Time To Call Time On OASys

Blogging is a funny old business and I'm left a bit puzzled as to why things took off on Sunday with 2,900 hits, more than double the normal 1,500 we've been bumping along on for some weeks. Yesterday was the same with twice the readership. Is it concern of an impending public sector pay freeze, something kicking-off I'm blissfully unaware of, or is concern about OASys hitting a nerve? I'd really love to believe the latter, not least because I've been banging on about that for years.

There are a number of contenders for when and how the demise of probation started, but my money is firmly on OASys and personally I think history may well record it was the proverbial final nail in the coffin. Like many who've been around for some time, I can remember its experimental arrival, initially in paper format, before being firmly imposed on us all via the bloody computer terminal. 

It will always be a source of much genuine mystification and disbelief that such a fiendish invention could be introduced without those in senior management positions having a clue as to how long the damned thing took to fill in. I well recall in a most unusual outburst of insubordination at an area conference, firing a question at the then CPO Sue Hall, asking if she had any idea? To my utter astonishment she replied, "No Jim - how long does it take?"  "About four hours" I replied, to which there was a chorus from behind of, "and the rest!"  

Actually 'astonishment' is not a strong enough word given the devastating effect OASys has had on productivity, effectiveness, morale, sickness, early retirement and resignations over subsequent years. And that's before you take into account the effective killing-off of the PSR, the once absolute keystone of our work. Who in their right mind thought up and signed off on a bloody button marked 'generate report' believing anything useful would result? Like many, for years I simply threw the resulting garbage away and wrote a proper report. 

I eventually got into trouble of course and was identified as completing OASys in a 'cursory manner', as a result of which I had to undergo behavioural modification administered by a rather sheepish and freshly-promoted 'Senior Practitioner'. The eventual outcome was an ability to be rather more skilled in faking interest in the process, hiding my disdain, together with the development of a certain degree of competence in the art of 'cutting and pasting'.      

The effect of OASys on our profession has been nothing short of devastating, criminal almost, a situation confirmed by all the worthy reports over the subsequent 18 years highlighting just how little time is actually spent in contact with clients. OASys has literally chained us to the computer. Can't anyone in authority join some dots up and see cause and effect? It's not as if I'm rooted in the past and just a dinosaur here either. This from yesterday by someone considerably younger:-

"4 hours for a review on an OASys that was completed a few months prior. About 7-8 hours on one from scratch. At least."

The following contribution came in late on Sunday night and deserves attention:-

"The comment that OASYS was considered the "foremost risk assessment tool for the purposes of sentence management and resettlement" was written in 2010 (just 8 years after OASYS was rolled out) and itself was highly subjective and had no evidence to back it up - as I recall it, it was NOMS and the people who authored OASYS itself described it as such - I guess the fact that it "calculated" statistical risk scores in conjunction with personal assessment made it unique and "world beating" at the time, and I have no doubt that the statistical scoring underlying it is highly sophisticated.

But let us consider what is the purpose of OASYS?...to identify the "risks and needs" associated with an individual's offending and ultimately to slap a label of risk against them. I just don't see how filling out 38 pages of shit is helping that process....after meeting the individual and collating all the info together, writing a few paragraphs to identify which areas of that person's life were likely to have contributed to their offending/risk against a list of crappy "areas" such as "thinking" and "emotions" does NOT take 4 hours of tappety tapping - it drains the soul, it drains the energy, it drains ALL of our resource so that we have been left with virtually nothing else to offer.

Nobody is saying that a written piece of well thought out evidence justifying the "regime" of licence conditions and so on is not required. But I felt so sad reading the research referenced in the previous blog post, that we are NOT equipped to identify or address the range of complex psychological risk factors they referred to - OASYS does NOT help us to do that, unless "thinking" and "attitudes" are the risk factors the report authors were referring to?

It just makes me so angry because we could be so much more and ARE so much more....and yet the organisation has piled so much emphasis onto OASYS and its meticulous completion that it has sucked out everything else that we could possibly do. The organisation's answer to pretty much everything is "make sure you update OASYS" not "make sure you do X or Y to ensure the individual and potential victims are safe". It's tragic."

Powerful stuff, and taken together with other recent contributions, brings me to my main point. In the absence of any clear probation leadership nowadays and as we become ever-more strangled by the dead hand of HMPPS control, where can we turn to be able to effect change, influence policy and hopefully save our profession before it's too late? How about the Probation Institute? or Justice Select Committee? Perhaps HM Inspectorate? or Napo even?

Well, regarding the latter, I'd recommend readers view the recent pedestrian AGM addresses both from by Katie Lomas, National Chair, and Ian Lawrence, General Secretary. Given the parlous state we find ourselves in, I suspect many will find the contributions both disappointing and hardly inspiring.

Clearly the situation is not looking good, but dare I suggest we take inspiration from an unsolicited and surprising contact earlier made in February this year and on publication of that National Audit Office report that pre-empted the final demise of TR. Maybe the answer lies with us all individually finding ways of making our views known, safely and anonymously, because it just might have an effect? Clearly people do read this stuff:- 

"Dear Jim,

The National Audit Office has today published a report on Improving the Prison Estate which we hope will be of interest to your subscribers. You can find a link to our report here: https://www.nao.org.uk/report/improving-the-prison-estate/

We have found your blog to be an excellent source of information on developments in probation and prisons sectors, particularly in terms of canvassing a broad range of perspectives from practitioners on the ground.

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You may be interested to know that previous discussion threads on your blog helped to inform our approach to data collection and fieldwork for our value for money study on Transforming Rehabilitation: Progress Review which we published in March last year. This, combined with insights from our focus groups with probation officers, culminated in Figure 4 of the report which examined workload rates across different National Probation Service sub-regions."

--oo00oo--

Finally, it's worth bearing in mind as regular reader 'Getafix pointed out on Friday, there are concerns about OASys everywhere, often including the subject of the exercise. This from Insidetime:- 

OASys … what’s the story?

The Offender Assessment System (OASys) is a risk and assessment tool designed to help prison and probation manage offenders consistently and effectively (according to PSO2205). However, it is apparent that the actual assessment and subsequent report is applied inconsistently, with many offenders feeling angry and betrayed at the sheer ineptitude.

Many complain of subjective comments, made-up comments, contradictions, boxes incorrectly ticked, incorrect factual information, unsubstantiated claims (by the assessor) and wording (such as ‘in denial’) that could lead to legal challenges for those maintaining innocence.

Most offenders sentenced to twelve months or more must have an OASys assessment as part of their induction process or within eight weeks of being in custody. However, many inmates are unaware they are being assessed when they meet their OMU and Probation as it is not made clear to them prior to, or at the start of the meeting. You are likely to be asked about your offence, your family background, education, work, health, drugs, alcohol etc., and you have the right not to respond to any or all the questions if you so wish – you can also refuse the meeting.

Some weeks later you will receive a three/four page OASys assessment from your OMU, which shows your sentence plan, current and future objectives. This is a fraction of the full assessment (which is some fifty-plus pages) but unless you ask for it you won’t get it. However you do need to see it, because the details and scoring (based on what you say in the assessment meeting) in the full OASys determines your risk (high, medium or low) which may not be correct, as assessors and supervisors are failing to thoroughly complete and check content and quality assure the assessment.

Read it through carefully and make notes on everything you feel is incorrect, inaccurate and speculation/subjective comments. Note what you want changing and the reasons why. In some cases it will be blatantly obvious what is wrong. My advice is that you then write to your OMU or Probation to say you’ve read the assessment and found inaccuracies, discrepancies and items that need to be changed before you agree to the assessment as accurate and how do you suggest we proceed? If a meeting is suggested, have your notes ready and your copy of the assessment. Go through the points and make detailed notes of what is agreed and what is not agreed; then ask for a new assessment to be sent to you. If that doesn’t happen, you might want to instruct a solicitor and let them handle everything.

I’m sure the OASys assessment is being used properly by the vast majority of OMU/Probation, but not in all cases, not consistently, and not to high standards of quality. It’s your responsibility to do something about this. If you don’t you may find things difficult during your sentence and when released on licence.