For those who are still unsure why it's not a good idea to have Civil Servants running probation and why 'reunifying' under their bureaucratic dead hand of command and control will be the death of the profession, the following example of management 'alphabet soup' should serve as a warning:-
Work is ongoing to develop a PSR Quality Assurance Framework, which will detail how the QDT aligns with Skills for Effective Engagement, Development and Supervision (SEEDS) and The Management Oversight Models. The framework will capture minimum expectations (and whether these expectations are mandatory or for guidance purposes) and will be presented to the Senior Leadership Team in October 2019 for consideration."
I'll just put these comments from Twitter on here:-
ReplyDelete"Not sure those that design these tools have ever (or even recently) written a PSR. At same time Sentencers and especially Judges want the clear voice of the author to come through MoJ seems to want impose a one size fits all bowdlerised painting by numbers version."
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"Train people properly, give them time to absorb what the job entails and then allow enough time to interview, assess and write the bloody things and all will be fine. We are not idiots (myself excluded obvs). Errors and inconsistencies are almost always borne out lack of time."
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"Why can't someone just say "Tools to help make sure PSRs are consistently good quality have been agreed and are now ready to be used"? No matter how hard I try, though, I just can't parse the second paragraph!"
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"But they're not proper PSR's are they? Lets be honest 'Oral on the day' is just not good enough is it?" (My comment - Ed)
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"You're absolutely right; I meant that, regardless of the merits of the content, there is a way of writing this stuff that makes it comprehensible to readers! I wonder whether the jargon is used to make the author feel more important?"
More confusion & B/S from 'the centre':
ReplyDelete"NPS is also committed to ensuring that NPS court staff adequately consider mental health needs when supporting court sentencing, which includes recommending community sentences and/or MHTRs. NPS will also support the work of the MoJ, Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHSE and Public Health England (PHE) who have developed a Community Sentence Treatment Requirement (CSTR) ‘protocol’ to increase the use of Community Sentences with treatment requirements, which includes increasing the use of MHTRs. The NHS has also committed to set aside increased funding for CSTRs through the Long Term Plan, and it is critical that NPS engage with partners as this process develops. Moreover, it is imperative that NPS works more closely with NHSE Liaison and Diversion providers to ensure that health staff may contribute information to support court sentencing and proposals for treatment requirements where possible."
Source:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/831817/MOJ3131_210658_NPS-Health-and-Social-Care-Stategy-2019-Brochure-v5.pdf
But the Protocols describe the following procedure:
"At Court
- Defendant pleads or is found guilty.
- Pre-Sentence Report is requested by the court and undertaken by the National Probation Service. Court will ordinarily require completion of report within four weeks.
- Report author, acting either at the explicit request of the court and/or, on the basis of professional judgement, assesses that the offender may benefit from the imposition of a MHTR and requests an assessment.
- Report author obtains consent of defendant to assessment and treatment; completes Referral Form outlining presenting issues and/or symptoms and forwards this by secure email to Community Mental Health Assessment and Recovery Team"
An adjournment of up to 4 weeks? Defendant's consent? Liaison with appropriate mental health professionals?
Sounds a bit 'old skool' to me...
I think your post is representative of something more endemic, and worthy of another post. From the perspective of working in London NPS, there is a litany of "centralised" tools that, collectively, are leaving the staff in a sense of disarray. Nobody objects to getting feedback, encouragement, steers about their work, reflective discussion, or pointing out where things might be better - in fact most staff positively encourage this. However, when layer upon layer upon layer of initiatives are introduced without really questioning if the previous one added any value, problems occur. Here are a few examples of what staff now do or are subjected to, which didn't exist some years ago, and yet the senior management say "Oh, but your workload measurement tool says you are on 100%":
ReplyDelete- Data quality days
- Updating "HETE data", "risk registers", "MAPPA flags"
- Whole days spent auditing one case using a tool bizarrely named the "LIPAD"
- OASYS reviews every 4 months whether the case needs a review or not
- "lifer panels", "IPP panels"
- PD case discussions; PD case consultations
- Not only entering Delius contacts, but doing so using the CRISSA Format which takes double the amount of time per contact
- OASYS QA tools which go into a plethora of details of what needs to be in a "current situation", "offender comments box", "sources of information", "what will increase the motivation" boxes, upon boxes, upon boxes.
- Going to "risk is everybody's business" training which is like going to an induction on day 1 of your job
- Going to "safeguarding" training which is pitched at the level of a primary school child
- Entering NSI's which nobody quite understands and hopes we have done correctly - the latest now being for "maps for change"
And how any of this benefits the end user (service user or victim) is beyond any of us - the HMIP tells us "YOU ARE CRAP AT DELIVERING WORK TO SERVICE USERS" and yet nothing, organisationally, has been focussed on this, other than implementing so called "IPAD" tool which is ridiculously unfit for purpose - and yet despite knowing all this, there we sit, click, clicking away, fearful that if we don't we'll be sacked. And then it dawns on us - there are OTHER JOBS OUT THERE - and the senior leadership team sits there scratching their heads thinking how they can "monitor attrition" and can't quite work out how their new workload measurement tool datadashboard quality assurance initiative hasn't given them the answer.