(Wales is a slightly different issue, as is Northern Ireland; and Scotland is different again)
In the last week or so your most senior management team, namely the Chief Exec and the Permanent Secretary, have spent a considerable amount of time telling your paymasters (Parliament) that:
- they are closely monitoring your caseloads
- they know your workloads might be demanding but you're all doing just fine
- local probation leaders report caseloads are high but manageable
- you are all very motivated and excited about the 'reunification', and
- no-one should expect the 'reunification' to bring immediate relief because that won't happen.
I also find it beyond disappointing that your trade unions are not hitting the media with their outrage.
The stunning silence from staff and unions alike is tacit agreement to a gross injustice being played out through the untrue words, the unfair actions and the unrealistic, abusive policies of probation providers (CRC and NPS), HMPPS and - the greatest irony of all - the Ministry of Justice.
I have spent my life and probation career fighting for justice in all forms: justice for staff (as a union rep), justice for clients (as a probation officer), and justice for all (as a human being).
I am, frankly, horrified at the passive acceptance of the abuse being perpetrated upon a once proud profession.
It may be because people are so sick of the cover ups scapegoating and lies that more of the same evokes further feelings of powerlessness. Alison Moss's experience shows they do and don't do just what they like. By they I mean senior management and the organisation as a whole. They have brow
ReplyDeletebeaten down so many staff that survival means not reacting perhaps or internalising feelings. I would have thought a few comments would come though as clearly what they are spouting is not the reality for many many staff members
Not passive: traumatised. TR was traumatic. I opposed it to the best of my ability and beyond my capacity and the impact of that on me is lasting and profound. Sounds self-indulgent? If I were a surgeon/GP/nurse and said that the privatisation and ruin of the service to which I was devoted had been decimated and it trashed me, that would be easily understood and would invite empathy. If an NHS worker said that their identity was tightly bound to their profession that would be accepted, applauded (literally).
ReplyDeleteSince TR the impossible demands on probation staff have piled on and on. Ludicrous caseloads is but one aspect. The “reunification” is, I think, a vaguely positive move, but we are back into “sifting” and yet more upheaval and individual colleagues living on the edge. HMPPS is an appalling organisation to work for, and while the long game might be to fight for a public probation service to unshackle itself from the clutches of this awful department, dominated by political imperatives and the prisons end of business, the short term is so bleak. And exhausting: if I was busting a gut at work to make a difference to public safety and towards my clients living peaceful and fulfilling lives, I would be motivated and uplifted, but that is not the game in town.
Some strong and clear leadership would be a thing to hang some hope on. Employers are failing here: if they were “leading” this profession they would be defending it, not jumping through barely legitimate hoops. What can the Unions do? Nobody is watching or listening. Good MPs -seeing as we are politically driven- would be an asset, but none of the good MPs are in power, not even the Tory ones.
Pearly Gates
Disheartening to read. I would not deny those accounts of demoralisation and exhaustion and level as weak and passive. I think the focus of attention should be on a creed of governing politics that is determined, ugly and incompetent, or if competent uglier the more so.
ReplyDeleteI wrote the comment that became the blog piece above. I was incandescent with rage at the time & it was the tenth edit that I eventually posted. It still wasn't exactly what I wanted to say. The commentators above make an excellent point when they say the staff silence is more about trauma & dismay & fear than apathy or being wilfully complicit.
ReplyDeleteFor that implication, I apologise.
I got lost in my anger & frustration. My target was, and is, those who govern, who police & who impose abusive practices upon others - while they're own behaviours are at best shoddy, piss-poor & dishonest. But it was also aimed at those who are paid to monitor & represent the terms & conditions of their members, i.e. the unions.
Behind a paywall at The Telegraph, Johnson's favourite bell-weather rag, lies this article:
"Stanley Johnson: Why I'm delighted my holiday let loophole has been given legal backing"
Bigoted old man gets paid to write a piece in which he crows & laughs his bollocks off at British public while his son, the country's Prime Minister, makes laws to allow his family to do as they please with impunity.
I read your anger but did not reply. As a rep in a union as you state it should be obvious the rotten management have rotten union friends. Apathy collusion and conspiracy are the hallmarks of Napo over the past 7 years or so. Staff have no Allie to turn to and the revolution may never come for staff terms. Impossible with the current Napo team.
DeleteI echo that the past 4 Napo chairs have been involved in all sorts against the membership. It is appalling and yet constant covered up. NEC have allowed the worst practices.
Delete"Stanley Johnson: Why I'm delighted my holiday let loophole has been given legal backing
ReplyDeleteThe 'Stanley Johnson loophole' means it is perfectly legal to travel abroad for the purpose of getting a property ready for letting
By
Stanley Johnson
26 March 2021 • 9:07am
Twenty years ago, my wife and I built a house in Greece, on a wonderful wooded peninsula known as Pelion, bounded to the east by the Aegean Sea and to the west by the Pagasetic Gulf.
Realistically, many people who own such properties try to rent them out a few weeks a year. The money helps cover the running costs, which in our case, in addition to looking after the house, includes maintaining the swimming pool, tending the olives, repairing the road and making sure the water supply is functioning.
Last year, of course, was special because in addition to all the normal preparations for the rental season, there was Covid to deal with.
On June 30, I received a warning email from Sarah of Real Holidays, Islington, who looks after the rental arrangements for us. “I have looked up the protocols, as advised by the Greek Government,” she wrote, before going on to list a few of them.
All accommodation now had to follow enhanced disinfection and deep cleaning practices, paying special attention to cleaning “high-frequency touch points” such as door handles and elevator knobs. Meticulous cleaning and very good room ventilation had to take place between stays of guests. Fabric surfaces had to be cleaned with a steam appliance. There was plenty more of that sort of thing to consider.
“Finally, I think we also need to have a contingency plan in place should one of the clients contract Covid when they are at the villa,” wrote Sarah. “This will require us to either cancel a subsequent booking or ensure it is cleaned to the standards advised by the Greek authorities.”
Wow! When I received Sarah’s email, I was – as the French put it – totally “bouleversé” (overwhelmed). I reckoned I needed to get out to Pelion fast to put things in order.
There were only two problems. First, there was government guidance to avoid “non-essential” travel. Well, I said to myself, if heading out to Greece for three or four days in advance of the letting season is not “essential” travel (and particularly so given the special Covid-related requirements listed above), maybe we needed a new definition of the word “essential”. If stopped at the airport in the act of boarding a plane to Athens, I was ready to argue my corner.
But a second problem emerged: there were no planes. Though the UK hadn’t red-listed Greece, the Greeks had red-listed the UK by banning direct flights from the UK to Greece. So how on earth was I to get out there?
I rang a Greek journalist working in London. She chose her words carefully. “It is quite true,” she said. “That the Greek Government has banned direct flights.”
When I put the phone down, I recalled that she had put special emphasis on the word “direct”.
Two days later Wizz Air whizzed me off to Sofia with a more-or-less connecting flight to Athens. I say “more or less” because you actually go through passport control in Sofia on arrival and cross town to another terminal where you go through passport control again.
cont "... Whenever I arrive in Greece, my heart jumps for joy and it especially did so that sunny evening. I was whisked through the formalities, swabbed and cleared in a matter of minutes. Before leaving the terminal in a hire car, I posted an Instagram video taken from the plane as we came in to land.
DeleteFour hours later, as I was sitting on the balcony of our villa looking out at the moonlit water of the Pagasetic Gulf, my phone rang. A journalist. What was I doing in Greece? How had I got there?
I have to say the Greek Government could not have been more welcoming. The Greek Minister of Tourism went on TV to explain that my arrival, via Sofia, was totally legal and that they hoped very soon to open an air bridge between Greece and the UK. Michael Mitzikos, the Mayor of South Pelion, joined me for dinner at Martha’s in Horto, the little village below our house, and we raised our glasses together with our hopes for a good summer. Back home, Grant Shapps, our own Transport Minister, I learned, had been equally supportive on TV.
I left Pelion, after four busy days, to fly back to the UK. The first guests arrived a week later, all travel restrictions between the UK and Greece having been lifted.
Parliament, as I understand it, has just agreed that the “Stanley Johnson loophole” should now have the force of law in the sense that it will be totally legal to travel abroad for the purpose of getting a property ready for letting. Cheers! Make that doubles all round!
To rent out the property in question, see irenevilla.com
Read more: At home with Stanley Johnson and family in their Greek villa
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/stanley-johnson-delighted-holiday-let-loophole-has-given-legal/"
Stanley: "Whenever I arrive in Greece, my heart jumps for joy"... early July 2020 UK govt covid-19 death figures were about 41,000
ReplyDeleteMarch 2021 UK govt covid-19 death figures are nearly 127,000... Stanley: "Parliament, as I understand it, has just agreed that the “Stanley Johnson loophole” should now have the force of law... Cheers! Make that doubles all round!"
And he wonders why he and his clown of a child are labelled as vile, pernicious, parasitic scum.
Although I'm generally very glad of the absence of civil unrest, it is sometimes frustrating that the UK population isn't inclined to summon up an angry mob to descend on the addresses of feckin idiots like Stanley Johnson to express their revulsion at such naked greed, self-interest, and utter insensitivity. Sounds like he may even appreciate the impromptu bbq.
DeleteNow now Priti will have them all jailed. Apparantly new legislation makes it a gathering if 3 people stand on a corner talking. Anything louder will be a protest and they will all be nicked. If it's women they will be at risk of being shoved to the ground for looking dangerous. If male a quick blugeon or two and cuffs . If your black male and London there is higher chance of death and serious injury.
Delete