A Defining Moment

I'm extremely grateful to the contributor who took the trouble yesterday to craft what I feel is a defining but succinct exposition regarding our current situation. I think it's so significant I don't want to lose it within an ever-growing comment thread, so have decided to publish it here today with only minor amendments. In effect it confirms much of the scale and nature of the journey we've been on together and why the tone and atmosphere is changing in increasingly fractious ways.

"A concerned PO" - the present unsatisfactory state of affairs has been a long time coming. Ever since the Probation Service was politicised, which enabled manipulative careerist managers to exploit the rarefied atmospheres of the organisations they worked in.

Where previously there had been a social work ethos which, despite a hierarchical structure, held tightly onto principles of taking good care of staff and fighting for the rights of those the services worked with.

Some said it was a naiive world, some said it wrapped staff in cotton wool, some said it was unrealistic - but on the whole it tended to promote a positive workplace & lifestyle culture of looking after each other. It wasn't trendy, it wasn't cool, it was the butt of many jokes, but it DID keep many people safe. In the 70's & 80's the Probation Service had an enviable reputation for being a good employer if you identified as BAME, LGBT, differently abled, if you brought different skills or experiences or cultures. Similarly Napo was pro-active with ABPO, LAGIP, etc. Where are they now?

Cut to the 90's and the political influences were already eroding the Probation Service. Probation studies were excised from the social work courses and set apart (the recent blog on Paul Senior's efforts documented that), replacing "advise assist & befriend" with enforcement, control & command, and the bizarre catch-all "public protection".

The noughties had barely arrived - "As part of a widespread review of the criminal justice system, in March 2003 the Government commissioned the businessman Patrick Carter (now Lord Carter of Coles) to review correctional services in England and Wales, with the objective of establishing a "credible and effective system, which is focused on reducing crime and maintaining public confidence, whilst remaining affordable."

And what came with it?

"On 6 January 2004, in an instant response to the Carter Report published the same day, the Government announced the establishment of an integrated National Offender Management Service (NOMS) which would have the twin aims of reducing re-offending and providing end-to-end management of offenders."

And thus the 'modern' probation service was created, with its new target-driven imperatives within the command and control structure of NOMS. Henceforth the notion of a safe workplace, a protected workplace, a creative workplace was thrown out of the top floor window. The idea that Probation professionals would design and run their profession was gone.

"On 20 July 2004, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Correctional Services and Reducing Re-offending, Mr Paul Goggins MP, announced that the Government had decided to postpone its original proposal for the immediate establishment of NOMS' ten regional boards and the separation of Probation staff into 'offender management' and 'intervention'..."

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhaff/193/19306.htm

The tsunami of policy & structural change, restruture and reimagined targets battered the probation services until, eventually, they were fragmented into Trusts:

House of Lords, March 2008: "The provisions in Part 1 of the Offender Management Act 2007 make two distinct changes from the previous legislation on probation provision, the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. First, the Offender Management Act 2007 places the statutory duty for the provision of probation services on to the Secretary of State. Under the 2000 Act, this statutory duty had been placed on local probation boards. Secondly, the Offender Management Act 2007 allows for the establishment of probation trusts, as the public sector bodies to provide probation services, and to eventually replace local probation boards."

So from 2000 on the bullying, back-biting, undermining & generally abusive culture prevalent in many organisations finally found its way into the probation world. It has grown into an unpleasant tumour full of resentment, vindictive acts, nepotism, exclusion, greed & opportunism.

Those vile, damaging traits of career bullies have been fostered and encouraged by NOMS/HMPPS under the guise of ambition and talent, bringing forth the non sequiturs of going forward, it is what it is, we are where we are.

And so, we end up with a frightened, angry and excluded workforce who want to express their anger. People who want to say the organisations they labour under are bullies without empathy so they come here and cite examples of insensitivity and utter bullshit, of staff being exploited, of staff being treated unfairly.

It's a different world and I'm glad I ain't having to breathe the same toxic air anymore.