My 'Blogger' stats page tells me that there were 2,388 'hits' yesterday, significantly up from the more usual 1,500 that we have been ticking-over on for some time. However, despite this, the number and quality of comment contributions continues to decline. This has mirrored the general trend of decline in total visits to the blog over the last few years. The reasons are pretty clear and have been discussed on several previous occasions.
That dreadful term 'natural wastage' will account for some, along with ever-increasing numbers of disillusioned and discarded staff as the inevitable result of Grayling and TR. Remaining staff have been bullied of course with dire warnings about breaking civil service codes of conduct for using social media inappropriately and by similar threats from the private probation companies. Antagonism from the Union doesn't help, but there's also a discernible change in attitudes and ethos of new recruits to the probation world and this should not be surprising given the journey from a liberal social work ethic to that of bureaucratic command and control.
If I'm completely honest, I'm dreadfully disappointed by the conspicuous lack of response to yesterday's question. Given all the above I shouldn't be surprised, but it's still hard to accept that something you've passionately believed in and fought to preserve is effectively lost. The circle cannot be squared and I guess silence does indeed confirm this state of affairs. And the silence is deafening, from the Union, the Probation Institute as well as practitioners. So, what do we do? On a good day I still feel there's plenty to write about, but this is increasingly feeling like a personal indulgence.
TR2 is happening and TOM is just so much disingenuous crap. There's not the slightest glimmer of anything remotely innovative, and why should there be, drafted as it is in the bloody Ministry of Justice FFS! No, somewhat astonishingly we must now look to the Police for genuine innovation and enlightened practice as they increasingly discover what really works with the disadvantaged, damaged and marginalised in society. And why is this possible? Because they are still largely independent of state control and indeed have a degree of local accountability via PCC's. Probation has simply been trashed, undermined, neutered and about to be completely shackled by state control.
Ok, I got out of bed the wrong side. It's a bad day. We all have them and tomorrow things might look better, but accepting the game is up is hard. Just saying.
"Probation has simply been trashed..." . That sums it up for me Jim and I am tired. Tired of trying to reconcile my professional value base with, increasingly, an organisation whose ethics I don't share. It is difficult to be innovative against that backdrop. I still believe in the job I trained to do. The problem is, I am not sure the Probation Officer I am is what is wanted anymore. After a long career, much of which I have enjoyed but has more recently come at a cost, I feel utterly stuck. It angers me that "probation" is rarely acknowledged and that NAPO are so conspicuous in their silence. Up until TR I believed, maybe naively, that I had a voice; the right to an opinion and the freedom to express it. A genuine opportunity to influence. Now I know I don't have that. I may be consulted, yes, but it feels a shallow effort.
ReplyDeleteAnon 08:20 Thanks for responding and voicing what I know to be a view held by many still trying to reconcile their beliefs in a profession undergoing such a cultural and organisational shift. I think it's important to know there is still a contrarian view and having it confirmed is spiritually uplifting. Thanks comrade!
Delete"On a good day I still feel there's plenty to write about, but this is increasingly feeling like a personal indulgence."
ReplyDeleteYou are right that there IS plenty to write about - plenty to rage against, to highlight, to expose, to discuss, to debate, to argue.
And without wanting to be anything other than objective I would argue the blog is NOT an indulgence on your part. Through your efforts this blog has proved itself in so many ways:
- as a place of safety
- as a means of release
- as a forum for disclosure
- as a source of information support & comfort for many
- as a warts-&-all record of wanton vandalism by the political classes
- exposing the lies, greed & blatant dishonesty associated with TR
- highlighting the capitulation & collaboration by those who have placed personal agendas above anything else
Who wants a square circle anyway?
Anon 08:43 Thanks.
DeleteHi Jim,
ReplyDeleteWhen the bad days on which you get out of the wrong side of the bed all merge into one, it’s time to take stock.
Like 08:20 I am increasingly a fish out of water For many of the same reasons. I see little point to the current probation service, we lack an identified role in the CJS and merely carry out functions which can easily be picked up by other agencies or dare I say it, call centre staff or their equivalent.
Leadership is non existent from either side, and NAPO have simply disappeared without trace.
In my view, the decline goes back beyond TR to the fight over pensions when the baby boomers sacrificed half a days pay then rushed back into the office next day so as not to inconvenience the courts, ( you couldn’t make it up) while the ‘ new breed,’ of wannabes crossed the picket lines and jeered. If ever there was a green light for employers, that was it, but we are all paying the price for it now.
I suspect that we will have good days and bad days, small scale victories and major defeats before the last embers of the probation service as we know it are finally extinguished in what will not be a blaze of glory.
It has been a long time coming but I fear the end is nigh, and not all of our colleagues will be saddened.
Those who want a thrusting, dynamic business orientated model and the demise of the dinosaur will eventually get their way but may then realise the meaning of the phrase, ‘ beware what you wish for.’
I am at the end of my career, but if I was having to work until 70, it wouldn’t be in this job I’m afraid. It’s time to move on, bale out, Re-train or suck it up and become part of the machine.
Anon 08:45. Thanks. I often find myself pondering, 'what would I do now if starting out?' Increasingly I think I'd be drawn to the Police, not least because they appear to have the freedom to innovate and be flexible, just like our management of yesteryear. I'm always amazed when learning of yet more initiatives started by PO's in the past and encouraged by a responsive and liberal management.
DeleteI think the probation decline can be traced way back before TR. It started under the Blair government, the new thinking neatly epitomised by Boeteng's 'We are a law enforcement agency.' The destruction of professional autonomy was accomplished by Managerialism which begot the Trusts who took a scorched earth approach to conditions of service, ever-anxious to ape the jingoism of the marketplace. Throw in a weakly supported union, a politically apathetic workforce – and it all ends in tears.
ReplyDeleteAs regards what probation staff are called, I don't think it's that important. It's salaries and conditions that matter. My feeling is that if wages were doubled, no one would give a damn about job titles. I don't think there is enough focus by the union on hard cash.
Making headway is difficult under governments that want things on the cheap and are hostile to the public sector. We also have to contend with cheap sloganeering like 'protection of the public' that is always the litmus test for probation (irrespective of resources) but did not extend to Grenfell Towers or suicides strongly linked to benefit sanctions imposed by the DWP. If we are to be evidence-led, then the experts should be heeded and policy shaped accordingly – but, for now, that's a pipe-dream
Probation operates in a 'hostile environment'. The bullying culture is not incidental – it's part of the ideology – they like to 'move fast and break things'. Priti Patel is the rule, not exemption.
The Unions and in particular Napo who had a lot to say once when they were part of the negotiations process. Not so much these days as the tumbleweed floats across their empty campaigns and hollow rhetoric from the tub thumper. The problems go back as far as anyone can recall now as JB says the older social culture group have nearly all gone. Napo had a genuine and capable press officer and pensions officer training and campaigns profiles. Those specialised activities gave Napo above its weight reputation. This was so often its trade mark. Inclusive member led activists and with a real view of ground level. Sadly reduced to a one man band in the form of the self styled one stop shop general secretary. largely he claims a fame portfolio as the voice and representative across various media and new items but never has anything skilful insightful or knowledgeable to say about the work of probation. Often using missives like " its complicated" No professional committee policies or prepared official statements. In fact when questioned on the big Parliamentary Q and A he didn't even have the knowledge on PO basic salaries and scale. The last big gaff was to write a joint letter to the MOJ asking for a delay to the Wales amalgamation. Failing to appreciate or perhaps understand basic legislation could not be altered. So why write such a fundamental error? It only illustrates Napo are not well led by a one man band. The inability to delegate and promote the skills of others as Napo were once proud is a mark of the paranoid and the incapable leading what might be argued Napo members deserve what they get.
Deletenetnipper at 09:56 Good to hear from you again and as incisive as ever. The reason I think the titles are important is because it helps us keep the brand and identity alive - the esential underlying ethos is easier to dump if the titles go.
Delete"but there's also a discernible change in attitudes and ethos of new recruits to the probation world and this should not be surprising given the journey from a liberal social work ethic to that of bureaucratic command and control."
ReplyDeleteMy probation experiences hail all the way back to the 70s Jim. CQSWs and an open University maths lecturers costume! It was very, very different then, but so was everything else.
The prison population was less then 35 thousand then and violent crime was nothing like it is today. Something was working better.
But things moved to psychological explanations and digitally informed responses to offending. Social solutions went out the window. TVs Cracker and people like Professor David Wilson took the reigns and everything became about academic explanation instead of social response.
I have no doubt probation will eventually be reinvented. The need and success of the old ways are already being recognised albeit as you note, it's the police that's taking the lead on that approach now.
There's a dichotomy that exists in probation today. Not just in practice, but in attitudes and perception and understanding, and to that extent probation is breaking itself from within. Squaring the circle isn't really achievable whilst everyone is seeing different shapes.
Bad days are bad days, I have many of them. But I've been 'well' for a few years now Jim, and that's a lot to do with an old smart phone and your blog.
It may not be any consolation to you today, but sometimes you're doing some good old fashioned probation work without even realising it.
'Getafix
Thanks 'Getafix - your unstinting contributions are always welcome and insightful and I know you have a keen following on here.
Delete"sometimes you're doing some good old fashioned probation work without even realising it." That does indeed give great consolation and I'm really touched by your words.
I left the Probation Service some years ago. I was a Probation Officer in a CRC and I could see what an utter shambles so called Probation work in that CRC had become. I still follow this blog but have stopped commenting because I am remote from the reality of Probation now and risk making uninformed contributions. However, I would like to once again say a huge thanks to you Jim for your huge efforts in sustaining this now epic piece of blogdom.
ReplyDeletehttps://amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/05/midlands-probation-firm-rated-inadequate-over-high-workloads
DeleteAnon 11:32 Thanks for taking the trouble to contribute today. My feeling is that you are most unlikely to offer uninformed comments and I'm sure many would be interested in your observations and thoughts from those early CRC days. I appreciate it's just too painful for many though.
DeleteHi Jim. Thanks for your blog: go too place nearly every day. It grounds me in sharing a safe place with some like minded professionals. Also, helps me to see the wider picture, a lot of my colleagues genuinely dont see much further than their own office car park, so have no sense of the environment we are operating in.
ReplyDeleteI too just feel like jacking it all in nearly all the time, after decades of things only getting worse. But. Thinking about the wider environment, it strikes me that while we have this horrible racist cruel hard right government a) things can only get worse b) it makes us feel anxious and depressed -as a nation I think. Right wing have always loathed probation, its central tenets are completely opposed to theirs. Its not that they dont get it, they hate it. I am not saying that previous other governments have not presided over the erosion: I can well remember reading "We are an enforcement agency" and feeling a cold prickle of unease. I do think though that if there was a change of government this pervading sense of doom and fear might lift a whole lot. So I am hanging on in, advising, assisting and befriending whenever I get the chance to make even a bit of progress with my clients, and thank you for it all Jim.
Anon 13:26 Thanks and it's good to hear that probation practice as many of us continue to know it - 'advise, assist and befriend' is still being undertaken by stealth. All power to you!
DeleteI can't thank you enough for your blog Jim. It kept me informed during the TR years when I was living abroad and had to return because it became clear that our plans were not going to work out. Life rarely gives us what we want. However, I qualified in 2002 and apart from those years abroad, I was, am and always will be a Probation Officer. It was never a job, but a vocation and a calling and there you have it. Recently, I have become disillusioned with the farce that is the bureaucracy and bullying of this uncivil service. I have seen it all. I have also had to endure 2 SFO's and other colleagues I am sure around the country have had more. The process seems to be bugger all to do with learning but more to do with how wonderful hindsight would be how far managers can throw colleagues under the bloody bus with colleagues being matched against a gold standard which no longer exists. With a caseload of 140% what can one do but one's very best. Like others on this blog post earlier I feel beaten and out of place. The training nowadays is inadequate to the task and trainees are flung into the ring to get on with it and more experienced colleagues are too fraught to help. I am feeling more and more like a dinosaur but cannot yet afford to retire. My colleagues value me as I do them, but management? don't make me laugh. In my darker hours I hold to all the good that I have done, all the lives where I have had a positive impact and Desmond Tutu's saying to 'Do your bit of good where you are today, and your bit of good will overwhelm the world'. It doesn't of course, but for all of us out there doing our important work and our bit of good, we should hold to what we have and do achieve, every day. Chin up Jim.
ReplyDeleteAnon 19:08 The picture you paint is sadly all-too-familar and not just via blog, but numerous personal testimonies from good friends and colleagues.
Delete"I was, am and always will be a Probation Officer. It was never a job, but a vocation and a calling and there you have it." I understand fully and share this view. Thanks for taking the trouble today - it's very much appreciated knowing there are still like minds out there. Take care.
Impressive contributions.
ReplyDeleteA thing about probation - is that it is hard to know if it has worked or not - what uplifts are responses from folk who felt the influence from way back - well done Jim Brown.
Ultimately it's down to the individual. Just as a drug addict is very unlikely to seek help to change until they've hit rock bottom so will many people passing through the CJS so many people simply play the game to get through their licence period as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. What most people need from probation is practical help with money, jobs and accommodation not endless restrictions, diatribes and a refusal to help. Once those essentials are sorted then they can turn their attention to the things that caused them to offend. It's like the housing first philosophy to reduce homelessness that Finland has used so well to reduce homelessness. Give people the basics - a decent home, a decent job etc and then they will have the headspace to deal with the offending which could be driven by coercive control, drugs etc
DeleteContribution left today on 'Reality of the Short, Sharp Shock'
ReplyDeletehere:- http://probationmatters.blogspot.com/2019/03/reality-of-short-sharp-shock.html
"I was in a detention centre called Whatton so let me give you a brief insight. First of all at the time I accepted my prescribed punishment after all I did wrong. I have always had manners but manners meant little in DC. However nobody is perfect and at 16 your still learning. In detention centre a person was chucked into the deep end and given no leeway whatsoever. The officers there were ready to use physical violence for little or no reason and a prisoner was very conscious of this. The fear of violence in this place to me was worse than the violence itself. Imagine being in a world where the only law is your captors law and you genuinely fear for your life. I can assure anyone this place ruined many aspects of my life and has had serious knock on effects. Where did they find so many evil officers and put them in one place? Who the hell trained them to have so much hate or did they just follow each other like sheep? Short Sharp Shock, the biggest state endorsed mistake ever made."
There is more of that here - published in The Independent on 22 January 2018, at considerably greater length -
Deleteit concludes: -
"David Greenwood, the head of child abuse at Switalskis Solicitors, is representing dozens of claimants who suffered in youth detention centres.
He said there was a “very definite link” between the abuse and the Thatcherite short, sharp shock policy.
“These guards were given the green light to assault detainees and there were no questions asked,” he said.
“When boys did make complaints when they were released, they were ignored.”
Mr Greenwood said that although he has been contacted by some men who did not reoffend after being released, they were in the minority.
“Most were in for misdemeanours like theft or receiving stolen goods – things you would never send people to youth detention centre for nowadays,” he added.
“The majority have their lives sent down the other path with this kind of treatment, especially with sexual abuse as well.”
HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) said the allegations would be covered by the ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
A HMPPS spokesperson said: “There is already an onquiry looking into these allegations, which is part of the IICSA.
“The allegations of abuse by former members of staff at Medomsley Detention Centre are subject to an ongoing police investigation, therefore it would be inappropriate to comment further.”"
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/youth-detention-centres-abuse-victims-margaret-thatcher-brutal-treatment-eighties-short-sharp-shock-a8166861.html