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Napo takes our agenda to new Justice Minister

I, together with Katie Lomas National Chair, was among the Union delegation who met with Lucy Frazer last week in the Palace of Westminster.

The meeting came during a critical point in the current negotiations between the unions and senior MoJ and HMPPS leaders on the terms of the planned transfer of Offender Management work to the NPS from the Wales Region of KSS CRC in December, and the remainder scheduled to move across in 2021.

Ms Frazer is the fifth incumbent of the Justice Minister position in the five years since the Transforming Rehabilitation programme was implemented. But at least it quickly became clear that the new Minister was acquainted with the trade unions long running concerns and aspirations to see the full reunification of Probation to full public control and ownership.

The unions made it clear that whilst we obviously welcomed the Government U-turn to transfer OM work, we did not believe that there was any justification to the marketisation of Intervention and Programmes, thus stigmatising this work and the staff undertaking it, as somehow being of lesser value in the range of vital services that are provided to clients.

Moreover, the unions said that we still had serious concerns as evidenced in numerous HMI Probation reports about the community safety aspects of leaving this work to the vagaries of the market and urged the Minister to reflect on the plans to issue new contracts.

In terms of the scheduled transfer of OM work in Wales, we reported that while the national negotiations on the overall national staff transfer scheme were in the right direction, we needed to be sure that it would be safe to transfer staff across to NPS Wales on December 1st.

Next on our agenda was the issue of Professional recognition where we spelt out the pressing need to introduce high quality over-arching standards across the service irrespective of its future structure, together with supporting training and a Licence to Practice to re-establish confidence in Probation among staff and the judiciary.

Time as always was limited, especially in light of the political dramas that were unfolding just a few yards away in the House of Commons, but Napo were able to raise some other very important issues. These included calling for the suspension (and a review of) the NPS Attendance Management policy, the curtailment of the Double Waking Night Cover contracts which the unions believe are unsafe and a waste of taxpayers money.

Bring back collective bargaining!

The discussion on Pay allowed the unions the opportunity to again raise our concerns about the capacity of the Pay and Pensions Administrators (Shared Services Division) to cope with their requirement to pay staff accurately, or even at all in some cases. We said that this hardly provided confidence about the ability of the current payroll provider to accommodate the eventual transfer of several thousand staff to the NPS.

Notwithstanding the unions opposition to what we see as a flawed concept of a ‘mixed market’ in service provision, we urged the Minister to restore collective bargaining in the event that new contracts are awarded to probation providers post April 2021.

Before the Minister was called away to another meeting, we finished by saying that urgent remedial action was needed to stabilise the service following the catastrophe of TR. The Minister undertook to reinstate quarterly meetings with the unions going forward.

The joint union letter that formed the basis of our representations on the day can be found below.

Ian Lawrence

--oo00oo--
 

Lucy Frazer MP 

Secretary of State for Prisons and Probation 

Ministry of Justice 

102, Petty France 

London SW1 

25 September 2019 

Dear Minister 

Briefing for Probation Trade Unions Meeting: 26 September 2019 

In advance of our meeting with you on 26 September we set out below the key issues which we would like to discuss with you: 

1. Probation Programme 

The unions have welcomed the government decision earlier this year to bring back all offender management work from the CRCs to the NPS. However, we do not support the government’s intention to continue with the privatisation of unpaid work and accredited programmes for the following main reasons: 

• The biggest mistake in Transforming Rehabilitation was the artificial split in the Probation Service. 
• The proposed procurement of unpaid work and accredited programmes, (both core probation services) in 2021 simply perpetuates the split, only in a different place, so all the problems of service fragmentation, lack of continuity in offender management and poor communication will continue. 
• The unions remain unconvinced that the MOJ can identify a market for unpaid work or accredited programmes 
• Unpaid work has been one of the most criticised areas of CRC delivery, so privatising this work has a poor chance of success going forward 
• The unions referred the UK government to the International Labour Organisation in 2013 over our contention that the privatisation of unpaid work was a breach of the ILO Forced Labour Convention. Our representation to the ILO remains live. 

We therefore urge you to review the decision to continue to outsource unpaid work and accredited programmes. 

2. Wales CRC to NPS Wales Staff Transfer 

We are currently in negotiation with HMPPS officials over the transfer arrangements for members moving from the Wales CRC to NPS Wales. This transfer process has been complicated by the decision of the NPS to stage the transfers between Wales and England and also in respect of the fact that we have to negotiate in respect of a three-way transfer from the CRCs, either to the NPS, or to an Innovation Partner, or to a Dynamic Framework provider. The complexity of the industrial relations environment which the Probation Programme has created is only just being acknowledged in this respect. 

This complexity makes the 1 December date for Wales CRC offender management to transfer into NPS Wales in our opinion unsafe. We are not confident that we will have completed the necessary negotiations to protect our members’ interests in time for this transfer date. As far as we are aware, the 1 December date is not fixed in stone. 

We urge you not to proceed with the Wales CRC to NPS Wales staff transfer on 1 December if the relevant negotiations have not been satisfactorily concluded. 

3. Double-Waking Night Cover (DWNC) Privatisation 

The unions opposed the privatisation last year of double waking night cover in approved premises (APs). Since the two private contracts went live, our members have had to deal with a catalogue of poor contractor performance (one of the contractors is now in contract enforcement measures we understand), failure to provide the necessary cover, the use of agency workers instead of the directly employed staff, failure to deliver hot food to approved premises, the threat to remove our members’ right to a cooked meal if supervising residents at meal times, and the failure of the contractors to recognise UNISON or Napo, as we were promised by HMPPS during the transfer measures consultation prior to the transfer. 

We ask you to review the DWNC contracts and come to your own decision about the quality and appropriateness of handing over this skilled and challenging work to private companies which so far have failed to deliver. Privatised provision in APs does not fit the ambitions elsewhere in HMPPS to deliver professional recognition in the probation service. 

Our AP members are fearful that the private contracts will lead to a serious service failure. We need to make you aware of this as the Minister responsible for the safety of our members, AP residents and the community at large. 

4. Two Tier Pay and Pensions in Probation 

NPS union members voted overwhelmingly to accept the 2018 two year pay modernisation offer for NPS staff, which has undoubtedly improved the pay prospects of members in the NPS. 

However, with limited exceptions, this has not been matched by the CRC providers who now find they are lagging seriously behind the pay and pensions offer from the NPS. This of course has had predictable negative consequences for the delivery of probation services. 

Transforming Rehabilitation broke the unified employment market which had existed prior to 2014 and has replaced this stability with a chaotic and underfunded model where providers compete with each other for staff rather than taking a more collaborative approach. It is feasible that this outcome may have been the intention of the architects of Transforming Rehabilitation in order to save money via a race to the bottom on probation pay. If that was the intention, it has worked, but it hardly provides a baseline from which to launch a professional development strategy for probation. 

To remedy this we want HMPPS to re-establish parity of pay and conditions across the NPS and the CRCs. This includes pensions, as the CRCs cannot currently compete with the NPS on pensions.  

5. SSCL 

The private provider of the NPS pay roll function has failed to deliver an acceptable service to NPS staff from the outset. It has consistently failed to pay our members accurately, or on time, coupled with some spectacular disasters over the last five years. For both NPS staff and managers, payroll problems have been a consistent threat to operational delivery ever since the organisation was created. 

Many of these problems appear to have arisen from the fact that NPS pay and conditions differ markedly from prison pay and conditions, and SSCL were either not given appropriate payroll data by HMPPS, or SSCL simply did not have the systems in place to pay the probation allowances etc. This may in turn relate to the standard of service which the MOJ has contracted to receive from SSCL. Here is just a flavour of some of the problems: 

• SSCL failed to understand that all elements of pay under the Local Government Pension scheme are superannuable and failed to make the necessary deductions. 
• The Greater Manchester Pension Fund referred the National Probation Service to the Pensions Regulator for the NPS failure to deduct the correct employee contributions on a range of earnings for 8 months in 2017 
• Staff are regularly overpaid by mistake by SSCL who then have to recover monies in a way that is disruptive 
• Failure to pay staff increments  Failure to pay premium payments, particularly in approved premises 
• Failure of SSCL to provide staff with itemised pay slips as required by the Employment Rights Act 1996 (Itemised Pay Statement) (Amendment) (No.2) Order 2018 

We ask you to launch an investigation into the competence of SSCL in its delivery of services to HMPPS with a view to asking for Cabinet Office permission to opt out of the SSCL contract and for HMPPS to provide its own payroll function. 

6. Professional Recognition 

The unions support the intention to roll out a professional recognition strategy as part of the Probation Programme. The creation of a Probation Professional Register is a key part of these proposals. 

However, this ambitious strategy will only be delivered if the MOJ is able to secure the necessary funding from Treasury to support it. It will not happen on the basis of mere ambition. 

We look forward to hearing of your plans to secure the necessary funding. Staff will want to hear from you, not only that you are committed to professional recognition, but also that you have secured the necessary funding to deliver it.  

7. Workforce Planning 

The Prime Ministers commitment to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers over the next three years will have major implications for the workload of HMPPS. 

Please could you let us know what staffing increase you are planning for the probation service to ensure that our members in the NPS and in the CRCs are not overwhelmed with the anticipated increase in service users coming through the courts as a result of the major increase in Home Office funding for policing? We assume that there is joined up thinking in government on this issue. 

We look forward to meeting you tomorrow. 

Yours sincerely, 

Ian Lawrence General Secretary Napo

Ben Priestley National Officer UNISON

George Georgiou National Officer GMB/SCOOP