Square Pegs and Round Holes

Seen on Facebook and I suspect an issue that will become increasingly relevant as June rapidly approaches:- 

This cartoon perhaps captures the feeling of some CRC staff contemplating a transition to the NPS with understandable trepidation and also what some NPS staff might want to say in solidarity with CRC colleagues but feel they are not able to do so because of restrictions imposed upon them. Some may even feel their time to speak freely about such matters in their own name is on a countdown before CRC staff join colleagues who are apparently often forced to use anonymous proxies to express how they actually feel.

Probation staff are public servants not civil servants at heart and should not be employed by ministers as civil servants. The service should instead be devolved and probation staff re-categorised as public servants providing public services (much like NHS staff) and operating with a degree of independence from and at arm's length from government.

This devolved service might, for instance, be achieved by establishing properly funded and revitalised regional probation trusts with their own budgets/ability to commission services to meet local needs and a greater degree of autonomy and professional respect and discretion to innovate. No one would seriously argue that the probation service should simply return to 35 probation trusts as before as that system could have benefited from some tweaking.

We have all learned much since 2014 so a new system, not too different from the regional structure, with radically less centralised command and control, could potentially work well particularly if there was a strong commitment to a more collegiate and devolved approach to governance. A central body like the General Medical Council's relationship with NHS Trusts determining professional standards in consultation with regional organisations might perhaps be preferable.

--oo00oo--

Then there was this from yesterday:-

What is probation for? "99% of frontline staff are intelligent, committed and are here to help make peoples' lives a bit more bearable." I like that. I think that makes sense. And the 'people' whose lives they are helping to make more bearable include the victims of crime, the perpetrators of crime & society in general. I would suggest it be noted that 99% of those who manage probation service provision are dedicated to making the lives of their frontline staff unbearable to the point of being untenable.

1. The political imperative is fundamentally flawed
2. The senior civil servants are innately privileged
3. The broader civil service structure is unsuited to recognise, let alone challenge, those fundamental flaws
4. The management structure of NPS has been drawn into the civil service model & is now beyond redemption
5. The CRCs are being swallowed whole by the same flawed organisation that cannot escape political imperative
6. SpAds are dangerous policy wonks who have the ear of their political masters, not least because they were 'chosen' by their politician handler.
7. The cash-rich merry-go-round of the privileged few will always exclude the frontline workers from everything - policy, financial reward, job security

This blog has guested, featured & highlighted any amount of intellectual discussion, policy papers, theoretical pontification, culturally-assured musings, ethical assertions, professional argument, rage, anger, distress, - all very much evidence-based.

And where is probation now? Lying helpless, choking on its own principles, nailed into a civil service coffin, scratching at the blue shroud lining the solid timber case & about to be buried alive in a paupers' pit.

There will, of course, always be those who will try to hold on to the past, who will try to deliver a humane service. But they are few & far between, and as time passes they will become fewer in number & less welcome as the new model gathers momentum.

It was only six years ago I sat in a formal meeting where the CRC Chief Executive - someone who cleared off with a considerable pay-off at the earliest opportunity - was asked a challenging question about retaining 'probation values' in the new CRC.

The CEO verbally abused that long-serving, highly qualified, skilful & experienced colleague in front of the whole meeting. What happened? Everyone kept quiet. No-one (including me, to my eternal shame) uttered a single syllable of challenge - except for the recipient of the abuse, who was given extra lashings until they left the meeting. Not a single rebuke for the big brave CEO.

Now only one other person in our area team remembers that ex-colleague. And they'll be retiring in a months' time. When you hold the power, and you crush all sources of challenge, it doesn't take long to wipe the slate clean & offer a new account of history that celebrates the chosen path.