I'm not sure why, but we are enjoying a bit of a revival on here and I notice we're heading for eight million 'hits' in a couple of months. Despite all the Probation Day bullshit PR, endless 'awards' for staff, increasingly desperate social media advertising of vacant posts and reminders that PQiP applications are still open, it's patently obvious to all that the Service is in crisis. HMI Inspection Reports confirm this and the normally docile and compliant workforce are at last growing restless at being shafted over pay and conditions. It might be a 'caring' service, but it's certainly not a caring employer under civil service command and control.
With project reunification soon to be completed by year end and the 'next stage' ominously due to begin, we are at a crossroads and have a challenge before us. This was all very neatly summed up yesterday by the following contribution:-
There has been some traffic on here over the last week. Probation has lost its way, (TR and beyond) and there is a lot of "business" management going on, and a lot of angst about the core values. If Probation doesn't define itself, then it will be defined by quite the wrong people, and increasingly, by newer entrants looking to the wrong people for a steer. There's a tacit acceptance here and elsewhere that Probation is a caring service, as well as a public protection one (that was always the balance to be struck) but that is not how it is seen by those in power, however they phrase their intentions. So what to do? What avenues do we have to wrest the power to define "us" from those who basically neither like or value "us"?
A lot of influential people read this blog and I don't just mean the mandarins down at Petty France. Lets keep the conversation going, not least because many of us still believe the distinctive probation ethos represents a worthwhile and noble endeavour and one worth saving and nurturing. It's why the blog was started and why it still enjoys a degree of relevance and support I'm pleased to say. Thanks to everyone for being part of it since 2010.
Good work Jim. Thanks for your efforts.
ReplyDeleteThanks JB I have retired but enjoy the blog as the only relevant place for hearing how it is.. if the Nps is short staffed they have not approached any of us ex employees for some shift work cover or any type of duty to help. Is the same old they still offering to friends only.
ReplyDeleteThere are many agency jobs being advertised today.
DeleteHere's a thing... leave public protection to the police & the courts; take Probation back to its roots of advise, assist & befriend. A 'public protection' role is implicit in the success of that original mission(ary) statement, i.e. the success of Probation work means the protection of the public - INCLUDING those Probation work with directly because they are also 'the public'. Those who Probation work with are not outside the realm of 'the public', they should not be 'othered' by labels.
ReplyDeleteTake Probation work out of the political cut-&-thrust of justice & punishment. Return it to the role for which it was most successful, i.e. 'advise, assist & befriend'.
Let MoJ/HMPPS create their own punitive public protection service as they are so clearly determined to do, albeit by annexing the pre-existing probation service.
A new name will be required as the political classes have stolen & rebranded 'probation'.
A return to the third sector will be necessary.
If people want to reclaim & redefine Probation outwith the grasp of HMPPS & MoJ, some hard work is required & some brave decisions need to be made. Shake off the shackles, write some letters to Timpsons & other philanthropists, stop whining & give it a go...
It is possible. Someone started it off once upon a time:
"With the passing of the Probation of Offenders Act in 1907 by the reforming Liberal government of the time those who had merely been volunteers, otherwise known as ‘Court Missionaries’, were given official status and thus became the first Probation Officers. On 8 May 1907, the Liberal Home Office Minister Herbert Samuel moving the short second reading debate in the House of Commons told MPs that the measure was needed so that offenders whom the courts did not think fit to imprison on account of their age, character or antecedents might be placed on probation under the supervision of these officers whose duty would be to, ‘advise’, ‘assist’ and ‘befriend’ them.
This last phrase about ‘advise’, ‘assist’ and ‘befriend’, which to many in the current climate of the Probation Service is viewed as a profanity, continued to ring down the decades until it was dispensed with in favour of ‘public protection’, ‘enforcement’ and ‘rehabilitation’ in the late 1990s when probation officers willingly signed up to the forces of conservatism."
https://insidetime.org/a-short-history-of-the-probation-service/
Yea and rightly the tax payer 8n a modern world is not payin for your nostalgia dream. Offenders are not utopian good people they are criminals of poor character low to none conscious and self involved. They need managing the public need protection not cotton wool advising . To do what try and be nice. Assisting them to what exactly find better ways to help themselves. Then what make friends are you going to have them round for dinner parties. Get real. Tax payers are looking to punish that's the job 100 plus years on modernise or get lost.
DeleteAnon 11:11 - What an interesting contribution. Can I ask if you work for the Probation Service and if yes, what your role is please?
DeleteNo Jim I don't believe a word of what I said there it was a good opportunity to open a line to encourage challenge and hear the opposite. The good stuff of what we do how it was done and why oh why management sold out our wonderful probation. If your quoting it I think it's a grayling draft .
DeleteI wondered - thanks.
DeleteLike 8:34, I too am now retired. I went early because I just couldn’t take it any more.However, unlike 8:34, I have no wish to be ‘recalled,’ To a job that had no relation to the service I joined in the early 90s.
ReplyDeleteOver the years, ‘Advise, assist and befriend,’ was replaced by targets, form filling and endless bureaucracy.
I have more sympathy with 8:49 but would still dispute some of the points put forward by them.
Public protection was never ‘our thing,’ in the sense of policing and enforcing. Our aim was to address the ‘underlying causes of offending,’ invariably trauma, poverty and ‘……ism’s’ at that time around race, class and gender.
During the mid 90s, the service changed its focus from structural inequalities to a personal pathology model wherein if you are an ‘offender,’ there is something inherently wrong with you as an individual.
Other contributors have hinted at, and even stated that what is fundamentally required is a change in the status quo so that those on the margins Can feel that they too are part of the ‘ stakeholder,’ society, but not in the way intended by Tony Blair and those who have followed in his footsteps.
Ultimately, behaviour and associated responses from the state are political and things will not change until politics, politicians and policies change either because they want to, or more likely because they are forced to because of a change in the balance of power.
Change for probation means reverting to or re-inventing interventions intended to see people as individuals rather than as units for processing.
Over the past 30 years, probation has become aligned with the concept of too much stick and no carrot. The ever expanding prison population, ( it doubled during my years of service) shows that such tactics do not work and that it might be time for a re-set.
The past is slipping away, our origins are being forgotten.
Those holding the puppet masters strings work to long term agendas that serve their own vested interests, usually money and power, and they will not relinquish their hold easily.
There are so many ideas on this blog from practitioners, academics and retirees but nothing from those supposed to represent us.
There may well be a groundswell for change, but leadership is sadly lacking and thus far no alternative organised voice has emerged.The blog plays a vital part in establishing the dots of resistance but somehow these need to be joined together.
The task ahead is to unite around factors which unite us, wages terms and conditions, to organise some semblance of a fight back and then to use any momentum gained to push for change in other areas.
I don’t know if the ability and the will exists, but the alternative is to simply roll over and die as a profession and I can foresee the future if nothing is done.
I don't buy into probation being the guardians of the public.
ReplyDeleteI'm at a loss too as to when probation became a public protection agency?
Was it by government decree ? Or is it a concept that's just grown within probation, self appointed?
'Getafix
Think it was Boateng?
DeleteHe said probation was a 'law enforcement agency'.
DeleteSomeone said something once and it came to be???
DeletePublic protection is a self inflicted wound by probation.
'Getafix
Afraid so! Probation was under the Home Office at that time and he was Minister of State there - famously tough on crime - as was Tony Blair of course - "Tough on crime - tough on the causes of crime" was the mantra.
Delete"We are a law enforcement agency. It's what we are, it's what we do" Boeteng. It made my blood run cold at the time, although, niaively, I shrugged it off as a bit of rhetoric and thought I could just get on with The Work. Like the UK, we are waking up to the fact that depending on an unwritten constitution that depends on a set of values and conventions we think we all share, is a tragic mistake, so in answer to the challenge, we should draft something, get it in writing and then fight for it tooth and nail
DeleteThe Probation Service needs to return to it’s roots to survive. A local Service for local public. Assist and befriend is our most useful and successful tool. To lose this (or to be more precise to fail a return to this traditional value) will leave probation as just a prosthetic limb of the prison service, controlled by their ethics and values (command and control). Probation’s value of questioning will be lost as will the ability to autonomously work for the good of and in a way that promotes local community need.
ReplyDeleteAnd we need political leaders who promote those things, not all this hyper-individualised/no society crap.
DeleteThats true anon 16:06, and its like that in mental health services, where distress is viewed as individual failing and pathology, which means its on the individual to alleviate things themselves, not through structural change. And if they stay distressed its their fault. Meanwhile the psych professions, and thats including social workers, cpns, and psychologists expand and colonize new terrain, and big pharmas making it rain $$$$$. All ethical and humane.
DeleteThanks Jim, and thanks anon 08:49. Its gone from 'advise, assist, and befriend' to 'ass cover, buck pass, and gatekeep'.
ReplyDeleteCurrently there are no available temporary PO staff to fill any of the vacancies across the country - if any are filled then it requires an agency member of staff to leave their current position and move to another office/area
ReplyDelete"might be placed on probation under the supervision of these officers whose duty would be to, ‘advise’, ‘assist’ and ‘befriend’ them."
ReplyDeleteWhich is completely different from the ethos of the COS, social works precursor, which was more like judge, scold, and means-test.
From Wikipedia:-
DeleteIn Britain, the Charity Organisation Society led by Helen Bosanquet and Octavia Hill was founded in London in 1869 and supported the concept of self-help and limited government intervention to deal with the effects of poverty. Alsager Hay Hill was prominent from its foundation, acting as honorary secretary of the council until July 1870, and as an active member of the council until 1880:
Mr. Alsager Hay Hill joined the Society in its first year. He was one of its first Hon. Secretaries, and the life and soul of Council meetings in the early days of struggle. A man of rare natural wit, something of a poet, and the brightest of companions, he threw himself eagerly into the Society's work, and more particularly devoted his time and energy to an attempt to deal with the problems of unemployment. His 'Labour News' of thirty years ago anticipated the Labour Exchanges of today.
The organisation claimed to use "scientific principles to root out scroungers and target relief where it was most needed". Annie Barnes joined the organisation and used her own background that people objected to accepting "Charity". The Charity Organisation Society was renamed Family Welfare Association in 1946 and still operates today as Family Action, a registered family support charity.
Nothing wrong with self-help in and of itself, but if the means to help ourselves arent available, or if self-help is used as a way to blame individuals and deny them support thats a problem. The COS was anti free school meals, pensions, and government unemployment initiatives, and the work consisted of middle and upper class women going into slums and telling people poverty is a moral failing, not structural.
DeleteFrom stgitehistory;
DeleteSocial problems, the COS believed, were ethical in origin, the result of free moral choices made by 'calculating' individuals. Poverty should spur individuals on to better their lot, to the benefit of all; charity should step in to help the destitute only if they were morally upright, and provide training in personal responsibility. But pauperism - dependence on welfare - is a social evil, a degraded mentality, even (according to Mackay) a disease requiring scientific treatment which should be deliberatively punitive and stigmatising. (Even Samuel Barnett supported measures such as labour colonies and training farms.)
From lesleyhulonce.wordpress;
‘Cringe or Starve’ was an epithet for the COS or Charity Organisation Society that sought to regiment philanthropy and avoid ‘indiscriminate’ charity in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Charles Dickens immortalised the COS in his final unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, as the Haven of Philanthropy with Luke Honeythunder as ‘Stipendiary Philanthropist’. Dickens described Honeythunder’s brand of philanthropy as the ‘gunpowderous sort’ and that the ‘ difference between it and animosity was hard to determine’.
Thorough investigation of the people asking for help was at the heart of the COS. This ‘casework’ approach pioneered the professionalisation of social work and took notions of the deserving and undeserving poor to new heights (or depths). In Swansea, if a ‘kind hearted person’ was approached for help, they would give the ‘appellant’ a ticket, like the one below, to present to the COS for enquiries to be made to their veracity and need, ‘instead of giving money to beggars on the street or at the doors’.
If applicants passed the stringent investigations, local COS branches would refer clients to poor law authorities, relieve clients direct or refer them to other charities. As the figures below demonstrate, the promise that Swansea COS would not’ knowingly encourage thoughtlessness and improvidence’ seemed to result in more refusals than help.
The solution has to include;
ReplyDelete1. Strip down all senior manager, head of operations and director roles. There’s too many management tiers and too many at the top should not be there. They are incompetent in practice and were complicit in TR and unification failures. Get rid of SFO and serious crime teams too.
2. Separate probation from BOTH prisons and the civil service. Chiefs and Directors of probation should be probation trained and practiced as an eligibility requirement.
3. Reverse and remove ALL OMiC processes. This will remove all prison governance over custody based probation officers.
4. Stop spending in silly IT systems that do not work, silly services such as personality disorder pathways, electronic tagging and polygraph testing, and revert back to in-house housing, employment and substance misuse services.
5. Abandon ALL silly names such as POM, COM, POP, PIP …
6. Return ALL probation staff seconded into the civil service, regardless of grade.
7. Return probation training to being fully university degree based, and include aspects of counselling, social and family work.
8. Remove vetting of probation staff and the expectation to deliver police work such as use of Visor and ARMS.
9. Promote “advise, assist and befriend” as our history and future, not as something to be ashamed off. Remove the ethos of enforcement, monitoring, control, risk management, public protection, these do not represent probation work.
10. Increase pay and pay bands. For starters a 15% pay rise with yearly increments thereafter. Overtime for all grades as a right and for all staff in the red. Retention payments to all offices with vacancies and with staff in the red.
11. Tea, coffee, water and biscuits would be nice, for staff, visitors and clients. The odd paid away day or team lunch would be nice too.
Another armchair warrior blaming everyone but themselves. There are too many people who think they know how to do the job, when the reality is, they do not.
Delete"7. Return probation training to being fully university degree based, and include aspects of counselling, social and family work"
DeleteUniversity is a predominantly middle and upper class pursuit, and it helps those classes reproduce themselves. Theres an over-representation of poor and working class people on probation. Should the degrees be state funded to give others a chance, and to help make a service that doesnt just consist of one class telling another class what to do ?
It used to be a Home Office sponsored course. Entrants had to show evidence of 300 hours (min) of relevant endeavour (hostel work, residential social work, volunteering, etc) & demonstrate they could cope with the academic work via a written piece & an interview. It wasn't a class-biased procedure. I got in with no previous qualifications. Students received a substantial bursary for the year plus expenses on a monthly-in-arrears basis, e.g. travel to university lectures, travel to placements & other approved outgoings. Combined with shift work at hostels I was able to pay a mortgage, run a car, pay the bills for the family home. When I qualified & started my first PO job on the bottom of the PO scale I was financially worse off for the first year.
DeleteSubsequent changes to the pay scales meant I finally reached the top of the interminable PO scale in my 22nd year. I didn't stay much longer once TR was dumped on us.
Fair enough, and a shame it went from being inclusive along class lines to exclusive, but thats tied up with higher education in general.
DeleteIt needs to go back to be accessible to all.
06:35. Sorry mate, I’m a frontline probation officer and I know very well how to do the job.
Delete07:09. Probation training teams previously fought hard to keep the degree based qualification to retain its credibility. Many involved now retired are shocked how much it has been dumbed down. Probation entrants were also previously varied in experience, background and class. When I trained there were many from poor and working class backgrounds training as probation officers.
DeleteAnd get the Probation Institute involved too. We need a professional association if they can get their backsides out of reverse gear.
ReplyDeleteProbation Officer.
I don't think probation is up to any challenge and will therefore have its future dictated by the employers. For years now, changes in probation have been imposed, following cynical 'consultation' exercises. If probation workers want a say in their future, then changes have to be negotiated - and you cannot negotiate from weakness. You have to be able to say, we will take industrial action if such and such is done to the detriment of our members. In the absence of solidarity, all you have is 'withering letters' expressing impotent rage.
ReplyDeleteProbation workers will have no say whilst probation is dictated by the civil service which places prison top tier managers in charge of probation functions whom probation top tier managers play second-fiddle to.
Delete