Pick of the Week 57

How long has Jim's blog been going.
How many times have we been saying the same thing over and over again.
How often are we overlooked.
How many times have staff been told to 'shut up or leave'.
How many Senior Managers threaten you with warnings when you just cannot do anymore than fighting the pressures of work.
How many times do we have to endure it.
How many times will we have to tell you. Nothing changes.
To all staff out there, there is a life after Probation, please take a risk and stop being bullied, you all deserve better than this.

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The debate around PQiPs is that the majority are neither BAME nor male. An even smaller proportion are BAME males. The MAJORITY of PQiPs both starting and completing the course to qualification are "young white female psychology grads”.

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Some divisions the diversity of PQiPs naturally is different to the brush you are tarring all PQiPs with. Also they are clearly trying to address this issue around requiring a degree, just google Probation Officer Apprenticeships and the framework for it is out there and published. It is coming. My assumption is it will start when the renewed HEI contracts start.

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Not being recognised in the coverage is the importance of professional experience and development.The call to recruit more new staff is welcome, but we should not lose sight of the tragic loss of experienced staff through the TR debacle.

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For which Napo should also be held to account with their disastrously eager agreement to arrangements for TR1 which incorporated pre-planned job losses. In respect of TR2, Napo recently said - "That a nationally negotiated Staff Transfer and Protections Agreement, together with the appropriate transfer orders, will be put to all union members in a consultative ballot in the Autumn." Did this happen? What was the result?

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Nothing posted today surprises. Much of what is being said has been written on this blog over & over & over again, i.e. HMPPS are crap, the depth & breadth of experience & knowledge was thrown out by the arseholes who implemented TR, working conditions vary from disgraceful to dangerous, etc etc:

* 615 probation officer vacancies across the NPS - a 10% vacancy rate
* Since probation reforms were introduced in 2014, not one of the NPS divisions has been fully staffed
* HMPPS has overall responsibility for NPS recruitment across England and Wales
* Sixty per cent of NPS staff have workloads that exceed their expected capacity
* Centralised [HMPPS] functions are not performing as they should
* HM inspectors also warned NPS was struggling to reverse a gender imbalance where 70 percent of officers were women.

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Some of the problems are just a failure to accept basic maths. Increasing the number of clients at the same time as reducing the number of staff will obviously increase workloads and stretch resources. There are far to many people being subjected to probation supervision at present, and Bills currently going through Parliament are likely to increase that number further.

TR saw 40,000 under 12mth offenders being brought under the probation umbrella. The rhetoric for doing so was good, but the reality was that they were really only to swell the stock to make the sales pitch for TR more attractive to the bidders. A brutal truth is that probation is no use to most of that cohort, nor are they any good to probation. Is public safety and protection in a better place since they've been taken into the fold? Are they any better off now?

There's too many people on probation, and for too long, and it creates no value to anyone. There's an interesting report on HMP Liverpool out today also. I highlight it not to bring prisons into the conversation, but it's good evidence to demonstrate that if you want to do things right, then you have to provide facilities and opportunity for those caught up in the CJS, and facilities, time, space and acceptable workloads for those working within the CJS to be able to do the work their trained for.

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Napo calling for urgent review but do not say who they expect to be able to manage such a task. What would be the point anyway, it is recognised TR1 is now failed. Hypocritically calling for wider amalgamation while endorsing the privatised companies illustrates the duplicity and failing of the NAPO position. They do not genuinely appear to have any clear strategy. Unfortunately the usual missed opportunity to embrace the report and exploit the dire failing of the NPS have been missed again by messrs Lawrence and co. 

This boring re hash of the past events is poor work for a professional association as they claim and an awfully childish 'we told you' positioning. This does nothing for the debate, offers no hope to readers of some enlightened contribution. While the scandal unfolds of the testimony in Wales, where was the NAPO leadership when a campaign was critical to wage against workloads? Provide support for staff and make challenges to illustrate the rejection of those risks the whole deluded management were taking. What exactly were NAPO doing when their energies should have been visibly leading on multi level actions? Down the pub or on a junket somewhere most likely.

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Extract from Connor Marshall inquest today. Not much support from those at the top for the individual in the hot seat.....Terry Reddington was the deputy head of the delivery unit for Wales and said some staff had fallen behind. "It was a particular issue for some people in the Caerphilly office, but not all people," he said. "Some staff could cope. Staff had different experiences." However, he said the backlog created by the transition had been cleared. He told assistant coroner Nadim Bashir there was enough staff for the number of cases.

Asked by Emma Zeb, representing Wales CRC, if it was a chaotic time, he replied: "In terms of chaotic, it was a time of change. "You had people who had been working together in the probation service for 20 years and then they were starting to work for a new agency. "I think that led to people being at different places at different times."

Diana Binding, former assistant chief executive of CRC denied it was chaotic there, but said she met with Braddon's probation officer Kathryn Oakley who was behind with her work. "I wouldn't take the view that Kathryn Oakley was very new to the role, she had been working in the probation service for well over a year," she told the inquest. "It is a demanding job. Her situation was no different to any other staff member, but they were managing their workload." The inquest continues.

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The extracts from the inquest makes me feel physically sick, my heart absolutely goes out to Kathryn, I really hope her colleagues speak up in support and say just how impossible case management has become - the fact that the strategic management level state that being in service "well over a year" suddenly makes you an expert and fully skilled/trained CM is shocking but no surprise that's their attitude.

I was an experienced PSO of 20+ years but it still didn't stop me within the CRC I worked in, having to endure their unworkable models etc, feeling at times, in fact on a regular basis, overwhelmed with work, staying all hours to try and meet impossible targets that had been set along with trying to effectively risk manage difficult, troubled people - all the colleagues in my office felt the same as did (and I'm sure still do as staffing levels appear to have gone worse  officer's across all areas within Greater Manchester.

I'm so glad I resigned when I did before it really made me ill. I feel for those of you that remain but would say stick up and speak up for each other as it makes it harder for management to create divisions between staff and to throw people under the bus as happens far too often and for management to deny TR has been an absolute disaster not just "a change" as described by management at the inquest.

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Can any Napo member answer this: Did Napo put a nationally negotiated Staff Transfer and Protections Agreement, together with the appropriate transfer orders, to all union members in a consultative ballot in Autumn 2019?

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Perhaps the Trades Union Certification Officer should be consulted about how Napo seem to have - both actively and passively - enabled TR1, facilitated hundreds of job losses, failed to support members at critical times & are now embarking on a duplicate campaign in respect of TR2 in what appears to be a bid to completely embed & entomb the Probation profession within the civil service regime that is HMPPS.

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"Over the past year, inspectors have found a multitude of problems with NPS offices. These include: broken locks, faulty CCTV, vermin infestations, and poor plumbing and heating. Some facilities are in such a state of disrepair that they cannot be used." MoJ have delayed TR2: it was always going to be too little too late, now it's even later. It's not full reunification, and it's in the civil service/MoJ which is clearly inept and not fit for purpose. Is it possible that transferring CRC staff to the shithole that is NPS in the HMPPS was likely to see the loss of the few experienced probation staff still standing?

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I'm an NPS SPO. Reality is worse than this report. Caseloads unmanageable. SPOs supervising too many staff so can't do any meaningful work, no coaching, no improving of quality. We just respond to crisis management.

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I agree, reality is much worse. As a PO in the NPS who is over 100% on WMT majority of the time, what is going to happen in the short term to address high caseloads? I’m certainly not coping with my workload and know others aren’t either. How long are we expected to carry on like this. Surely there must me some sort of contingency plan in place? What am I missing? Does the service not have a duty to look after its staff? I can’t carry on much longer in this job.

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My NPS area are just about to be inspected. The amount of "prep" work going on is shameful. If we get anything less than outstanding there should be some serious questions raised!

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I agree. I'm meeting with the HMIP inspector in next two weeks and can't wait to tell them the truth about what it's really like in NPS right now. Senior managers, I'm sure, will only want to present the glossy version!

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So much evidence, so many testimonies, a tragedy of errors; it should surely be a piece of piss for unions representing staff to address these issues? Staff are clearly at breaking point but too scared to stand up & say so, hence they are effectively enabling the shitshow to continue. If Probation staff blew the whistle it would all collapse, wouldn't it? That's not to blame staff. Whistle-blowing isn't an easy thing to do. I know from experience. But does make things change. And it seem that there are plenty of staff in shit situations.

If only there was an organisation THAT represented staff.... Napo seem unwilling to bring it all to a head, reacting too late with pisspoor press releases, or hoping for this, or waiting for that, or acknowledging this, or accepting that... Even HMI Probation seem too scared to tell-it-as-it-is, keen to keep the lid on, just allowing enough steam to escape every now & then to prevent an almighty explosion. Can't they quit the equivocal bullshit?It's broken. It ain't working. It's dangerous. It's making people ill. It's putting people at risk. People are being killed, or killing themselves, or killing others. BECAUSE. PROBATION. IS. FUCKED.

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There's a whole bag of reasons why recruitment is so difficult. One of them must be fear of finding yourself in the position of Kathryn Oakley in the Connor Marshall inquest. Just over a year in and buried under a caseload far too big, the shits hit the fan, and she's been hung out to dry with all the failures of the private CRC owners being hung around her neck.

The verdict of the inquest is set to be given tomorrow, and although Ms Oakley will inevitably shoulder much blame, I have a feeling that the CRC owners will be vilified far more then they are expecting. There have been several such inquests in the last couple of years in Wales that the CRC owners have sought to apportion blame everywhere and anywhere other then themselves. There's all the inspectorate reports since TR that outline serious failings, staff shortages and high caseloads. 

Leanne Wood leader of Plaid Cymru (herself from notable a probation career), has constantly brought the failings of the Welsh CRC to the attention of Parliament, and called for an end to TR, and the coroner himself Nadim Bashir, often to be found as a prosecutor to the Armed Forces can smell a rat a mile away. 

At the end of the article flagged there's some key facts about the inquest, and some of them disgust me. It's almost like the CRC owners feel entitled to get away with no blame at all, whilst throwing others under the bus should be accepted as good business practice, and doing your bit to absolve the owners is a good career prospect. I hope tomorrows verdict is severe and harsh hitting on them and the MoJ too for that matter.

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And in that timeline of the evidence being provided to the inquest come some stunning lines:

- When asked if there was an increase in caseloads, she said: “I don’t think there was an increase but a change in workload. They now had a caseload where 85%of those cases were in the community or community orders.”

- “You can hold more medium risk cases than higher risk cases because of the intensity involved in those cases.”

- “There was a degree of change and different managers but there was no difficulty in recruiting managers.”

- "staff would have a workload of what we would expect, 40 for a probation officer and 60 for a probation service officer.”

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Are CRC staff finding resistance from NPS staff regarding the reunification of offender management? No-one wanted the split but there now seems to be a lot of hostility, perhaps those in the NPS have come to believe they are elite.

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The job of a Probation Officer has become that of an administrator. You will find more men in UPW because you get out of the office into our communities - the one the Probation Service is supposed to serve.

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A tad rose-tinted. Let’s not pretend ‘probation’ didn’t have issues as Trusts, Areas, the Aftercare Service and whatever came before. Clearly you’ve been practising for over 30 years (in the same job!?), well done (not!). Rather than adding to the dead-weight of agency PO’s currently milking and propping up CRC’s, perhaps it’s time to hang up your sandals and retire.

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One thing that always puzzles me about probation is why former offenders aren't recruited more to work in the field. They have first hand knowledge of the system and how it works which so many of those with big shiny degrees don't have. And after their licence has expired or after so long with no further convictions there shouldn't be any issues in passing checks. Plus they will be able to develop better relationships with those under their supervision because they will be more trusted and will more likely know when they are being fed a load of bullshit or that there are worrying signs that could lead to major issues.

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I've a slew of convictions from my teens, including time in custody. Nearly 20 years as a PO now. I'm not a "better" PO than my colleagues but I can genuinely empathise with the people I work with and understand how Adverse Childhood Experiences lead to the commission of crime.

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I’m what you’d label a ‘former offender’. Just under 2 years in the DC/Borstal estate as a youth. Both as a remand and convicted prisoner on separate occasions. A brutal ‘watch your back’ , ‘dog eat dog’, ‘prey on the weak’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ type situation. I did okay mostly, but absolutely no rehabilitation and I was categorised “too smart” for education programmes. After discharge as a very volatile and guarded young person, all I had achieved was to become an expert on the wings at snooker and table tennis. It was a very bizarre feeling after time away, back to the old life, with new criminally entrepreneurial ideas and even less job prospects.

Prison wasn’t all bad as it did instill a lifelong resilience and toughness. Although I aimed to ‘go straight’ it wasn’t long until I had been stabbed, shot at and was on the verge of further downfall. At that young teen-age I believed this was everyone else’s fault, but karma went my way and I ended up in university and gained a ‘shiny degree’ while swallowing my pride earning a living in really basic jobs. A few of my lecturers were former probation officers, and a few more gritty jobs later, I took the inspiration I gained from my professors and trained as a probation officer. It wasn’t easy, I was turned down at first application, and the criminal record has always had to be explained and a closely guarded secret.

I’m ever grateful to my first probation interviewers I disclosed to in interview who deviated from the script to acknowledge me as a person and the probation employers that gave me. Sadly probation has no facility to harness what me and people like me offer. The academics write about social responsibility but this doesn’t exist and despite our aims and values, probation is no longer about helping and rewarding change.

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Similar experience, i.e. recruited by an inspirational PO as part of an experimental project, progressed into a variety of associated paid roles, then later accepted for sponsored Probation training - with previous convictions. It was not easy persuading 'suits with attitude' & I had to lodge a formal complaint about one of the interviewers from 'the centre' which resulted in the panel striking out his prejudicial comments & offering me a place. But my card was marked from that day forwards and it was made clear by a subsequent employer that no meteoric rise was ever going to available to me. The old chums network has a long memory & an even longer scope of influence. It isn't just HMPPS that hold grudges.

Particularly over the later years of my PO career I came across similarly narrow-minded, jaundiced prejudice from several senior managers. They were generally incompetent but 'in favour' & have since scurried up the sleazy pole like hungry ferrets, embracing the 'new world' of NPS/CRCs, always seeming to pop-up wherever there's the stench of cash. Some have received handsome pay-offs, some are still milking the merry-go-round. I am retired from Probation after 25 years & nothing will tempt me back.

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 Sorry to hear that too. This is why many with past convictions keep schtum. Once upon a time an ACO gave me the ‘advice’ “your probation colleagues are not ready to hear your story”. She had a past conviction too and was “disappointed” that academics and justice organisations were falling over themselves to contract lifers they’d spoon-fed to complete PHD’s and wheel out ‘reformed offenders’ that’d tell gory tales of crime and punishment, but probation and legal professions refused to promote those that had self-reformed, become qualified professionals and then reformed countless others.

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Resonates with me too. I left the service due to ill health, disability but was a PO for 16 years. When the split happened I had a harrowing time with vetting procedures. Turned down, appealed, turned down. Relates to offences that took place 20 years ago. I too had been open about my background when I was recruited as a trainee. I hated the way the service was changing, the watering down of qualifications and the lack of diversity in recruitment. It definitely contributed to my declining ill health. Saying that I haven't looked back but am saddened when I hear of old colleague's who remain in the service and are currently facing similar experiences and treatment.

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Sad to hear this. It’s criminal that probation are allowed to penalise employees in this way. Firstly, vetting is a police method that should not apply to probation. Secondly, they should not be able to force employees out of roles for historic matters that have already been disclosed many years ago. ... and then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

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Why are more EX-SU’s not recruited to probation? This answer can be broken down into two parts, Police systems/vetting and political/society requirements. Probation will soon be contributing to a Police computer system and this requires near police officer vetting. Things like your past offences, your last 6-10-year finances, checks on your mother, father, step family, your brother, sister, partner, ex-partner. They also ask if you know anyone with a criminal offence, for example friend or sister’s boyfriend etc. If the police are not convinced that you are at their standards then they will simply reject you, which will mean you can’t work in the community. I believe that as a result probation are now or soon will be rejecting new recruits on these grounds.

On the job itself I’m not sure the ex SU’s you imply would cope with how probation is now, I shall explain. Contemporary society’s attitude in relation to crime are more draconian now than at any time since the 1950’’s or early 60’s, society is becoming more hang ’em high and flog‘em publicly brigade. Probation is now more politically managed. The ex-SU’s that you speak of would be PO’s and PSO’s with no say over the running of the service or it’s ideology. A SU has an issue, the PO writes 48 pages on risk posed and reduction using control, 2 pages on support. Housing for SU’s in the South East/London nearly none, Drug Services cut to minimum support, ETE: here’s some course names. PO’s/PSO’s spend 70% of their time at a disk documenting. Probation say that PO’s/PSO’s are experts in “Risk” assessing and management. A SU commits a Serious Offence, questions: What checks did you do? What programmes did you put him on regardless? what warnings did you give or why didn’t you look at recall? That’s what flog ‘em Joe Public wants, that’s what politicians want and so that’s what Probation must do as that’s its funding stream, its promotions and how people keep their jobs.

Does it work? Well that depends on how “you” measure it, it must work for some influential people or it wouldn’t continue like this and it’s not going back to the philosophy of the 1980’s this generation.

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We do employ ‘ex-offenders’, but this must be diminishing with increasing restrictions and vetting upon probation professionals. In the UK there are many speakers, academics and professors lauded for their expertise and insight due to ‘lived experiences’, David Honeywell, Jason Warr and Erwin James to name a few. We never hear about probation officers with similar backgrounds even though they are reforming offenders rather than merely talking about it. In fact, we are subliminally influenced not to mention they exist and what they bring to probation and the CJS.

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Square peg in a round hole. Others like myself appear to write a fair bit on here. Back in the 1990's I was given the opportunity to become a PSO within my local Trust. I was proud of what I had achieved, however, within my dark past was a criminal history. Of course it didn't take long for it to be known, and I knew lots of Probation staff were waiting for me to fail and then gloat and say 'we told you so'. Well I didn't.

I had to work 10x harder than most and refused to be sidelined because of my past, but honestly, I never did fit in. Even when I qualified as a PO there were the doubters who contested how this 'misfit' could become 'one of them'. What I can say though, is that I had 20 plus years of a job I loved, the clients were my joy and the staff were my friends. Once I stopped caring about what staff thought of me and my unusual practise, I was in my element with the clients. I was able to see a blagger in seconds and knew how to develop professional relationships, based on trust. 

Sadly I left, partly to do with the crumbling of a service that served me so well, but also due to a calling I couldn't refuse. So the moral of the story is, employ more square pegs like myself, because the benefits outweigh some obnoxious staff and policies preventing staff with the know how to come into a service that needs them.

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Well done you got past the selfish snobbery of every incompetent and secret snide fascist attitudes of the PO structure. All of them without much fail hold elitist self determine entitlement that pervades into every corner. Discriminatory behaviour is their hidden love of only what we can approve gets on. They hate the idea of bright intelligent streetwise practitioner doing the job they just can't from the gloss of text book life. Study is no substitute for real life experiences the blond ambitions of the dizzy 20 something female brigade won't last as they get stalked or harassed and leave in droves. All said it is not an employee based organisation that respects nor reflects its communities unless your middle class well spoken to a large degree and well in on that career path that say you are a person like them not like you and your better off without their endorsement. PO snob Tossers.

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Meanwhile the poor underpaid probation officers and admin doing all the work and the offenders in need of a home and a job, who really don’t give a toss, NPS header paper can now state 5-star EFQM, would be lucky to get free tea and biscuits from probation!

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Oh, I don't know, how about some actual CPD maybe? Perhaps the type that lends us some kind of externally recognisable professional credibility, which is funded,comes with workload relief and is accessible to all. Instead we get Insights; tokenistic, self congratulatory BS, entwined around prison service propaganda. Despite living and and working in a large city there were no events accessible to me providing a meaningful 'opportunity' that I couldn't have arranged myself, the vast majority of what was arranged would have demanded at least one day out of the office, hours of lost time travelling and with no work load relief. No thanks.

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And in Bitesize for lazy dimwits like me:

* 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

* The number of staff in post has fallen short of the target since 2015; at the same time, the NPS caseload has increased.

* 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.

* the reported shortage of CRC probation officers has recently changed from 40+ to 500.

* 615 + 500 = 1115 vacancies across probation provision

* How many unallocated cases is that? 30,000?

* No wonder that, in HMIP's view, "many probation officers have unacceptably high workloads."

But in a parallel universe far, far removed from reality the BQF said: "Innovation and creativity was seen across the business in [NPS] service delivery and business processes and leaders are committed to ensuring an increasingly inclusive and engaged culture of excellence for all stakeholders."

Breaking News - THE EMPEROR IS BOLLOCK-NAKED; & HE HAS BEEN FOR AT LEAST A DECADE NOW. Is anyone ever going to put a stop to the pocket-stuffing liars & cheats moving from one job to another, awarding themselves gongs & bonuses & fake trophies while stealing public funds? Is anyone going to stand up to these bullies, who treat hard-working, committed professional staff like shit? I tried, got hung out to dry & kicked overboard. But I was a lonely voice when everyone was whacking themselves off over the "exciting new opportunity" that was TR, the promised land of innovation & reward. Now there's unequivocal published evidence to prove what a shower of shit it is.

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It’s ironic that an organisation based on rehabilitation and reform also penalises and sacks its own staff for being rehabilitated and reformed.

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Once more for luck - THE EMPEROR IS BOLLOCK-NAKED I stood up, I spoke out, I went from £2500 a month as a PO to £500 a month as a barista. Its hard. I've had to make some big sacrifices. But I'm free. My heart is lighter. My conscience is clear. Free from bullying, from colluding with liars & cheats, from saying "everything is okay." Free from stringing-along a caseload of people trying to find somewhere to live, wanting to attend a training programme, needing to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist or a counsellor or a mental health practitioner or a social worker. Free from pretending I was making anyone safer.

Justin Russell is starting to speak out - TR & the new world of probation is shit. Peter Clarke is speaking out - Prisons have been shit for ages, whether for adults or children. And when a 'top leader' was recently asked about diversity in recruitment, this was the reply: "I haven’t got the figures to hand but we have got a way to go. We’ve been working on it for as long as I’ve being involved with trainees in 2005. Any thoughts and ideas gratefully received..."

Its your future. Your career. Make A Stand for an independent, professional Probation Service - before its too late. You're already halfway to falling into Priti Patel's lap. She's made her intentions clear today...

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Re: Training in prisons. In my experience it does not exist. You are dumped there not inducted or trained although the job and rules are different and just expected to guess at the job. Each prison operates differently also. As for diversity forget it, not considered by the prisons for staff certainly and even for offenders which surprises me as they usually put their needs at a higher priority.