Something very interesting happened a few weeks ago. By quirk of historical events, I'm a shareholder of a fairly large regional housing association and I was invited to a briefing event chaired by the CEO and newly-appointed Board Chair. It's a rare occurrence and I was intrigued as, being a pessimist by nature, it usually signals change or trouble of some sort.
I was wrong however and instead was heartened to hear how management had dealt with staff forced to work from home during the pandemic, whilst many had to cope with home schooling, other familial responsibilities, personal worries and concerns. In essence the policy was to be as flexible and accommodating as possible, allow each staff member to work as little or as much as they felt able to cope with and pay full salaries rather than sick pay to the few who were unable to work for any reason.
In addition to feeling incredibly heartened by such an enlightened managerial response to the unprecedented situation the pandemic brought, I couldn't help but compare and contrast it to the many, many tales of woe that continually crop up both on this blog and the Facebook group regarding HR and management policies in the probation service and especially since becoming civil service controlled.
The Facebook group in particular is regularly treated to dreadful personal testimonies that are quite frankly shocking, such as long service retirements going unacknowledged by the team manager FFS! What does this say about the current culture of a once gold standard public service? How can staff be expected to deal reasonably and compassionately with clients of the service when they are being treated so abysmally by their own management, incidentally often cited as 'excellent' in HMI reports?
Well, another funny thing has happened with a reader highlighting a recent Employment Tribunal case successfully brought for unfair dismissal. Although all such case decisions become lengthy public records, I don't usually refer to them let alone quote from them because it feels to be an intrusion on matters that are deeply personal and painful to those involved, but to be honest how else are we to try and highlight what's going on and better still effect change?
I find Case Number 2402025/2019 held in Manchester to be symptomatic of much I've read and heard over recent years and suggest that time spent absorbing the full document with a cup of tea or stronger libation would be well rewarded. Like all Employment Tribunals, it's complicated and a degree of selective speed-reading has to be undertaken in order to draw out the key elements, the clues and nuances, procedural failures, feelings such as 'losing patience' and 'wanting rid of', a deeply flawed Appeals process, unwillingness to allow reasonable adjustments etc etc.
As I've alluded, there are several strands to the case, starting with matters of capability, but ending with disability. Having worked successfully for many years as a PO and SPO, a situation was reached whereby the claimant was dismissed from a partnership SPO post and denied the possibility of being regraded to either a PO or PSO post by virtue of unsuitability or provision of reasonable adjustments. I've chosen to highlight this aspect because I find it both astonishing and disability issues regularly crop up in relation to the civil service ethos now pervading the new probation service:-
The Disability discrimination claims. (i) Disability.
42. The first issue is whether the claimant was at the material time a person with a disability. The respondent does not dispute that he has and had had for some time, some degree of mental impairment, in the form of his dyslexia and dyspraxia, and that these conditions are long-term, but has submitted that the effects upon his day to day activities are insufficient to meet the (admittedly low) test of being substantial, in the sense, as long established, of being more than trivial. Emphasis is rightly placed upon the fact that work is not in itself a day to day activity, and the Tribunal should not confuse activities that a person has to carry out at work with what are normal day to day activities for all persons. That is, of course, correct, but much of a person’s work does involve day to activities which are not specific to the type of work being carried out. Mobility, memory, concentration and the processing of information are all day to day activities which are part of any person’s working life.
43. The respondent’s submissions have focussed on the minimal degree to which the claimant has been impacted by his conditions in his work and his day to day life. The respondent has sought to argue that, taken in the round, the effects are pretty minimal, and do not satisfy the test of being substantial. The claimant’s submissions point out how many of the activities referred to in the OH report that the claimant has difficulty with work, such as reading, writing, memory, numeracy, organising and planning, and spatial awareness, are indeed all day to day activities, notwithstanding that they are activities that persons engage in whilst working.
44. The Tribunal does not agree with the respondent. Careful reading of the very comprehensive reports produced on the claimant’s conditions make it clear that the effects are more than trivial. There are a number of examples, but to select a few, the claimant’s difficulties with short-term memory, to take in information when reading, and to concentrate when there is background noise, are all matters that the Tribunal considers are more than trivial. His difficulties in distinguishing between left and right, to read a map, and be aware of the points of the compass are again matters which the Tribunal considers are more than merely trivial. His difficulties with mental arithmetic and remembering telephone numbers are similarly more than trivial. Whilst none of these matters in themselves may appear to be particularly significant, the Tribunal looks upon the overall effect that they must have cumulatively upon the claimant’s abilities to carry out day-to-day activities. Taken in the round therefore, on the basis of reports on the claimant’s own evidence, the Tribunal is therefore quite satisfied that the claimant’s impairments amounted to a disability within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010.
--oo00oo--
According to Antonia Romeo on Twitter "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" at HMPPS HQ. "Still much to do between now & Christmas - but the tree is up @MoJGovUK HQ!"
"The respondent has sought to argue that, taken in the round, the effects are pretty minimal, and do not satisfy the test of being substantial."
ReplyDeletePerefctly sums up the last decade, if not the last 20 or so years in probation - everything of significance & importance, i.e. the human condition (staff & cases alike), is minimised, trivialised & dismissed for the benefit of managerialism, of data collection & profit-making.
Highly paid shitweasels spend their time trashing other peoples' lives to prove themselves to be 'excellent leaders', so they can continue to pocket vast sums of public money & endear themselves to their political masters.
It is simply obscene. A grotesque display of distorted thinking, spite & greed.
Shocking! Another example of Probation Management claiming to be have medical qualifications and a better understanding of the impact of disability that the disabled person themselves. NPS policies and procedures ignored. Complaints about their failure ignored.
ReplyDeleteEthnie Wallis acknowledged as CPO, NPS (markI) in 2001 or 2 at Napo Disability Conference that Dyspraxic clients and staff did not get the support legislation entitled them to receive, in a conversation I was part of. She did not have the resources needed to resolve but would do it the following year. I nonetheless could not get the reasonable adjustment of admin support at the level I received between 1975 and 1997 and for financial security reasons, accepted an offer of early retirement in 2003 rather than risk dismissal and an Industrial Tribunal. My Napo membership and the skilled determined support of my representative, Rita Nicholson, then GL Branch chair probably saved my life, I was very worn down with it all.
ReplyDeleteThe claim referred to at the start of this blog would have been under the Equalities Act 2010, and the claim would have been heard by an Employment Tribunal. The law in relation to reasonable adjustment has changed considerably over the last few years.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction about the Employment Tribunal Anon 4 Dec 15:26.
DeleteThe emergence of the Omicron variant shows that the world is “closer to the start of the pandemic than the end”, one of Britain’s most senior scientific figures has warned, as he lamented a lack of political leadership over Covid.
ReplyDeleteSir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust who stepped down as a government scientific adviser last month, said the progress in combatting Covid-19 since its emergence was “being squandered”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/04/uks-progress-on-covid-now-squandered-warns-top-scientist
123me - thank you for a compassionate, empathic & understanding post, as opposed to one that pulls Andrew up over a technicality after he's put himself on the line.
ReplyDeleteHousing associations were once pretty much reasonably small localised or regional entities.
ReplyDeleteIn today's world most have been swallowed up by large conglomerate companies, and like many other parts of society have become more concerned with the generation of profit then the provision of quality.
They grow ever larger, and although governed by regulations, they are subject to very little, if any oversight. Some are enevitabley better then others, but that's more by chance then design, and dependent on the moral compass of those in charge.
'Getafix