Napo At Work in London

London remains by far the largest Napo Branch and they had their virtual AGM on Friday. Although not quorate, which is understandable given present difficult circumstances, the comprehensive Branch Reports and draft national AGM Motions provide much insight into current events and concerns as Probation enters yet another period of upheaval and uncertainty.

I'm extremely grateful to the reader for forwarding the following and although a long read, I'm sure much will be of interest to the wider probation community as well as staff everywhere trying to cope with many of the same issues covered here. Material has been omitted where I feel it would be of little interest or relevance to a wider audience. 

Motions for National AGM

Motion 1 : Virtual Supervision?

This Branch believes the relationship between a client and their Probation Officer is one best built on face to face contact. This Branch understands the MOJ has recently interviewed some staff currently working from home about the effectiveness of ‘remote’ supervision.

This Branch has been left with the distinct impression the MOJ interviewers had limited knowledge about the depth and skills involved in managing Probation clients and may be seeking ways in which to justify shutting offices and moving towards more remote working outside of COVID recovery. This contradicts the findings of recent Inspection reports criticising various CRC’s for poor risk management via remote supervision.

We believe long term remote working, instead of face to face Supervision, will seriously limit our ability to assess and manage risk and impact on building relationships within which “interventions” and influence can take place. Thereby damaging our effectiveness and our personal and professional reputations.

We instruct NAPO officers and officials to ensure any move to dilute face to face Supervision is vigorously challenged unless backed up by evidence and appropriate training.

Motion 2 : Re-Set Unconscious Bias Training

The Black Lives Matter campaign/movement has highlighted the important issue of race inequality within the Criminal Justice System.

Training should provide the basis of support and knowledge to ensure staff are culturally aware of the diverse needs of the various communities we work with.

This Branch believes that the current NPS E- Learning module on Unconscious Bias is insufficient to effectively challenge or enhance cultural understanding/anti-discriminatory practice within the rich, diverse working environment of Probation and Family Court staff.

This Branch believes, in order, to achieve a level of cultural competence within Probation and the Family Courts we need to have additional class room learning to support, embed and enhance the E-Learning which is on offer. Truly effective race equality/anti-discriminatory practice training requires the opportunity to challenge and exchange individual experiences.

This Branch instructs Napo Officers and Officials to work alongside the Professional and Training Network to impress upon the HMPPS Learning and Development team the need to improve and enhance the learning experiences of all staff in Probation and Family Court settings.

Motion 3 : Homeworking

This Branch believes homeworking, across Probation and Family Court Services is becoming the ‘new normal’ as the result of the pandemic.

This Branch understands whilst homeworking has benefits for many it needs to be recognised not all people are able to work effectively from home and need better support and sometimes adjustments to workloads when required to.

We also note there is a vast difference between voluntary homeworking and lockdown homeworking.

This Branch instructs NAPO Officers and Officials to develop better, inclusive homeworking policies to support all staff under both voluntary and enforced homeworking situations and campaign and negotiate with our relevant organisations for their adoption.

Motion 4 : Prison OM Role Boundaries

This Branch believes probation staff working in prisons are not being properly recognised or valued for their roles and their role boundaries appear to be unclear to many probation, prison and parole board staff and colleagues. We believe all our staff should be equally valued.

This Branch notes redeployment of Prison Probation staff as part of the COVID-19 EDM demonstrated the lack of importance placed on their day to day work by the Organisation. Requests from Parole Boards indicate they are viewed as administrators. Other colleagues have used them as messenger services.

This Branch views reunification as an opportunity to clarify and reinforce the roles and boundaries for Prison Offender Managers.

We instruct the NEC, Officers and Officials and Probation Negotiating Committee to ensure that role boundaries are better defined and communicated to other agencies to ensure instructions and requests are role appropriate.

Motion 5 : Disability Support?

This Branch believes that it is unacceptable that disabled members continue to be discriminated against by our employer.

This Branch understands Disabled staff continue to suffer from significant delays in obtaining agreed equipment for reasonable adjustments. This is leading to unfair treatment with some staff being placed into capability procedures due to the delays. PQiP students continue to be suspended from the programme after 6-12 months of undertaking the training when the service has failed to provide identified equipment designed to level the playing field between disabled and non-disabled PQiP students. We believe this is discriminatory practice that NAPO needs to challenge.

We call on NAPO to ensure Reasonable Adjustments and procurement/purchasing procedures are included and given a high priority in the reunification process. We also call for NAPO to push for the uncoupling of HR policies from those of prisons and for HR policies to return to be the remit of Probation and Family Court only.

Motion 6 : The Rocky Road to Recovery: Health & Safety in the COVID Workplace’

This Branch notes: As we start the recovery stage, there is an unseemly rush to open offices, courts and other premises. Building risk assessments are being undertaken by sometimes Inexperienced managers with little or no health and safety knowledge or experience often without consultation with the union reps.

We believe this places staff and client safety at serious risk as necessary protections are being overlooked in the rush to return to ‘normal working’

This Branch views the recovery as an opportunity to clarify and reinforce the roles and boundaries for Napo H&S reps.

We instruct the NEC, Officers and Officials to ensure that H&S issues are clearly defined and communicated to all managers to ensure that legal requirements are always adhered to.

This Branch instructs Napo to work to ensure that staff safety is paramount in formulating the future move forward from the emergency measures and to take immediate action where this is not happening.

Motion 7 : Paperless Office At What Cost?

The current pandemic has seen a rush to remove filing cabinets. Admin staff are scanning remaining paper files into NDelius and discarding the file contents.

Staff have seen handwritten notes from recent interviews and historic information not included in the ‘documents to be scanned list’ discarded and lost.

This information for the most part is irreplaceable. Repeating an interview due to missing notes can cause damage to the OM /client relationship as well as delays to Parole reports and other assessments that can damage professional reputations.

This Branch believes we need to include the case managers in decisions about what is scanned into the electronic case file. Admin staff need better training and guidance in what information needs to be retained. Case managers need to write notes and there must be a way they can retain them safely until such time, as they are incorporated into their work. We feel this situation could escalate with reunification and the amalgamation of different information from different companies and different working practices.

This Branch calls for Probation negotiators to raise this matter at reunification meetings to improve processes for scanning information whilst retaining hand written information in accordance with Data Protection measures.

Co-Chair CRC Napo London Branch AGM 2020

Introduction

Looking back over the last 12 months it would be an understatement to say that a lot has happened, but we should look back a bit - perhaps not as far as the start of TR in 2014 but rather to 2018. Few people seem to discuss this stuff so if you find politics boring simply skip this bit and feel free to read it whenever you have difficulty sleeping.

A bit of history

In April 2018 Napo secured NPS employees a significant pay rise that sent shock waves around the probation world because most CRC owners were not in a position to match it although some, including MTC, said they would if they could afford it but they could not. July 2018 when the then Justice Secretary David Gauke announced that CRC contracts were to end two years early in 2020, greater alignment between CRC and NPS areas and more money to keep services going we knew that TR1 was pretty much at and end not least because no commercial operation can deal with a couple of years hacked off the end of a contract like probation with no prospect of renewal. The complexities of contract culture make that situation unviable. It certainly was not the u turn many had hoped for, but it was perhaps a sign that the tide appeared to be turning. From a CRC perspective plans to work differently and innovatively that were supposed to be up and running earlier were now being rolled out later with the prospect of being abandoned before they had been completely rolled out and tweaked – but things still trundled on requiring huge efforts from CRC staff in London in particular.

Then just as we were getting used to one change then there was another big change. In May 2019 Gauke made a further announcement tearing up what were termed ‘irredeemably flawed’ reforms. It meant some services returning to the public sector but not all. So began the planning for TR2 with all the great effort that that has taken. Most of us thought that that was as far as the government were willing to go and that although probation was not going to be completely unified at least most of the core work would be undertaken by those working in the public sector with a significant number of staff prepared to stay in the private sector and continue to develop services such as Community Payback and Interventions including programmes and resettlement. However, as evidence continued to stack up that Transforming Rehabilitation had produced enormous problems pressure increased on ministers to act.

Most of the irredeemable problems seemed to be as result of the split in services as well as some service providers attempting to provide services despite the fact, they did not have adequate resources to do so. Commercial operations cannot run without some significant profit or at a loss for long as those with vested interests get twitchy. For the CRC owners there just was not any money in it and it was not sustainable. Probation was always run lean. Although there are ways to run operations leaner commercially using technologies etc when you are delivering a quality service that relies heavily on human relationships to bring about desired changes and you need to keep the workforce happy and motivated in order to work with their emotions effectively you cannot also pile on the work relentlessly and pay your staff less than their friends and colleagues doing a very similar job in the public sector – even if they are pseudo civil servants.

None of us truly thought BREXIT would cause the seismic changes that it subsequently did in the political landscape propelling Boris Johnson to power let alone the impact upon our little corner of the criminal justice system. In July 2019, Robert Buckland (former Solicitor General and Minister for Prisons and Probation and an ardent Remainer turned equally ardent Leaver) was appointed Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor by incoming Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his eventual BREXIT loyalty as Johnson set about purging his new administration of any who were still supportive of remaining in the EU leaving himself a reduced pool of talent. Buckland did at least have experience before taking his place as fifth
Justice Secretary in three years and the first barrister to take the role since Ken Clarke (who was shuffled off to the back benches in 2012).

Buckland was therefore in danger of being the first Justice Secretary since Clarke who knew anything much about the criminal justice system and had actually met probation staff when he was a working lawyer. Another significant development was the appointment of South East Cambridgeshire MP Lucy Frazer who transferred from Solicitor General, a role she had taken up in May, to take up Buckland’s former junior minster brief with responsibility for prisons and probation. Fraser has followed Buckland up the greasy pole. Napo were keenly interested in what might transpire with BREXIT dominating the agenda and little expectation of the Ministry of Justice pushing forward much of a policy agenda. Early indications from Buckland were that he was his own man with his own ideas but most thought that unlike his
predecessors including Gauke and Rory Stewart he was not expected to do anything, brave, surprising, or radical.

The surprise came of course in June 2020 when it was announced that probation services in England and Wales would once again return to the public sector as part the NPS. This was a cause for initial celebration for many, who just want to be back working with their friends and colleagues, but also something of a disappointing blow and not an entirely satisfactory outcome for those who were working hard to establish innovative services that would remain in the private sector and also the growing number of people who dread becoming pseudo civil servants rather than local government officers - but again this development was more than was expected. Others lament the expected loss of CRC developed cutting edge software tools such as OMNIA and do not trust the MoJ to come up with anything as good in the near future.

Consultations

Before the announcement last month there have been several consultations that have taken place over the last 12 months including a reorganisation of CP that resulted in no redundancies for members. The resulting new structure was agreed in consultation with the unions and features strong H&S support. The new structure was broadly welcomed by members and the wider CP staff group. An interventions consultation has just restarted after being put on hold due to COVID

Representations

All members who requested representation and were eligible were at a bare minimum provided with advice and support and usually a much higher level of support. The quality of representations remains high and all representations carried out by Napo Reps in London and indeed Napo’s hard-working National Reps have been conducted with the utmost professionalism getting satisfactory outcomes for members in all but a very small number of instances. We have successfully appealed both disciplinary and ill health retirement matters, helped resolve numerous disputes, and negotiated hard for individual members to get settlements they would not otherwise have been awarded.

Representatives

We are short of union representatives on the CRC side and it is not hard to imagine why there are fewer union reps in a private company than in the public sector. However, we do have activists throughout the CRC that are supportive of the union in other ways without necessarily stepping into the spotlight. I am grateful to Christopher Morris for being an excellent Vice Chair and safe pair of hands and who has taken on every representation task with enthusiasm.

Pay Negotiation

We have made relatively little progress on substantive pay mainly because MTC have not been able to match or come sufficiently close to the NPS pay deal – that remains Napo’s benchmark – despite indicating that they would like to do so. Unions have persuaded MTC to improve upon offers made but the 2017-18 pay settlement remains unsettled and the 2019-20 settlement is still being negotiated. We will continue to discuss with employers how they might be in a position to move closer to matching pay with other CRC’s and with the NPS before transition. The departure from Napo of Assistant General Secretary Dean Rogers did impact on pay negotiations as it does take a while to build up a rapport with employers and Dean’s advice was always invaluable but I am grateful to General Secretary Ian Lawrence for picking up the baton and more recently AGS Annoesjka Valent.

Transition

As you would expect we are engaging with the employers regarding Transition. Everyone in Napo wants a satisfactory Transition agreement that will see a smooth and fair transition. It would be an understatement to say that there is lots to consider, lots of unanswered questions, and lots to do and the months ahead are going to need all the experience and negotiating skills Napo has available as the devil is always in the detail and there are lots of contractual and other complexities to sort out and not many of us to do it. We have some good relations with HR and senior leaders, so I am hopeful we can get through this. The good news is that the employers seem to be realising at this stage that they will very much need the unions on board from the outset at every level of the process or they may risk making their own tasks a lot more onerous. We will of course continue to safeguard the interests of all members and meet every challenge head on.

BLM

One of the more positive things to come out of the appalling murder of George Floyd is that the spotlight has been turned on the criminalisation and negatively differential treatment of BAME people in various jurisdictions including England and Wales. There have been several reports including the Lammy Report and the government’s own statistical analysis but the information available and the recommendations of reports have not been acted upon calling into question the seriousness of successive governments in tackling the problems discussed. What is needed therefore is not another report describing the problems but rather a commitment to act. I am happy that Napo and other trade unions are urging the government to act rather than commission yet another report. I am proud that Napo is a diverse and inclusive union that fearlessly stands up for our members who may have experienced prejudice or discrimination.

H&S + COVID19

Napo in both LCRC and TVCRC have been working with employers and UNISON to safeguard probation staff since March. As you know COVID19 presents a range of challenges not least because there are sometimes conflicting messages from official sources. MTCs response to the crisis has generally been well received by staff. Napo have been key in ensuring that the employers planned actions are pre- discussed, thought through, put safety of staff and Service Users (SUs) first, and are constructive in all cases. One of the positive things about MTC is that it has always invested well in health and safety with top quality H&S staff. This is understandable as CP for example traditionally generates most serious incidents. We also have HR staff in the CRC who are responsive towards what is going on both at the coal face and by policy and decision makers. We can also make decisions rather than being directed that makes managing arrangements to deal with a crisis a little easier.

Operations have continued with essential reporting of SUs taking place at hubs where I am told safety arrangements are working reasonably well. CP is now restarting in earnest, and this has been done in a planned careful and considered way with few concerns raised – there is always a human element and also pressures from further up the chain who may never have worked in CP to do things more quickly. The unions have obtained assurances that no one will be required to work in a workplace that has not been risk assessed and signed off as safe enough. Members can be reassured that safety comes first as we gradually return to business as usual but there is a long way to go and no doubt many more meetings to come. As you would expect the CRC being a little more technically advanced and faster paced in IT implementation are using technology to check on staff and track concerns including a tool called AssessNet that we can recommend.

That is all folks

I could probably go on for another thirty pages, but I really need to stop. I would like to thank all those members, who have been active in Napo as you are the union. We are a better union for you being an active part of it whether you are working in probation or retired. Now is the time to be in a union and encourage others to join. Many thanks to the rest of the Napo team in London and to, Katie, Ian, Annoesjka from big Napo and also Bev & Dean who have been good friends to London Branch over the years and who are missed.

David Raho
CRC Co-Chair London Branch
30/07/2020

Co-Chair’s Report (NPS) for Branch AGM 2020

This is my final report to AGM, in my current capacity as London Branch NPS Co-Chair. I am not sure where four years (two terms) have gone but it’s here.

To say this year has been strange, is an understatement. The last time we all met as a Branch was in November 2019. How I long for those good old days!! If you remember, the Brexit debate was in full swing and a General Election was underway. Well I will not comment about the election results, suffice to say, I was completely disappointed.

On reflection, I think my year became gradually worse, when faced with the reality that our wonderful Beverley Cole, was going to retire in January 2020. In addition to this was the warning notice from Terry Wilson, that he too was leaving to work closer to home.

By the end of December 2019, the world’s attention was drawn to China and the presence of the deadly Coronavirus. By January 2020, we all watched in dread, the spread of this virus as it moved around the world, infecting and killing people at an alarming rate.

Our decision to cancel the March Branch Meeting, was not made lightly. However, it was the right decision to focus on the health, safety and welfare of our members. London went into Lockdown a few days later as the Pandemic took hold.

The Branch reps, witnessed heightened anxieties amongst staff at work. The focus turned to our family/friends and keeping ourselves safe. I know some of us lost close work colleagues/family and friends and faced the reality of the impact of the new rules as it applies to funerals. I believe we have all become accustomed to the “new norm” with its terminologies, of ‘quarantine, self-isolation, shielding and social distancing.

The NPS restructured Service Delivery and implemented the Exceptional Delivery Model (EDM). This allowed staff to work from home, following strict guidelines, in terms of undertaking ‘Planned Telephone Contact’ with Service Users, in line with risks/control measures. I think it is fair to say, that this model brought more challenges to the daily work most Probation staff were already doing. Morning meetings on Skype/Teams, spreadsheets galore and the 4.00pm afternoon deadline became our ‘new norm’. It just seems that someone, somewhere in the centre dreamed up how to make us all work harder during this already stressful period.

HMPPS, issued various guidance covering lots of scenarios during the Lockdown period. However, confusion reigned amongst NPS staff when the notification came out about a range of COVID-19, Special Payments which were set up for Prison, Probation and HMPPS frontline staff. This was further complicated by the provision of an excess hours’ scheme which the NPS could access, but never did in London.

After much discussion HMPPS decided to pay all NPS staff members £150 (danger money) once they are on the rota in a Reporting Centre. True to form HMPPS/SSCL are yet to pay the full back dated amount to staff. It is important to note that Napo did not agree to this payment, as we would have preferred it for everyone to receive some recognition for efforts made during this stressful period.

In term of Branch work, this spiralled through the roof, before and during lockdown. All Napo Branch Officers and Reps have done their best to give timely advice and support to members via emails, telephone calls and over, Skype/Microsoft Teams. The one thing I have learned over the last six months, is the number of meetings one can fit into a day and a single week!!

Most of my 50% facilities time was quickly eroded trying to fit everything in. However, help was on hand from Charron, Peter and Richard, in particular on the NPS side. As a Branch Exec group, we have endeavoured to keep in touch via various social media platforms most Monday’s of every week.

Member Representations:

London continues to be a busy Branch. I have lost count of the number of representations that has come to the Branch. We appear to have a constant stream of colleagues, in need of support, and are subject to various formal HR processes. Attendance Management, Disciplinaries, Grievances and Performance Management continue to be the top four.

Over the past year we have seen an increase in Disciplinary cases from the ‘Early Look’ case review process after a Serious Further Offence. Please be warned that there is no easing of this process on the horizon and NAPO membership has never been more important than it is today. I do believe this Branch prides itself with the high quality of support/advice and representation to members across all staff grades.

Probation Reform – Reunification

The 11th of June 2020 will undoubtedly be a date to remember in Napo’s history. This was the day, the Secretary of State for Justice, Robert Buckland MP formally announced that all Probation Services will be brought back into public ownership, including Unpaid Work and programmes. This was a complete U turn in government policy, and a “we told you so” bitter/sweet victory for Napo.

I know that some CRC colleagues, are not elated or jumping for joy, in terms of joining NPS. However, the one thing to admire is the way this union fought the Government and was literally the lone TU voice in the campaign against Transforming Rehabilitation (TR). The Great Mistake!! All that wasted money which could have been invested into back into the Service and Criminal Justice partnership agencies. I know the fight is not over yet, with more work to come to get the NPS out of the Civil Service and back into the public sector where it belongs.

Probation NPS Pay Award

It was really disheartening to learn in April 2020, that the NPS would not be able to pay the 2020 increment as promised in the 2018 pay modernisation award. In my view Probation always appears to be at the back of the queue, when it comes to our employers paying us what we deserve and on time. This has caused further misery to staff and has served to decrease staff morale. National Napo will continue to raise our pay concerns at the highest levels and we hope the matter is remedied sooner rather than later. They really need to get it right before the Probation Reform programme is completed.

National AGM 2019

National AGM 2019 was in Cardiff in Wales. Whilst we had booked forty rooms at the Travelodge Hotel in Queen Street, 38 members attended and each year I say with pride that we were the largest represented Branch at National AGM and indeed the most active. All London Branch Motions were carried and have become part of NAPO policy 2019/20. I have always gained a sense of pride to see our London members taking an active role by either contributing to the debates or moving motions.

However, it is all change this year. Due to COVID-19, AGM will not take place at Eastbourne in October 2020. The event will be a virtual event, so this will be interesting. I have now cancelled London Branch room booking with the Cavendish Hotel in Eastbourne.

NPS Joint Consultative Committee JCC

I have attended all the scheduled JCC meetings with Charron. Most of these meetings are now held on Teams and became a weekly occurrence during the first two/three months of lockdown.

We have continued to make strong representations on a range of issues regarding practice and workplace employee matters. Over the past four years, I have seen an improvement in the way we engage with the NPS. This Branch also has a good working relationship with our Director Kilvinder Vigurs and her Senior Leadership Team. Whilst it did not happen overnight, steadfast dedication, hard work, commitment and energy has helped to get us to where we are today.

We currently have a Senior Leadership Team that will listen to our concerns when they are formally raised within this forum. I have seen numerous changes in organisational practice, for example more completions of stress risk assessments (SRA), regular RAAP’s/Work place Passport reviews. All London LDU’s are tasked with collating monthly data, re: sickness, grievances, conduct and disciplinaries, so potential unintended trends in inequalities or potential discrimination can be quickly addressed.

In between the JCC meetings London Branch has been invited to participate in several NPS London All Staff Teleconference, which has been another way of raising the visibility/awareness of London Napo Branch and our activities. I have also taken part in an All London NPS BAME staff Teams event, as part of the organisational response to the Black Lives Matter movement. I was recently elected to the post of National Black NEC Rep in earlier this month. I have also contributed to the NPS Wellbeing Magazine, which is available to all NPS staff.

First Tier Trade Union and Management Meetings

It is now two years since NPS Director Kilvinder Vigurs devised a new structure of TU engagement across London with the aim of promoting TU engagement across the London Clusters. She also wanted to embed the practice of TU engagement with her Senior Management Team. These First Tier Meetings gives each respected HoS, the chance to Chair and resolve local employee related issues before the matter is escalated to the main JCC. We still want to encourage more members to become workplace reps to assist us in representing the two Cluster areas groups in London.

Lastly, I wish to congratulate and welcome the incoming NPS Co-Chair Charron Culnane. We have been together for a decade in the Branch and I dare say, we will be together for a few more years to come.

Unity is strength

Patricia Johnson
Branch Co-Chair NPS
30/07/2020

Annual Report - Vice Chair NPS

To say it has been a strange year is an understatement. Our Branch AGM last year was held in a real meeting place, with members able to attend in person with drinks and socialising afterwards. We are starting the new Branch year with a virtual Branch AGM via Zoom and for many of us this is the ‘new normal’.

The main challenge facing us last year was reunification. The challenges facing us now are how we safeguard the lives of all of our members and service users and meet their individual needs during the COVID-19 situation as we progress from lockdown to getting offices re open and staffed again as well as dealing with the reunification process.

The last physical Branch meeting we held was November 22nd 2019, at Mitre House. Understandably we had to cancel the proposed meetings in March and May due to the restrictions placed on public gatherings by COVID-19.

Pay:

As far as I am aware at the time of writing this report there is no news regarding the outstanding NPS pay award. I understand National NAPO are in ongoing negotiations. Emergency payments during Emergency Delivery Measures (EDM) are just for NPS staff who are front facing. This has caused some ill feeling within NPS with those forced to homework who feel undervalued. Our CRC colleagues are also feeling left out. These differences need to be addressed in future as they can lead to discord at a time we need to be unified. The proposed overtime agreements seem a little more inclusive for NPS staff but there was a very short response time that may have led to many not feeling able to participate.

Representations:

Most of my work this year has been supporting members with advice or representations. Initially we used to do the occasional rep meeting via telephone usually when we had been made aware of a meeting at the last minute. Since lockdown all of our representation work has been done over Skype or Teams. This has brought new challenges but seems to be working well in most cases. Usually when I visit an office for a rep case I tend to do a walkabout, introduce myself and NAPO and leave handouts as a means of profile raising. As we are now virtual we can’t do this and are having to find other means of getting NAPO awareness out there and ensure we continue to maintain visibility.

JCC:

Patricia and I have been attending meetings, via Teams, with senior management and our sister Unions on an almost weekly basis during the COVID -19 emergency giving us the platform to discuss safety concerns around new working patterns as well as support and wellbeing for all of the homeworkers and office rota workers delivering EDM. The meetings around reunification have understandably taken a back seat but are now resuming along with regular JCC’s. We have raised many issues brought to us by our members including home working, shielding, the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on BAME staff and problems with individual and workplace risk assessments.

Inductions:

Patricia and I were attending and speaking at corporate inductions in person. By the time of the Branch AGM we will have delivered our 1st virtual induction to PQUIPs. This is a vital means of raising our profile and recruiting new members.

Homeworking:

Most people are working from home now and those attending offices are only there one or two days a week at the moment. We have adapted but issues have arisen that now need new guidance and policies as a response. We have noted there is a world of difference between those who voluntarily work from home and those who have been forced to by the current situation. Some of our members have home environments that are not conducive to home working, and this needs to be acknowledged and supported by our respective Organisations. We have also noticed there is an assumption that if you are working from home you are available for Skype calls/ meetings etc at any time and members have felt pressured to work longer hours in order to justify, what they are doing.

Women:

I attended the Women In NAPO online conference via Zoom on May 20th 2020. This was a well-attended event. It was my 1st experience of a Zoom meeting with more than 10 participants and it was an eye- opening experience. I was very impressed by how well run it was and how smoothly the event was managed. It gives me confidence for our Branch AGM and the National AGM both being held this year on virtual platforms. I look forward to supporting the excellent work our Women’s Staff Liaison Officer. Sharon Brereton, is undertaking regarding raising awareness of the impact of the menopause on working women and the organisation. She has written an excellent article included in this Annual Report.

Black Lives Matter:

My report would not be complete without mentioning the Black Lives Matter campaign. All lives should matter equally. At the moment we are seeing clear evidence we are nowhere near attaining equality and Black lives need more support from everyone. NAPO has long recognised there are issues across all of the areas we cover.

Service Users are disproportionately from BAME backgrounds. Recall figures also demonstrate we are more likely to recall BAME service users. TACT measures are also disproportionate towards BAME clients especially the new measures put in as a response to the most recent London Bridge attack. Our organisational policies stem from a position of white privilege as does our law. The Union constitution is also one written from this viewpoint. NAPO is working with the NAPO Black Network to look at how we can recognise and remove any inherent racism in our system. NPS London already monitors the ethnicity of staff involved in organisational processes, there is work ongoing about SPDR’s and whether they discriminate against our BAME staff. There is also work ongoing about the impact of COVID -19 on staff from Black and Asian backgrounds in particular and how we can best protect and manage them during the ‘recovery’ period. The Unions are involved in all of this work and will continue to raise issues affecting our Black, Asian and other Ethnic Minority members. We are still at the ‘committee’ stage for a lot of this work and understandably many of our Black members are telling us we should be seeing action plans now not just talk. I want to thank Beverley Smith our Black Staff Liaison Rep for all her help and sage advice. I have a feeling we will be working very closely over the coming year.

National AGM:

I sit on National Steering Committee whose role it is to arrange business at AGM. This includes checking motions, allocating them to various committees or networks, compositing and arranging orders of business as we as overseeing Stewarding arrangements, ballots, emergency motions and constitutional advice for the AGM Chairs as well as timing and recording proceedings. This year is going to be a brand new challenge as we hold the 1st virtual AGM via a host platform. All of our Steering meetings have been via Zoom this year and we have got used to working in this way very quickly. Not bad considering the average age of Steering is 60+ If we can get used to new tech anyone can.

Farewells:

We have had to say farewell to several people who have passed away from COVID related issues this year from NPS and CRC’s across AP’s Court, Offender Management and the Prison Service. We have also lost friends and colleagues to non COVID causes whose loss we cannot mourn due to COVID restrictions. I will not name names but they will all be deeply missed and our thoughts are with their families at this exceptionally difficult time. One of the things NAPO has requested is when we do get back to ‘normal’ a memorial service is held to honour and celebrate all of those we have lost during this time.

Charron Culnane
NPS Vice Chair
20/07/2020

NPS Health & Safety Convenor Report for London Napo AGM 2020

This year has become all about COVID-19, the management response to it and trying to make sure that all members are being treated fairly and are safe, whether they are working at home or in the office. I have been working from home since the end of March and have been involved in H&S issues at the highest level within London NPS. All in all, I believe that we have managed to get the best possible outcomes for staff in terms of safety and preserving health across the region. Thankfully, the number of Covid-related casualties has been relatively low but we continue to be vigilant as the English government recklessly pursues policies which appear to be based on economic rather than public health reasons. Napo and Unison are both involved in policy and decision making ensuring that staff are best looked after. We are hoping to get more members involved in Covid based H&S work over the coming weeks.

In the longer term, it appears that there may be a shift towards more home working for staff and I have been pleasantly surprised that the NPS has been providing staff with all the equipment necessary for safer home working over the past few months. That said, I realise that people are finding home working difficult. Lack of space, lack of real contact with colleagues and the high levels of work are causing a great deal of stress and potential mental health problems to individuals and we are trying to stress the prevalence of this to management. The continued obsession with unrealistic targets throughout the pandemic is a great cause of stress and anxiety to many and this coupled with worry and anxiety about the virus has been taking its toll on staff. There are also many people who have not yet received the equipment they need for safe home working for a variety of reasons and this has resulted in a great many people suffering from musculo-skeletal problems. It is really important that everybody completes the Accident & Incident forms whenever they have problems as otherwise it is impossible to know the real extent of the problem and be able to raise it with management. One of the issues which has been raised is the disparity across the LDUs in terms of the management response to the EDM arrangements and staff wellbeing. These problems are now at the highest management level and we continue to hope that all managers will work to the policies rather than behave in a ‘maverick’ fashion, often to the detriment of their staff.

Prior to the pandemic, inspection of offices across London continued and the probation estate was generally in a sorry state. It does not appear to be getting any better although several offices have been closed, at least to NPS staff. However, some of those acting as hubs have been a concern with some offices having to be deep cleaned on more than one occasion since the EDM came into being. Conditions for staff continue to be unacceptable with some offices in serious states of disrepair. Heating and ventilation problems, rodent and insect infestations and just plain dirtiness still prevail unfortunately.

Overall, we still need at least another H&S rep in London as the volume of work is too much for one rep. There are currently negotiations with management regarding the need for Covid specific reps and the need for facility time.

As previously mentioned, workplace stress continues to be a major issue as does the issue of back problems being experienced by staff carrying around computers and performing ‘agile’ working. It is of great importance that members fill in Accident and Incident forms for all incidents and injuries including stress. I repeat from last year’s report that Kilvinder Vigers has said that the NPS has a duty of care to all employees wherever they are working whether the place is an NPS building or not; this includes staff homes now that many of us are actually working from our homes due to shielding etc.

The putting together of the CRC and NPS is going to be a huge exercise with regard to health & safety and one which does appear to have been acknowledged by senior management. The changes will also have an impact on the organisation of the Napo branch which, in terms of H&S and all other areas, will take into account the new structures.

I’d like to thank Ian Lander from the NPS for his swift response to requests and other issues throughout the year and particularly with regard to the Covid-19 issues. Also a big thanks to the other branch officers for their support and patience with me as I finally get to grips with remote meeting platforms such as Zoom and Skype. All these virtual meetings are fine but I really look forward to the time when I can meet you all in reality!! Even if we do have to socially distanced!!

I’d also like to thank the growing number of members who are contacting me regarding breaches of health & safety, as without them, many issues would be unknown, particularly at the moment when it is not possible for me to actually visit the offices.

Let’s hope the next year is less stressful and anxious than this one

Peter Halsall,
NPS H&S Convenor London Branch
Date: 30/06/2020

NAPO London Branch AR/ERO Annual Report

This is my first full year in post and it has certainly been a potentially progressive year. For society to require the death of a man for it to seem to start listening to the Black Lives Matter protests is a travesty and one many of us have seen gain momentum in previous decades to fade away with little progress being made. However, this feels different and I sincerely hope momentum can be maintained to make serious and long term sustainable change.

The COVID-19 crisis has added to the debate regarding disadvantage caused through links to protective characteristics and the undeniable data linking Black Asian and Minority Ethnic staff to an increased mortality rate need to be continually debated as to why. The argument linking disadvantages associated with protective characteristics to poverty, limited opportunities, crowded accommodation, multi-generational families living together as well as many other issues all relate to increased risk to COVID-19. To be a fully inclusive company lessons have to be learnt regarding all the disadvantages faced by people with protected characteristics so that plans can be put into place to make a move towards a more representative work force. There are ongoing issues that need to be resolved related to Black Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and staff with disabilities being disproportionately represented in staff receiving a ‘needs improvement’ grading in SPDR’s. This is an area that needs to be continuously discussed with senior management about what will be put into place to learn lessons and address this problem to understand why this is the situation. This will be an ongoing issue for me over the next twelve months.

There is an increasing amount of attention being paid by our employer to the wellbeing of us as employees, I’m pleased to say I have input into the monthly Wellbeing Core Groups and will be making clear points about how unfair treatment of employees with protected characteristics is a clear link to deteriorating emotional wellbeing with our members. It is unacceptable that members wait 6, 12 and sometimes 18 months for equipment for Reasonable Adjustments to be in place. It is further unacceptable that members are put on Performance Improvement Plans when Reasonable Adjustments are not in place or the Service has failed to purchase equipment to address disadvantage. This will be a focus of my work in the coming year and I intend to take a collective (anonymous) list of examples of this poor treatment of members with disabilities to the attention of Senior Managers to ensure that as a Service we are compliant with the Equality Act 2010. We cannot fulfil the MOJ’s desire to achieve Equality Accreditation if this practise continues. I hope I have your support to bring such examples to my attention at the earliest opportunity because if we address these issues early they are easier to resolve.

The branch has also paid for me to attend the National Discrimination Law Conference in January 2020. This was a fascinating opportunity which has provided me with a wealth of information related to legal precedents of discrimination cases lost by employers at Employment Tribunals to show the Service that their decisions are putting them in a vulnerable position. This has been a very effective way of making change happen.

Thank you for your time in reading this report and your ongoing support to make Probation an inclusive and supportive employer as we all deserve.

How about this, it is a bit of a political rant but it says exactly what I expect to be tackling in the coming twelve months.

Richard Clark
Disability Advocacy and Wellbeing Network (DAWN)
Area Lead for Probation: London
Date: 09/07/2020