Todays post reminds me of the story concerning the old lady who died and upon her house being cleared out of a lifetimes stuff there was a small box labelled 'string - too short to keep'. Along the way I keep noticing things or people bring to my attention stuff that, of themselves, don't really make a blog post, but are never-the-less worthy of note. I'll start with this image off Twitter this morning:-
--oo00oo--
Like all good bureaucracies, the MoJ and HMPPS love alphabet soup and acronyms and there's a couple here I recently spotted and have no idea what they mean:-
New supervision structure for probation staff can only be described at best as overkill at worst as institutional bullying. Staff now have 6 types of supervision:-
1) Performance where 5 objectives are identified for the year and appraised every quarter - this aligns with the old appraisal system.
2) Competency Framework - to progress to next increment.
3) Reflective Practice - not really reflective! 4 x 1-1 sessions with manager and 2x observation - 1-1 are to enable manager to use touchstone to check work is up to standard.
4) SAQUA - case selected by offender manager 1-1 session with manager then appearing before a panel of managers and couple of peers to feed back and be questioned on case.
5) RCAT 4 times a year case picked at random and quality assured using HMIP format.
6) Monthly supervision as current practice.
Firstly the SAQUA doesn’t acknowledge diversity issues. It also puts one person in front of a panel of up to 6 or 7 people which many would find intimidating and, in some cases, bullied.
There is no proper reflective supervision in any of the above, it is lip service only.
Some staff have suggested the RCAT format is so general and open to interpretation, some staff may be open to bullying, especially if they do not get on with their manager. Have other areas brought this in and has Napo been told of this system? It is operated via one note and each supervision type has a tab to open it. Line managers then have to record against each supervision type!
--oo00oo--
Of course the issue is a serious one and recently highlighted in a speech by HMI Justin Russell:-
"We've got increasing concerns around the quality of management oversight too, with SPOs being so overloaded they don’t have the space to do the type of reflective supervision which is so important if probation practitioners, particularly newly qualified officers, are to improve their practice."
It all smacks of this I saw recently:-
"Probation has become an evil empire of surveillance, coercion and exploitation of both practitioners and service users."
--oo00oo--
On that note I'll end with this from a reader:-
Hi Jim,
Well, where to start except to say we have moved a giant step towards an enforcement service. I'll keep it brief but, essentially, we now have a database called 'Open'. On one hand it can be useful as it's your caseload in 'real' time, not sure if it's nationwide or not but it tells you how many enforcement and unallocated appointments you have and what ISPs and breaches are due. However, management are using it for their benefit in order to haul us over the coals.
Basically 3 x AAs and you get an email off your SPO to meet with them and justify the absences and if breach action has been instigated and if not why not, they then put a MO contact on Delius. This has all come about because the MoJ or whoever oversees HMPPS are not happy about all the UPW not being completed.
Anyway, I was asked about other AAs I'd given but they weren't for UPW but general office visits or the CRS ones. So, now not only is it UPW but all probation appointments.
A lad of mine picked up on warrant for a minor breach of FTA that normally I'd have given an AA for but because of the instructions to breach I regrettably did. Court rang with the result and said he was given a £500 fine - and it's just pissed me off so much. We have to work with these men, he isn't a dangerous man he's medium risk and only has RARs, I'm now in the situation of do I give AAs and face a meeting with the SPO or breach and get lads lumbered with huge fines/hours of UPW etc.
In other news, got my payslip today and I'm about £40 per month better off - a band 4 colleague reckons they only less than that - who the hell voted for this deal - we suspect we've been stitched up!
Anyway, I was asked about other AAs I'd given but they weren't for UPW but general office visits or the CRS ones. So, now not only is it UPW but all probation appointments.
A lad of mine picked up on warrant for a minor breach of FTA that normally I'd have given an AA for but because of the instructions to breach I regrettably did. Court rang with the result and said he was given a £500 fine - and it's just pissed me off so much. We have to work with these men, he isn't a dangerous man he's medium risk and only has RARs, I'm now in the situation of do I give AAs and face a meeting with the SPO or breach and get lads lumbered with huge fines/hours of UPW etc.
In other news, got my payslip today and I'm about £40 per month better off - a band 4 colleague reckons they only less than that - who the hell voted for this deal - we suspect we've been stitched up!
A Reader
Unbelievably, after all this lauding over a pay rise, I've been given a pay cut of £150 in real terms. Not only have many of us in London and perhaps elsewhere been forced to give an update about every single one of our cases by the MOJ by 5pm on tomorrow, despite punishing workloads and more unreasonableness, I have to scrimp and ask why I've been underpaid. The least this inept organisation can do is pay people on time. Pay that needs to be rectified gets paid the next month? No, it should be paid NOW. When you are not paid what is owed it's an insult and shows how incompetent the system is. Also, any money not paid this month, carrying over to next month, even paid back, is arrears and is freely earned through interest. It's undignified to have to go and put in a pay query for someone's incompetence- or perhaps it was deliberate? Especially when we've had to sit through not only flannel about a very poor pay rise, but the way it has been explained has been overly complicated and even with people with half a brain would have tuned off about how mind-boggling a concept like- when I'm going to get paid and how much is it and when? Well, if you do this and evidence that you'll get this (maybe, maybe not) I got no back pay this month either. i suspect I wasn't born in the right month or finished a course too late. Whatever the lame excuse, I don't expect a government organisation to act like gangsters and withhold payments, reducing payments, making inept button-pushing decisions that sees me worse off this month. Halloween indeed. The horror of it all. It's a disgrace. It's not the first or fifth time and there is NO excuse. None. Not paying people on time and what they are owed when it is a fundamental necessity and it has to be in the ethos of any organisation, is just plain wrong. I don't come to work for fresh air and giggles. Not a good way to motivate staff. No wonder people leave. Next time I hear of pay rises and how well we are doing, I'll have headphones on. It's all so very hollow. I bet the directors weren't underpaid. There would be an outrage at the belt and braces muffin and latte meeting going forward and having that conversation.... tragic.
ReplyDeleteSpeak to Napo (National Association of Push Overs) about your concerns over poor pay and conditions. They agreed the crappy probation pay deal!
DeleteDo not complete the Peoples Survey. We’ve complained about this stuff for years and they do nothing fundamental to improve things. They just expect us to absorb more work and more change with less pay and worse conditions.
ReplyDeleteIs this more Napo advice? Don’t complete the People Survey and put a ‘can’t do’ entry on each case.
DeleteI’m going to do the opposite. I’ll complete the People Survey and state all my concerns. Then I’ll make a coffee and have a chat with everyone in my team, SPO too!!
I talk to my team and to my spo. They all agree the people survey does nothing. My spo has told some of us she doesn’t complete it.
DeleteThis isn’t napo advice. It’s my opinion.
A far more effective way of communicating with our civil service managers is not to complete the survey.
Every year we tell them we’re over worked and underpaid and every year they respond by giving us more work and less pay.
You must complete the survey.
Delete"You. must. complete. the. survey."
DeleteSays who? And why?
What is the benefit?
Perhaps Sonia Whatsername can assist?
Don't complete the survey.
DeleteLast year they said they'd listened to the comments and picked out that management weren't dealing with staff performance! Yes, colleagues being off sick impacts on everyone, but the cause of people going off / not hitting targets may be the unmanageable workloads. That base was covered by their comment that they're recruiting more Pquips.
So basically they've introduced more performance measures and will say to that is what asked for - manager's dealing with poor performance.
Even the people asking us to do the survey would say it’s voluntary. So why ‘must’ we?
DeleteFrom Twitter:-
Delete"POA policy is not to complete the survey as they twist the evidence they gain (I’m proud to work for HMPPS) as the reason that we don’t need a pay rise in their submissions to the Pay Review Board."
Completion rates are bad. Keep it up people
DeleteDO NOT COMPLETE THE PEOPLE SURVEY They twist the results and they really do care if they do not meet the completion target. Managers are being told to ‘encourage’ staff to complete it.
DeleteNapo got into a lot of pickle trying to prevent reps from accessing legal support for members. Their corruption starts at the very top.
ReplyDelete“Basically 3 x AAs and you get an email off your SPO to meet with them and justify the absences”
ReplyDelete“A lad of mine picked up on warrant for a minor breach of FTA that normally I'd have given an AA for”
So give the AA and explain the reason on NDelius and to your SPO. I don’t see the problem here, except that you did nothing and let the “lad” get fined £500!
Doesn’t sound like the person is compliant If they have failed to attend UPW to the point of breach, and they ignored the summons to court (if a warrant was out). Overseeing attendance and recording it and following up non compliance is our core business, as well as the work we do when people attend and engage. We do have high caseloads, and I find OPeN enables me to keep track of the many tasks I need to do to support people, and undertake key actions that aid rehabilitation and risk management.
DeleteA prize to anyone who can identify the document this was Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V from...
DeleteThere’s some promotion seeking drones on here. Posting nonsense and telling folk they ‘must complete the survey’! GTF
DeleteAnd you’re talking nonsense if you really think it’ll make a difference if even nobody completed it. This is what probation do, put so much weight on what effectively amounts to nothing.
DeleteI completed the survey, because I wanted.
Same. I left Napo after they gave me crap representation. It was a struggle to get Napo properly involved in the first place. There was a catalogue of errors by the employer and Napo didn’t want to do anything. I saw too much cronyism between Napo reps and senior managers too. It worked out in the end, but I then joined a different union and anytime I’ve needed support it’s been swift and effective.
ReplyDelete