A Kafkaesque World

We've discussed at some length how unsuitable it is to have probation officers functioning as civil servants as part of the forced marriage to HM Prison Service. The two organisations have extremely different identities and cultures and it's quite obvious that NPS as part of HMPPS is dysfunctional and simply not fit for purpose by any measure, which sort of flies in the face of this surprising news that was announced to very limited fanfare on 8th January:-

The National Probation Service (NPS), a statutory criminal justice service that supervises high-risk offenders released into the community, has successfully achieved a 5-star EFQM Recognised for Excellence (R4E) following a rigorous assessment in December 2019. NPS previously achieved a 2-star EFQM Committed to Excellence (C2E) in 2016 and a 4-star EFQM Recognised for Excellence (R4E) in 2017.

EFQM Recognised for Excellence is Europe’s leading recognition programme for organisational performance, and forms part of the EFQM Levels of Excellence.

Amy Rees, Director General for Probation and Wales said:

I am thrilled by this tremendous achievement for the National Probation Service which is evidence of the excellent work undertaken and the dedication our staff demonstrate in their roles to protect the public and change lives.

Sonia Crozier, Chief Probation Officer and Director for Women said:

I am absolutely delighted that the British Quality Foundation has awarded NPS a five star excellence rating. It is a testament to the hard work, commitment and professionalism that our staff show every day in changing lives. Everyone should be exceptionally proud of this considerable achievement especially during a period of enormous change. And it’s was a great way to end 2019.

Of course we now know why there was little publicity for this amazing award because only a week later HM Inspectorate of Probation published its damning verdict on this 'excellent' organisation. In stark contrast they found:-

• NPS operational staff often felt disconnected from the ‘centre’. They view HMPPS as remote and distanced from operational delivery. 
• Probation officer vacancies remain high, particularly in London and areas close to London. Over 600 probation officer vacancies were reported in June 2019; however, there were also 614 probation officers in training in June 2019, which in time should ease the shortage. 
• Workloads for probation officers are unreasonably high. In July 2019, over 60 per cent of probation officers were working in excess of the 100 per cent standard on the NPS workload measurement tool. Nearly 30 per cent had workloads of more than 120 per cent. 
• The span of control for SPOs is too broad. Half supervise between 11 and 20 staff. This prevents them from supervising staff effectively to ensure they deliver a quality service. Half of the SPOs who responded to our survey said they spend less than 20 per cent of their time monitoring casework. 
• Continuing professional development of qualified staff is not sufficiently comprehensive or responsive. A culture of learning and continuous development has not been sufficiently embedded. 
• The use of accredited offending behaviour programmes has substantially reduced. HMPPS is not supporting divisions to properly understand the profile of their service users or to improve their use of services. 
• HMPPS does not adequately oversee the commissioning process to ensure that quality services are available and accessible to service users. 
• Gaps in local provision are apparent. The NPS is commissioning services from CRCs but then purchasing very few of them. 
• Underinvestment in NPS buildings has meant that many probation staff work from buildings that are in disrepair. We found a catalogue of problems on our inspections, including faulty plumbing, broken lifts, vermin infestations and some older premises that are unfit for purpose in a modern probation service. In the last year, only 43 per cent of facilities management jobs were completed within the 10-day target. Business-critical jobs, for example in approved premises, remain unresolved for an unacceptably long time.

Staff 

Despite ongoing recruitment, staff vacancies are high throughout the NPS. Divisions rely on the HMPPS national recruitment process. There has been some progress in meeting staff targets, but there remain many vacancies for probation officers, especially in those areas closest to London. The profile of staff does not match the profile of the offender population; 70 per cent of probation staff are female, whereas 97 per cent of the NPS offender population are male. The NPS is not attracting sufficient numbers of men into the profession.

Workload, especially for probation officers, is unreasonably high. In July 2019, over 60 per cent of probation officers were working in excess of 100 per cent on the workload measurement tool. Nearly 30 per cent of probation officers have a workload of more than 120 per cent. The NPS workload measurement tool does not sufficiently capture the complexity of the NPS caseload, many of whom present a high risk of harm to others, aggravated by multiple offending-related factors. 

The span of control for SPOs is too broad. Half of the SPOs who responded to our survey supervise between 11 and 20 staff. Managing too many staff and holding multiple responsibilities prevents staff from being sufficiently supported to deliver a quality service. We note that the role of the SPO is being reviewed, and we welcome this. The centre does not monitor the workload of other grades of staff, such as administration staff and VLOs. In our divisional inspections, we found that many VLOs are holding a very high number of cases, on average 215 each. 

The Learning and Development Unit sits within the new Performance Directorate in HMPPS and is responsible for learning and development across prison and probation services. The NPS national training team is part of the HMPPS Learning and Development Unit. This team is responsible for identifying the training needs of different grades of NPS staff, commissioning training packages and delivering professional skills training across the NPS. Access to training for PSOs and PQiPs is sufficient for them to gain the required qualification. 

The needs of qualified probation officers, however, are not well met. Newly qualified staff need more support to gain the confidence and skills to supervise the complex and high risk of harm offenders who form the NPS cohort. The quality of training is not always pitched at the right level for probation practitioners and the method of delivering training is not always appropriate. Probation staff find that the e-learning is too basic, the locations of some venues are too far for some staff to travel and some staff are not released to complete training due to high workloads. 

Learning and development is supplemented by divisions creating their own practice guidance. The Effective Probation Practice (EPP) division – originally part of the NPS structure, but now a team in the Performance directorate in HMPPS – has links with the divisions via the divisional Performance and Quality teams. The EPP division issues practice guidance, 7-minute briefings and videos to highlight areas of practice where training or guidance need to be developed. While training events and workshops have been evaluated following delivery, there is no mechanism to evaluate the impact of the EPP division on practice.

7. Organisational delivery standard – staff findings 

This section considers the extent to which staff in the organisation are empowered to deliver a high-quality, personalised and responsive service for all service users. Inspectors pursued lines of enquiry regarding: recruitment; workload; staff supervision; managing poor performance; staff undertaking the Professional Qualification in Probation, known as ‘PQiPs’; newly qualified officers (NQOs); and quality development officers (QDOs). We also conducted an e-survey of band 5 middle managers. 

In our divisional inspections, every division was rated as ‘Requires improvement’ against our standards for staff. 

National staff shortages – the background 

We found staff shortages in all divisions of the NPS. They were particularly acute for the probation officer grade. The number of staff in post has fallen short of the target since 2015; at the same time, the NPS caseload has increased. At the time of Transforming Rehabilitation, a divisional staffing profile was established as part of the operating model. This has proved to be inaccurate, partly because the number of NPS cases has been higher than expected.

In addition, the problem has been exacerbated by national recruitment difficulties, which are particularly challenging in some areas, especially those close to London. Probation officer training was frozen for a period of time, with a resultant gap in the throughput of newly qualified officers; as a result, probation officer grades are particularly stretched.

Workforce planning 

Nationally, the NPS staffing plan has been reviewed to reflect the changing workload. The plan is based on activity costing, the tiering model and the future target workforce. The workforce planning tool incorporates ‘movers and leavers’ and predicts how long it will take to fill gaps, for example through the recruitment of PQiPs. 

The difficulties with workforce planning from the time of Transforming Rehabilitation have not been fully resolved, and this presents a risk to the future unified model of probation. For example, the reported shortage of CRC probation officers has recently changed from 40+ to 500. Data on divisional staffing requirements is not sufficiently accurate, and HMPPS has acknowledged that this is “a work in progress and not as good as it should be”. 

Recruitment 

HMPPS has made some progress in recruiting the numbers of staff required, but national recruitment processes do not always meet local need. Divisions can run local recruitment campaigns for qualified probation officers, but only within the staffing requirements set by the national workforce planning committee staffing forecast. The position for Probation Service Officers (PSOs) is more positive, with few vacancies across the NPS.

There have been lengthy delays in vetting of new starters, resulting in the loss of some successful applicants who have found work elsewhere while waiting for a start date. The length of time taken to complete vetting processes has recently improved. In April 2018, the NPS had 694 vacancies for probation officers. The highest number of vacancies were in South East and Eastern (102). In June 2019, figures showed that the NPS had 3,319 probation officers in post versus a requirement of 3,934 – a gap of 615 probation officer vacancies. 

To address the shortfall of probation officers in the long term, divisions are recruiting high numbers of trainee probation officers (PQiPs). In June 2019, 614 were in training, which is the expected full year cohort. The Director General of Probation has approved the recruitment of 400 PQiP learners to be seconded to CRCs, to ensure continuous service delivery ahead of implementing the unified model. Further work needs to be completed to ensure the accuracy of the vacancy data used to design the unified model of probation. 

PQiPs are appointed to local offices with vacancies, though vacancies may no longer exist in their selected office by the time they have completed their training. On qualifying, a small number of NQOs may not wish to move to another office – which could be some considerable distance away – and they remain in post as a PSO. This is costly to the NPS, as the financial investment in training does not yield a return in such cases. It also adversely affects the ability to fill vacancies in some of the LDUs where NQOs are most needed. Market forces payments for the South East of England and South West South Central do not attract sufficient numbers of staff to work in these high-vacancy areas. 

In summary, centralised recruitment processes are not sufficiently responsive to local need. While progress has been made in recruiting PQiPs, it will be some time before gaps in skills and experience are adequately filled. 

Diversity of the workforce 

The NPS workforce is not sufficiently diverse. Newly recruited probation officers have been predominantly white females, and the staff profile is currently 70 per cent white female. Staff from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are not represented enough at senior manager level. The entry criteria to PQiP has been widened, and this has attracted more applications from women with diverse backgrounds. A small team has been recruited in HMPPS to help increase the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic staff at all levels of HMPPS, particularly in senior leadership. HMPPS human resources teams have used Facebook and local recruitment initiatives such as school visits to try and attract more diverse applications. Despite these efforts, not enough men are being attracted into the workforce. As a result, there is a mismatch between the profile of the workforce and that of the people under supervision. 

Workload management 

The national workload measurement tool (WMT) is used across the NPS to measure the workload of those who supervise offenders. This tool measures individual, team and divisional workloads based on a nationally agreed Specification, Benchmarking and Costing Framework. Cases are classified by type, complexity and tier. 

We found that staff have little faith that the WMT accurately reflects how busy they are. Some staff are shown as being significantly ‘over 100 per cent capacity’, despite the WMT not covering the full range of tasks they cover. The BSC directorate reports that up to 120 per cent is an acceptable workload, as the level of demand varies between similarly tiered cases. However, this is interpreted by some responsible officers as “120 per cent is the new 100 per cent”. 

During this inspection, the NPS acknowledged that the WMT does not accurately reflect some situations, such as co-worked cases, and is not sufficiently responsive to the complexity and changing demands of NPS workloads. It is recognised that the WMT does not take sufficient account of the complexity of managing women offenders. There is limited scope to introduce changes to the WMT due to budgetary considerations and the limitations of the Notice of Change process. The move of the WMT to Kainos, a private contractor, has improved functionality. For example, Kainos has created a monthly dashboard that provides performance and quality managers with a real-time picture of workload distribution. 

In our view, many probation officers have unacceptably high workloads. In our divisional inspections, only 46 per cent of probation officers said they had manageable workloads, compared with 87 per cent of PSOs and 83 per cent of PQiPs. This correlates with the figures provided by HMPPS for 04 July 2019, when of 2,547 probation officers, 63 per cent (1,600) exceeded 100 per cent on the WMT. A further breakdown shows that 47 per cent (1,189) exceeded 110 per cent, 29 per cent (743) exceeded 120 per cent and 17.43 per cent (444) exceeded 130 per cent. 

The NPS operating model includes ‘case management support’ for probation officers, with a range of specific tasks undertaken by other relevant grades to enhance offender supervision. PSOs were recruited in large volumes to undertake tasks that supported cases held by probation officers, including delivering specific pieces of work identified in the sentence plan and activities such as more complex referrals. 

Case management support was expected to provide an element of workload relief for probation officers. However, the distribution of work between probation officers and PSOs has not sufficiently evened out. WMT data suggests that PSOs are significantly less heavily loaded, with only 10 per cent (75) exceeding 100 per cent, 5 per cent (39) exceeding 110 per cent, 3 per cent (22) exceeding 120 per cent and 1.71 per cent (13) exceeding 130 per cent. 

Divisions can decide whether to use ‘case management support’, and it is not being applied to full effect. Furthermore, PSOs have had some difficulty in accessing the relevant training to manage specific types of case. The impact is that there is insufficient workload relief where it is required. 

Workloads for PQiPs are monitored by divisional training managers and practice tutor assessors (PTAs). NQO workloads are managed by divisions and monitored by the BSC team. NQOs have protected caseloads; however, local pressures often mean that they are required to take on a higher number of cases than planned. This results in NQOs lacking the skills and experience to manage appropriately some of the complex cases allocated to them. 

In summary, probation officer shortages remain a major issue for the NPS, which ultimately cannot be resolved by ‘moving work around’ within limited resources. Until this shortage is addressed, too many probation officers will be managing high caseloads of challenging individuals for which they receive inadequate training and insufficient oversight. This situation undermines the very real commitment and dedication of local staff and managers.