Time To Speak Out

This from yesterday's Justice Committee Report:-

"Since Covid-19 hit, around 20% of the NPS staff of 11,000 have been off work each day, putting considerably more stress on remaining employees."

--oo00oo--

The Report generated some strength of feeling:-

I am literally creaking under the weight of my workload (over 150% WMT) My back is aching and my knees click. And NPS had the temerity to offer overtime payments ... for me to do MORE. Not a chance. There is no more blood to be squeezed out of this stone.

*****
To make any progress in unravelling such a shitty position we need to understand how staff are being put in that position.

Bullying?
Threats?
Coercion?
Willingness?
Peer pressure?
Ego?
Ambition?
Hubris?
Ignorance?
Fatigue?

Let's use the extraordinary platform provided using anon posts to try & make progress, understand & make a stand. We know the blog is read & feared by a range of influential decision-makers regardless of their publicly dismissive attitude towards it, e.g. their use of trolls to try & destroy it (a sign of their concern at the blog's value outwith their control). Safely, anonymously but effectively we can unravel the Escher Workload Model.

*****
Having trained as a probation officer approx 12 years ago (albeit jumped ship to a less demanding role within the service, due to burn out and apathy), my observation is that the number of people each person works with has remained relatively stable....but it's the sheer demands of relentless tasks that have increased year on year exponentially. Examples:-

• ARMS assessments
• Delius - HETE data, risk registers, the relentless amount of clicking and trying to write records in ridiculously tiny boxes which don't accept large emails/copies and pastes due to being "too large"/trying to edit them
• Writing case records under 'CRISSA' format
• OASYS QA giving ridiculously prescriptive guidance about every single box, such as "sources of information", "current situation", "offender comments", "assessor comments" - ultimately boxes nobody reads or cares about
• New AP referral for every new ROTL visit (we used to be able to block book them all in advance....not now!)
• Even a simple non AP ROTL has become far more paperwork heavy over the years
• GPS Tagging and all that comes along with it
• Polygraph for sex offenders, and all that comes along with it
• AP placements only lasting 3 months, meaning you never get any respite from "move on" tasks

I could go on but NONE of the above makes ANY DIFFERENCE whatsoever to the service user, or indeed the probation officer working with them. Layers, upon layers, upon layers of additional tasks have been added to a caseload of 40/50 people.....and yet WHY? WHAT FOR? WHAT's the POINT?

So yes guys if we are going to use this blog to organise and you all feel NAPO is not helping, then we need to start a movement from within - no more CRISSA! No more "risk registration updating"! No more filling out stupid boxes in OASYS! No more HETE data, no lengthy ARMS assessments, no meaningless "pull through" OASYs - If we ALL (but it would take each and every one of us) say NO, and focus on the tasks that DO MATTER to us and the SERVICE USER maybe we will switch off at 5/6pm and actually do a better job.

*****
Good points well made. Sounds like staff are doing several jobs where one would do:

- case admin repeated across numerous systems
- case management
- risk assessment
- risk management
- referrals for anything/everything
- tag management
- housing management

"If we ALL (but it would take each and every one of us) say NO, and focus on the tasks that DO MATTER to us and the SERVICE USER maybe we will switch off at 5/6pm and actually do a better job."

--oo00oo--

The future of the Probation Service

Inquiry

Probation services have gone through substantial change in the past five years.

After the financial failure and withdrawal of several CRC providers, the MoJ decided to end CRC contracts 14 months early (during this year) and to return to having a single national probation service for all offenders, but with some services still contracted out to private, voluntary or statutory providers.

On 11 June 2020, The Lord Chancellor announced that the competitive process for Probation Delivery Partner contracts would be ended, and instead these elements of probation delivery would be brought back under the control of the NPS. The new model of probation is due to go live in June 2021.

The Committee’s inquiry will examine the proposed model for the new probation service and seek views on how well the proposed model addresses the problems identified in the past.

Additionally, the Committee will seek to understand the effect Covid-19 has had on the delivery of probation services and what the potential impact may be going forward into the next phase of the Probation Reform Programme.

The deadline for written evidence is 7 September 2020.