Guest Blog 89

It's Not Rocket Science

We’ve always had methods that were only mentioned in whispers. How to extend deadlines until a window of free-time comes along, delay a Pre-Sentence Report interview to wriggle out of it, get that difficult case or complex Parole Report reallocated to the new recruit or colleague sitting next door. It’s okay that we all have different methods, strengths and weaknesses to survive in probation. There’s always been those that prefer client contact over paperwork, or custody work over resettlement, aftercare and community work, or juvenile offenders over career-recidivists and vice versa.

I do not remember probation offices and teams of the past as rose-tinted, our managers weren’t perfect and nor were the practitioners. Amongst and within our wealth of experienced practitioners we’ve always had moaners, misfits, slackers, do-gooders, know-it-alls and other opinionated types. We didn’t always gel or agree, some of us didn’t even like each other, but in every office were a team and we have to respect everyone in it warts and all. I’ve never heard of a probation officer intentionally setting off a fire alarm without just cause and I doubt I ever will. We are a law-abiding sort, although I’ve known of colleagues that have perfected swinging the lead to a fine art and gotten away with legendary acts of defiance. I can vouch that there have always been those that routinely took 6 months off sick every two years or so, alongside those that have never had a day off in decades. The same colleagues that will teach you the art of probation “good practice” and at the same time gladly cover all your appointments when you have an emergency, bring you tea, coffee and lunch when you’re having a dreadful day and help you challenge probation management, prison governors, the Parole Board or Crown Court Judges when they are getting too big for their boots.

Probation was once awarded a Gold Medal for Excellence but there’s never really been a golden-era I’ve known. We need to stop reminiscing on the pre-TR era and waiting on probation managers and senior managers to Save Our Souls. As far as I can remember we’ve always been poorly paid and badly treated by the establishment. We are all saddened by the current state of the Probation Service but there are still reminders of our commitment, ethic, camaraderie and teamwork in every probation office. We lost some of this during the pandemic lockdowns and our existing, new and future colleagues and managers need to learn or remember what this is too. I can’t say it better than in Guest Blog 26 'Advise, Assist and Befriend' 

“What binds us together in probation is the contribution we make to society in supporting probation clients. We hold a basic set of values believing every person can change, given adequate support, motivation and opportunity, and this can shine through for many no matter whether they qualified with DipSW or DipPS. Ever since the Probation of Offenders Act 1907 provided the statutory foundation for the probation service we've been 'advising, assisting and befriending' those under our supervision. A few weeks ago when prepping for a parole hearing I came across documentation from what was then the Probation and Aftercare Service and I thought to myself, "even though it's hard to see amidst the MoJ limescale and gloss, we still are that service". 

“Despite all the changes, the IT failures, the TR omnishambles and the combined impact of the ideas of Michael Howard, Chris Grayling and all the other probation-haters, we will always be probation officers doing probation work. I won't pretend that probation officers are not overworked or are sometimes too preoccupied with assessing risk, MAPPA and "protecting the public". … However, for whom the Courts think fit to be placed under our supervision every colleague I know takes their duty seriously in helping probation clients to improve their quality of life, which is what probation work has been about for over 100 years”.

I think it’s fair to say the current probation crisis is unprecedented and is a long way from what we’ve been in the past. I don’t think we’ve ever witnessed probation so regularly in the news, the consistent amount of current HMIP inspection failures, the findings of inequality and discrimination, the whistleblowing, or sadly the abundance of Serious Further Offences. Many of us are struggling to make sense of what this will all mean for us and where probation practice and responsibility will end up. We’ve always been the “hidden arm” of the Criminal Justice System and it’s anyone’s guess if this amount of negative publicity will be effective in reversing probations current damp squib of an existence or become the final death knell. The truth is that after all the changes of Trusts, TR, NPS, CRCs and Unification we just want to be left alone. The Probation Service has never needed much to help people to live useful and law-abiding lives, just decent recruitment of probation officers and support staff, good training, fair resources and reasonable salaries. It’s no secret that we don’t need NOMS, HMPPS or the Civil Service, nor did our founder, Frederic Rainer, who started it all with just 10 shillings!

While this media attention is ongoing for better or for worse, the government and HMPPS executives with their eyes wide shut consistently quote the amount of new trainee probation officers every time the past decade of failed practices upon the Probation Service are questioned. With the entire public sector in crisis it will be a long time before the numbers of trained probation officers can be retained and resourced to a level where our ability to effectively do our job improves. Ask any frontline probation officer or credible probation manager with more than a few years under their belt and they’ll tell you that the increasingly suffocating bureaucracy of checks and balances upon us, the armlock of the Prison Service, the stranglehold of the Civil Service and the wholly subjective scrutiny of this Tory government needs to end too.

It’s been a consistent downhill run for probation since Chris Grayling plotted TR on the back of a fag packet. To think anything else is “pure fantasy” just as Heather Munro once told us prior to retiring as London’s Chief Probation Officer. I vividly remember in 2013 when Sarah Billiald spoke publicly on behalf of the now defunct Probation Chiefs Association. This Chief Probation Officer, who had no formal academic probation qualification, set out on prime-time news and in newspaper print how the government’s meddling would compromise public safety and undermine the professional expertise which the probation service possessed. 10 years later and instead of listening to Sarah and the other probation chiefs or even now empowering probation officers and our heads of probation, this government and its Ministry of Justice continue to ignore the most basic advice that would have consistently allowed probation officers to do effective probation work.

The fact of the matter is that our trainee probation officers cannot learn from burnt-out wrecks, our probation officers cannot work with excessive caseloads, our managers cannot manage teams without healthy, sane, trained, experienced practitioners, our senior managers and regional directors cannot speak without a voice, our support staff cannot support empty desks and nobody can survive on a low salary. This is not rocket-science and the Probation Service will remain in disarray and ineffective in supporting our clients until it is detached from the prison-led HMPPS, until the Chief Probation Officer is no longer line-managed by Prison Service executives and until every probation employee below them is no longer silenced by the Civil Service Code.