Best of the Week 2

I started a 15 year career in Probation after securing a Trainee Probation Officer position in 2001. I largely enjoyed my time in Probation. I think the increasing time sat pounding away putting information into a computer to the detriment of working with people, the cut backs meaning a sweated stressed workforce and Grayling's vandalism of the Probation Service was why I have since pursued an alternate career. Good luck to the new recruits I say, they are clearly much needed and represent the future of Probation.

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I got a job in Probation almost by accident, it was going to be a tide-over thing, and I knew nothing about it. What I encountered was a vibrant, inspiring institution which rang lots of bells in my then very immature philosophical head about the need to extend dignity and compassion to those who fall through the cracks and make terrible mistakes (and yes, do terrible things). 

I got stuck in and have been there ever since. I was so proud of "my" institution, and so enriched by both colleagues and clients. Several decades later, that has turned to dust. I cannot and will not recommend a career in the tatty remains of this profession to anyone, and personally am just plain embarrassed by what it is now (and its not a profession). 

On a brighter note, this aged old hack is encouraged by conversations with new recruits: they joined with basically the same idealistic principles in mind that I had. They are knackered and disillusioned with the MoJ and NPS, and looking for exits, but there is still a flickering flame on the candle of what I believe are the basic values and ethos. How to fan/protect the flame in the whistling cold gale of the current political climate is the question. 

Pearly Gates

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I see colleagues becoming ill with the job. You are lucky if you have a good manager but senior management could not care less about the staff or diversity or welfare. They are there to be used as robots spout the policy line to keep their jobs and to blame when the lack of proper staffing, tools, training, time bear down. If you want nil work life balance, stress and very likely anxiety or mental illness, then come work for this organisation. Find another union rather than Napo as Napo management could not care less about individuals just in keeping their job roles. Anyone who has not experienced this lucky you. It is and has been a very real predicament for many.

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I am reading about “what works” and “end to end offender management”, which probation officers have done for 100 years, which HMPPS have stopped probation officers doing under the banner of OMiC. This is what happens when politicians, civil servants and profiteers meddle with public services, the actual core services become bid candy for charities and private companies seeking financial contracts. If wasn’t muffled by red tape and bureaucracy the probation service and probation officers would be talking and writing about real probation work.

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Switchback really is a great charity/programme and I had great success with one person who was very committed to seeing it through. That said, another of mine wasn't so great at attending their work placement and kept telling me he didn't like his mentor - after a few three way meetings he was kindly asked to leave the programme. I always wondered if he counted towards their highly dubious 9% re-offending rate - I presume this is 9% for those who complete their programme, rather than the ones they give up on, though I'm not sure. This was many years ago, perhaps they have changed now - but in my mind if you give intensive work and training to very motivated offenders, it's not rocket science that these are the ones who re-offend at extremely low rates.

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End to end not that old at all and what works not so very old either a bit of USA Ross and plenty of adapted priestly and Maguire. All mid 90s actually. Before the managerialist generation it was Home Office sponsored PO structures and that was an awful period of the 50s do as your told labelled and heavy use of surnames or criminal delinquent. It is important [to] get the facts right. What probation did in the 60s 70s awful. Not so cool 80s and fallen over now regardless.

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From the beginning Probation began with receiving and supporting offenders from courts. Helping those released from prison has been part of probation for a long time. What works and end to offender management have been concepts that describe this. The point is, every charity, academic and his dog wants to teach Grandma Probation to suck eggs.

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There are some important discussions & challenges to be had in the coming days which have implications for probation work. The new 'Bill' plays a serious part.

"Vaccine passports are just the start – we increasingly have a state that thinks it can do as it pleases"

And, as has been said on here by many before, the behaviour of 'The State' is used as a model & determines what lead the country follows - a concept the self-defined 'elite' seem unable (or unwilling) to grasp when they behave so appallingly with impunity, yet call for the head of anyone else who transgresses the rules/laws/guidance. In doing so they undermine the authority of 'The State' and of its Civil Servants - and of those imbued with responsibility for enforcing the rule/laws/norms decreed by 'The State'.

Towards the recent end of my probation career I found increasing levels of contempt and disregard for authority were commonplace; not just from those with generations of entrenched criminal beliefs handed down (grandfather, father, son) or those who chose to live alternatively out with society, but an unrest and irritation that filled seemingly more 'everyday folk' with overt attitudes that displayed a general lack of respect for others, a self-centredness, a sense of self-importance, a sense of entitlement which fuelled their victimhood at the unfairness of not having.

* yet this government and its cheerleaders are seen to fill their boots and fuck up with grotesque consequences, but fail to accept responsibility or resign;

* their civil servants are seen feathering their nests, speaking in forked-tongues at parliamentary committees yet achieving nothing;

* chums are given unlimited access to the public purse, for no good reason or purpose

So why can't we, the people, behave the same? Why can't we, the people, lie and cover up? Why can't we, the people, behave badly? That makes for a more difficult and confrontational supervision session, doncha think?

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I agree with you. We live in a very broken world. I feel that whilst everyone wants the benefits of living in a society with its organisation and social structures and protections, more and more people want to individual entities, think, say, and do whatever they want, regardless of the impact they might have on the collective.

I think there's many reasons for that, but much of it is about money rather then values. There seem to me to be an attitude that as long as we all pay our taxes that's enough to keep society operational. However, there seems little consideration that 'operational' is only half what's needed to make society function well. A collective sense of social value is also required, and an understanding (and acceptance) that to make everything work, a certain degree of 'me, the individual' may have to be conceded. 

I think more and more that concession is becoming a reluctance rather then a willing contribution. It's that reluctance that fuels the feelings of victimisation and marginalisation, and creates the sense of entitlement. For society to function healthily it has to be more then a mass of individuals only concerned with their own individual life journeys. 

But that's not the sermon being preached from the pulpits of government. They preach the virtues of individual freedom and rights because its beneficial to them, it allows them to carry on doing whatever they want. After all they're extending the same privilege to everyone. But their little corner of society is far different to the society the rest of us live in. It's snake oil and deceitful and they know it's harmful and disingenuous, but as long as they can keep getting what they want, why concern themselves with the great unwashed? Unfortunately, that's a very pervasive attitude that appears to be leaking into everything.

'Getafix

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I've worked in prison and personally I would rather be given time with the offenders rather than this be outsourced to officers. The officers don't seem to know what we do exactly and prison can't be arsed to brief them on this as part of the training. With the term offender manager it means all issues they are unsure of come to us. Waste of time. We are probation officers not responsible for issues which prison system have areas to deal with. Plus huge time cost in answering a discussing whatever the issue is bypassing the app system sometimes rather than spending this directly with the person we should have contact with.

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I rather think that those who design and develop these changes to probation services start from a base point of somehow viewing probation in the same context as one big offending behaviour programme. An all inclusive, multi disciplined programme that everybody who enters the CJS must be subjected to. Hopefully, some might gain some benefit, but the important thing is that they MUST do the course.

I think "knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing", has never been a more appropriate saying in today's CJS. I wonder too, with recent reports that people who go through particular offending behaviour programmes are actually more likely to reoffend then if they hadn't been through the programme, if the same might be true for those subject to probation? Just a thought. 

Everything has become just a process, compartmentalised to create greater opportunities for 'Outcome Mining'. I get the sense that OMIC is just a rehashing of the failed TTG, big idea, great rhetoric, but no foundation. OMIC? The upshot is that people will still be released with £46 in their pocket (ever noticed that the £46 never increases with inflation? Been the same amount for 30 years!), and have nowhere to live. Perhaps even more so now, because NFA might mean being able to circumnavigate tagging! I'm just wondering this Good Friday morning, if those making the "machines" actually know what the "machines" as supposed to do anymore?

'Getafix

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Next time any of our senior leaders talk about professionalising the service, please could you ask them why they think it's ok to employ people with no probation experience as trainers in the national training team who will deliver mandatory PQiP training.

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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 browbeaten 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.

Anon

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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).

Since 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

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Hi, I will be retiring soon. Had I known what was in store for me ten years ago l would have left Probation. I remained but have been staggered by the hollowing out of Probation. I see other workers who look to me scared, demoralised, worn down and with little fight left in them. Some of my younger colleagues think I am lucky to be in a position to retire early. I am guessing that people will retire or quit Probation once the Coronavirus working changes and re-joining of CRCs with NPS has happened. The rosy picture the Senior Managers paint is unsurprising. In order for a profession to be properly dysfunctional it needs to deny and gloss over problems and especially to blame individuals at the bottom of the food chain. Not one Senior Manager has confirmed or even suggested that the Probation profession has died on its feet on their watch.

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