By email:-
I am a PQiP at Xxxxxxxxxx and have been informed that I am not able to apply for Xxxxxxxxxxxx on the scheme, and I won't be eligible for the scheme at Xxxxxxxxx because I am already a part of the LDU, leaving one Xxxxxxxxxx option. Should I be prevented from leaving, as is likely for operational reasons, I will essentially be discriminated against financially on geographic grounds. Not to mention the resentment caused for my poor long suffering colleagues who would have to work alongside a new intake of much better paid recruits.
--oo00oo--
PQIP learners
January 2021
Dear Learners
January 2021
First Deployment Scheme
As part of the work that we have been doing looking at staffing levels nationwide, a First Deployment Scheme has been developed to assist with staffing in the following regions:
NPS Eastern
NPS London
NPS Kent, Surrey, Sussex
NPS South Central
The posts will be substantive Band 4 Probation Officer roles, and your NQO caseload protections will remain.
As a part of this first deployment to one of the above LDU’s, we will offer you:
- Financial support with accommodation
- Premia payments after completion of 12 and 24 months
- Contributions towards monthly homeward travel
- A guaranteed return to your originating LDU at the end of your deployment (after 24 months)
Further detail of the support offered is set out below.
Which locations are they?
We are offering this opportunity in the following LDU’s (exact office locations to be confirmed as soon as possible):
NPS Eastern – South Essex LDU and Hertfordshire LDU
NPS London – City, Hackney and Tower Hamlets LDU and Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster LDU
NPS Kent, Surrey, Sussex – Isle of Sheppey (Prison – Probation POM roles) and Surrey LDU NPS South Central – Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire LDU
Accommodation and travel costs
As part of the scheme, you would be entitled to the following:
- A monthly payment towards accommodation costs of up to £589 per month outside of London, and £659 within London for the duration of the scheme.
- Costs towards travel home once a month, of up to £100 on each occasion, in line with current public transport rate. However, this element will be dependent upon government restrictions with regards to travel and COVID 19.
- Premia payments totalling £3,000 per candidate (£1,500 at the end of 12 months deployment, £1,500 after 24 months deployment)
- A guarantee of a workplace within a suitable travelling distance of the candidate’s permanent home pre-deployment, at the end of the deployment
Interested? What to do next
We hope you are interested as all these LDU’s offer excellent career opportunities for the start of your Probation Officer careers in HM Prison & Probation Service.
All of the above locations have immediate vacancies. As soon as you have reached your temporary promotion date, we envisage that you will be able to join within 4 weeks.
If you are interested, please advise the person who is co-ordinating the allocation process in you region. Your region will confirm to you who this will be. They will then note your interest and you will be contacted with more information in the coming weeks.
Yours sincerely,
Sonia Flynn
NPS Executive Director
There is no discrimination here. Employers offer vacancies and incentives. Historically open recruitment allowed movement for better terms location whatever. However Napo signed away policies and nnc terms . NPS can lawfully offer posts on certain criteria like it or not but discrimaination it is not. The offer is for staff where they need them under a planned vacancy strategy.
ReplyDeleteThere is certainly discrimination when it comes to probation remuneration. I dont have any problems giving front line nurses extra payments for working with covid patients however dont this should apply across the board to all NHS staff. According to bbc starting salary for a nurse is £24k with the average being £34k. Now I did not come into Probation for money however how much longer are we going to let our lifestyle and future through pensions slip?
ReplyDeleteI had tried to explain the employer's are not discriminating but able lawfully require a criteria. That is reasonable following posters bear this out as done many times past. Discrimination is weakened for genuine cases if we do not apply the claim properly to appropriate chractrristics.
DeleteThe Numbers
ReplyDeleteFor someone taking a 24 month deployment under this scheme it means:
- up to £814 increase outside of London
- closer to £900 a month increase within London
- Salaries for qualified probation officers range from £29,038 to £37,174 (Band 4).
Under this scheme: £29,038 becomes £38,806 in Year One
The NPS has a very unkind approach to staff - if they like you, you're 'IN'; if they don't like you, they make sure you you don't last very long.
DeleteI have described this phenomenon in the past, but the email to 'learners' is a perfect example of how the Trusts/NPS learned to manage their workforce from their masters in the NOMS/HMPPS/civil service culture, i.e. Divide & Rule.
Reward & Nurture obedience; Punish & Destroy those who question, who challenge, who are not compliant, who make trouble, who are 'against us'.
For example, Antonia Romeo. The damage she visited upon the Probation Service will last forever, but she was obedient & compliant & has been richly rewarded. So was Spurr. And Ursula Brennan. And many others who pocketed £hundreds-of-thousands as they walked away, their treachery complete.
This scheme is the loss-leader for the next generation of obedient souls, the primer for the new batch of NPS darlings.
The gnashing & wailing of old dogs stuck at the top of their scale will fall on deaf ears.
Make way for the Young Pups, who will be groomed & well-fed & trained within an inch of their lives to perform the politically expedient tasks of the NPS.
With the aid of utterly useless unions the fuckers have finally done what they set out to achieve some forty years ago, i.e. bring total control of the criminal classes into the shadows, under the wing of a Government Minister.
Now we'll see real Tory justice in action.
God help us, everyone.
Regardless of fairness, I think this is something that will have to become the norm.
ReplyDeleteEven with London Weighting, London if fastly becoming an unserviceable city. The other areas mentioned are also well on the road to facing the same problem.
To keep services operable, and fill vacancies good incentives have to be given to attract employees from further afield.
The real issue for me is that the incentives being offered to attract the newly qualified and not towards those with experience. I think that 'may' have consequences in the future.
I think it also worth noting that getting a bit more for working in these areas dosen't necessarily make you better off. The extra goes out just as quick as it comes in!
'Getafix
The Trusts were able to pay recruitment and retention allowances. I remember this being done in Essex in the offices regarded as in direct competition with the London Boroughs.
ReplyDeleteI think that was to retain existing experience and attract experienced top scale pos was it not. GMT TV fine without morgan mouthing . He really got it very wrong and showed his affinity to the right wingers in my limited opinion.
Delete“Not to mention the resentment caused for my poor long suffering colleagues who would have to work alongside a new intake of much better paid recruits.”
ReplyDeleteThis is a losing argument. Better or worse paid recruits, it makes no difference to me.
Either remain where you are at Band 3, or move where the job is at Band 4.
Simple really.
The issue is that the numbers show you'd have to be Band 5 to be paid at parity with these enhanced posts. Its not a PSO v. PO thing.
DeleteThere is the route to make a proper argument following this point. The disparity in pay when two people are doing the same job on different rate. The comparator between male being paid more gives rise to equal pay claim. Equal pay act. Now people in the same roles can argue the pay differential issues and where leapfrogging occurs. Sadly Napo won't be helping pay equalisation issues
DeleteAs the only meddle around dismissal cases. It may not be fair but the can do this under the circumstances and appear justified as reasonable measures. We have to get into the reasoning and defeat the preferential by equalising the pay upwards.
Yes quite right 642 it's about valurising the professional grade to their rate for the job. If enhancements attract there has to be a retention award just the same for the already hard pressed and experienced don't forget. Let's hope unions like napo wake up this is their job is it not.
DeleteExactly. Let them pay at this extra rate. Then every other employee in those named offices, boroughs and counties can demand those rates too. A good union could then make probation pay this to all. Pity we have Napo and Unison.
DeleteAs ever, getafix spots the germain issue, namely that this scheme avoids relocating experienced staff into areas that are in trouble. If opened up to existing qualified staff there would only be a handful of POs who would jump at the chance. Most will be settled. It would not mean the exodus of droves of staff but it might allow for some much needed experience into the mix.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as @19:36 comments, NPS do not want that. I tend to agree that this is a bold move intended to curry favour with the next generation, to exploit their eagerness, to manipulate them while they're at their most impressionable. Its not a short-term relocation scheme of, say, 6 months. Its a substantial two year programme that artificially boosts their earnings to that of SPO. How does that dynamic play out when a newly appointed SPO is managing a newly qualified PO who earns more?
Some social services committees used a similarly divisive scheme to attract social workers to unpopular posts/areas. Some areas were offering a £10,000 enhancement if you stayed for three years, or £15,000 if you had more than five years' post-qualifying experience. You had to pay any enhancement back if you left before your three years was up or prrformance was not 'satisfactory'. I heard one area lost large sums fighting legal battles to recover payments from staff who left prematurely, mainly because they were ostracised by existing staff who resented the financial inequity. I think most if not all such R&R schemes have been abandoned.
If you are a PQIP with children, and/or mortgage, and/or partner in work, and/or a carer for a local rellie... basically if you are a grown up, this wont work for you.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of 'fairness'
ReplyDeleteBBC: "The impact of NHS Test and Trace is still unclear - despite the UK government setting aside £37bn for it over two years, MPs are warning.
The Public Accounts Committee said it was set up on the basis it would help prevent future lockdowns - but since its creation there had been two more.
It said the spending was "unimaginable" and warned the taxpayer could not be treated like an "ATM machine".
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the MPs' report "defies logic"."
Guardian: "There is no evidence to show that the government’s £22bn test-and-trace programme to combat Covid-19 in England contributed to a reduction in coronavirus infection levels, parliament’s spending watchdog has concluded.
In a report which examined the rush to invest in the scheme, the cross-party public accounts committee has challenged ministers to justify the “staggering investment of taxpayers’ money” and criticised the use of private consultants who are paid up to £6,624 a day."
SkyNews: "COVID-19: The boss of Test and Trace has defended the £37bn service, dismissing a critical report by MPs as "old news". Test and Trace currently employs around 2,500 consultants, who are paid an estimated average daily rate of around £1,100, going up as high as £6,624 - rates Baroness Harding defended as "very competitive". Yet a report released today by a committee of MPs said that despite having access to "unimaginable resources", it still wasn't clear whether Test and Trace was working effectively."
FT: "England’s £23bn test and trace programme condemned by MPs - ‘Unimaginable’ level of spending made no ‘measurable difference’ to spread of virus, report finds"
Link to PAC report here:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmpubacc/932/93202.htm
The lateral flow tests are shit - its been said from the start. They are unreliable & have nowhere near the accuracy that is claimed. It was proven in lab tests. This stupid government has ignored the science and pushed ahead. Now?
ReplyDeleteBBC: "Children in England are being unfairly punished by the insistence they must abide by "incorrect" positive results from rapid Covid tests, experts say.
Reports have emerged of pupils having to isolate after testing positive at school using the on-the-spot checks - only for a more reliable follow-up lab-based PCR test to find them negative.
Parents said it was "ruining" the return to school.
Rapid tests at home or in workplaces can be overruled by a lab test.
But the government has insisted this cannot happen for tests done in school - although it has been unable to explain why."
Same old same old - Boris, the over-privileged under-whelming buffoon, just can't stop himself from thinking he knows best about anything & everything.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/10/keir-starmer-urges-boris-johnson-to-put-1-nhs-pay-rise-to-vote
ReplyDelete"Asked about Johnson’s assertion at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday that Keir Starmer and his party had blocked an NHS budget bill, Allegra Stratton, the No 10 press secretary, declined 12 times to accept that he had been wrong, and indicated that he did not feel the need to correct the record."
But...
"The Prime Minister told MPs that the UK has not “blocked the export of a single Covid-19 vaccine” as he sought to correct the suggestion by Charles Michel. A senior EU diplomat was summoned to the Foreign Office earlier on Wednesday over the row, and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has written to Mr Michel seeking to correct the record."
Its always one-way traffic for the Eton bullies.
Oh how so many have so quickly forgotten the loved ones still being lost to the covid-19 pandemic now there's a sniff of "normality" on the near horizon. All those "heartfelt thoughts & prayers"...
ReplyDeleteDaily number of deaths within 28 days of first +ve test
* 10 March 2021 = 190
* Total = 124,987
It is also worth noting the following ONS data:
Deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate up to w/e Friday, 26 February 2021 = 143,259
We've got control of our international border biosecurity? No-one is travelling except for permitted reasons to travel? And no-one can travel without being tested & having evidence of negative results? Really?
ReplyDelete"Heathrow Airport regularly sees queues of three hours and sometimes six hours at border control, according to Emma Gilthorpe, its chief operating officer.
Earlier this month, passengers complained of waiting up to seven hours, which one said was "inhumane". But Border Force said many passengers were arriving without having bought mandatory Covid testing packages.
The enforcement body added that people should only be travelling for limited reasons."
Levelling up; evidence that there's plenty of cash being splashed to the poor & needy:
ReplyDelete"The two top executives at Serco, one of the companies behind the government’s much-criticised £37bn test-and-trace scheme, were handed pay of £7.4m for 2020, including bonuses worth £5.5m.
The chief executive, Rupert Soames, and chief financial officer, Angus Cockburn, picked up the pay packets in a combination of cash and shares for the 12 months to the end of last year."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/10/sercos-top-two-executives-handed-74m-in-pay-for-2020
Huzzah!!
https://www.ft.com/content/d217b789-3ca7-42a8-bac0-16fd0b24c60d
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54569842
"NHS Test and Trace contractor Serco says it expects profits to exceed expectations this year thanks to coronavirus-related work.
The outsourcing giant said extensions to government contracts had boosted revenues in the three months to July.
The test-and-trace system has been criticised for being less effective than local public health teams.
Labour called Serco's announcement to the London Stock Exchange "grim beyond belief".
The company said in a statement that the excess profits could be returned to shareholders in the form of dividends."
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/uk-government-awards-serco-200-million-contract-for-immigration-removal-centres-despite-allegations-of-abuse/
" Serco] has been awarded a £200m Home Office contract to run two immigration removal centres.
“A court recently heard that a rape survivor at the centre was involved in an altercation with 11 Serco staff… The outsourcing giant has also faced a string of allegations of sexual misconduct towards female detainees by staff.”
“Pierre Makhlouf, assistant director at Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID), said: “We are dismayed that Serco continues to be awarded contracts to run detention centres in the UK despite obviously having failed to protect people in their custody in the past, including a string of sexual abuse scandals in Yarl’s Wood.”
“Rupert Soames, chief executive of Serco, said the firm had a “great deal of experience of caring for people in the immigration system both in the UK and internationally…” "
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/212155/serco-wins-largest-ever-contract-from-uk-government-worth-19bn-212155.html
ReplyDelete"Outsourcer Serco Group PLC (LON:SRP) has been awarded contracts worth £1.9bn from the UK government to manage more than 5,000 properties occupied by asylum seekers.
Under the terms of the deal, the FTSE 250 group will be responsible for the upkeep of the homes, which are located in the North West of England and the Midlands & East of England, for the next ten years."
Brexit problems? You don't know what you're talking about. Its all perfectly normal.
ReplyDelete"Cricket pitch soil can be traded freely post-Brexit, says NI minister - Press Association News, Michael McHugh, 10 March 2021, 11:07 pm
Stormont’s Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has said special cricket pitch soil can be freely moved from Great Britain to Northern Ireland."
So there.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-overarching-documents/overarching-equality-statement-sentencing-release-probation-and-youth-justice-measures
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ukauthority.com/articles/probation-service-supports-migration-to-teams-for-community-rehabilitation-companies/