away with this. It is easy to arrange: click on the button on this link https://www.napo.org.uk/SWITCH
The NPS is bedevilled by its own problems caused by the failure to deliver OMiC, the extent of which is slowly becoming clear.
ReplyDeleteThey can’t staff it and haven’t got sufficient resources in place so it seems that the demand for “goodwill,” will be in overdrive.
As the headline says, Goodwill is a two way process. What are they putting on the table as a gesture of their goodwill?
Same old same old...
ReplyDeleteJust endured JRM on Sky news which demonstrates how the over-priveleged fuckers are treating pretty much everyone not in their gang with utter disdain. This puts Theresa May's acts of contempt for Parliament in the shade.
So, as with so-called Brexit (an artificial, anachronistic construct) the MP for Edwardian values insists "it takes two to tango". The EU didn't & still don't want the UK to leave. Its a UK issue. And equally with the NPS/CRC artifice, a whole heap of shit is dropped from a great height after which the instigators insist those covered in shit should demonstrate goodwill & tolerance while cleaning up after the shitstorm. With the notable exception of the well-rewarded cabal of collaborators, not one probation practitioner wanted the split; its flaws & inevitable failure was easily & loudly predicted. But it is precisely those probation staff who have suffered injustice, disruption & distress.
This is the Age of The Greedy Bully.
What are the dates for English reunification is it Dec 20 or March 21.
ReplyDeleteDo we believe UPW and interventions will stay privatised?
ReplyDeleteDo we care upw is a joke. Crc ran by fools place full of
DeleteSpo,s just ticking boxes seeing there time out . At least make it look like you care people
That doesn’t make much sense?
DeleteAre you a Pdm ? By any chance
DeleteProbations a bit like a broken cup, you can get all the pieces glued back together again, but that dosen't ensure it will hold liquid again.
ReplyDeleteProbation is not an individual institution any longer. Its been dragged further and further over many years into a quagmire of criminal justice chaotic (and I think) misplaced relationships. However unified the probation service is, it's success is not in its own hands alone, its dependendent on all sorts of socioeconomic agencies and government policies functioning well.
Austerity, sentencing policy, accomodation, mental health, exposure to free market ideology all impact on the quality of service that can be offered, and there's little probation can do about those except try and mitigate a little on the impact they might have on services.
Whilst I welcome reunification, I see it only as a platform to be built on. Reunification is the first step of a progress, it's not by itself the solution.
I think there may be many years left of reading anger, frustration and despair on this blog before things start to feel good again.
https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/17866226.independent-monitoring-board-annual-report-hmp-yoi-portland/
'Getafix
"I think there may be many years left of reading anger, frustration and despair on this blog before things start to feel good again." Oh dear......
DeleteI mentioned the concept of “ goodwill,” to a colleague who replied, “ that well has been sucked so dry it’s desiccated.” I fully understood and changed the subject.
ReplyDeleteGoodwill is drawn from a well. It comes from below and drank by those above.
DeleteAnyone asks me for goodwill now I just say I'm feeling the pinch of austerity so much these days I've had to outsource mine in an attempt to be more efficient and hopefully make some savings.
Free market thinking. Goodwill is a commodity, sell it, don't give it away!
NorthWest NPS are in for a big shock. Only skeleton staff left in the CRCs and many staff on 80 plus cases.
ReplyDeleteSo: will the reunified OM function in the civil service NPS be required to manage the work to the same level of bureaucratic administration? If the Civil Service NPS had a coat of arms, the scroll underneath the shield would have inscribed "et interficiam de glutino" which is the nearest I can get google translate to give me "cut and paste" in Latin … its a sign of the times, the unelected PM we have been foisted with is setting a fashion for using random Latin to add gravitas to irresponsible twaddle.
ReplyDeleteIf so, they would have to recruit a shedload of new staff. Or fiddle the system somehow. I genuinely believe this is not thought through at all.
"shoulder the workload"?, Sure add it to the rest of the workload I'm 'shouldering' for staff on long term sick and those who haven't been replaced.
ReplyDeleteExactly ! And who wants to build more TOIL that they never end up being able to take
DeleteWill crc staff be compensated for their loss of earnings due to Graylings failed experiment.
ReplyDeleteI blame the CRCs for this rather than Grayling. Every case carrying PSO in the CRC should be livid and not showing any goodwill whatsoever as caseloads are significantly higher than NPS that means every day I am twice as likely as an NPS colleague to have an SFO and all the stress that entails, twice as likely to have a service-user put in a formal complaint against me, twice as likely to be at risk of being unable to fully read casefiles to join the dots for safeguarding concerns, twice as likely not to bother doing tasks or downgrade concerns as I've simply no time to investigate etc and so it goes on and on and due to my high caseload I never get to not work a late night as I simply have too many late night reporters. It's a disgrace but even extra money would not make the situation any better as all the above would still be prevalent. The switch back can't come soon enough for us.
Deletehttps://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/17870873.hm-inspectorate-probation-gives-london-community-rehabilitation-company-39-s-crc-39-requires-improvement-39/
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