As a profession, we currently have the eyes and ears of a big chunk of media upon us, keen and eager to know more about what we do; why we do it and why the hell it's all going wrong. More importantly, it's also an opportunity to start a conversation about how to fix it. The following contributions came in yesterday and add to the growing testimony to an organisation that needs fixing: not fixing individuals found to be at fault.
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I don't know anybody who wants to be in case management. Such is the stampede whenever an alternative position is advertised that caseworkers have been blocked from applying for them. Its incredibly unhealthy. Those with the PO qualification have hardly anywhere to go anyway as programmes and court work no longer at their grade.
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How many qualified probation officers are there in the probation workforce team, effective practice team, performance teams or on other secondments? If this were the police or army they’d all be directed back onto the frontline to hold caseloads.****
An excellent call which serves to highlight the real stresses which are so great and which leads to staff looking for ANY way out of the front line….I know of several OMIC staff who would rather leave than return to the office and Community Supervision.
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I also know people who don’t want to go back to case management from other teams.
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Be honest, how much time are Probation Officers actually spending with service users? Personally I have noticed the amount of time I can spend with them shrinking rapidly over the last few months. It seems to get worse each week. I don't want to be chained to the desk, I didn't come into this to be nothing but a pen pusher. I came in to work with human beings and try to improve their lives and those of the public impacted by their behaviour. All the pressure is to complete assessments, records, reports and very little time to do any meaningful work.
Be honest, how much time are Probation Officers actually spending with service users? Personally I have noticed the amount of time I can spend with them shrinking rapidly over the last few months. It seems to get worse each week. I don't want to be chained to the desk, I didn't come into this to be nothing but a pen pusher. I came in to work with human beings and try to improve their lives and those of the public impacted by their behaviour. All the pressure is to complete assessments, records, reports and very little time to do any meaningful work.
Why doesn't the service collect these stats? Of course they won't as they know it will be damming! At the moment I would say 20% of my time working face to face max! This is the problem being affiliated with the Civil Service, that monstrous bureaucratic machine. I knew it would be like that as I knew people working for civil service. We need to be an independent service again, working within our local authorities and serving local people and organisations . It's the only way!
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With a caseload of 60+ which is made up of 2/3rds Med RoSH and a third Low, it’s a battle. It is a Sunday afternoon and I’m working. More fool me … maybe… but I am not alone.. Be honest; lot of us are today updating Delius, completing RMPs, clearing the decks as best we can ready for Monday. I am looking after the grandkids, they’re doing homework I’m playing catch up! My age is my saving grace…. How does a young PO or PSO with family do this job? Truth is, we do what we can. Some of our cases get a lot of attention because they present as being desperate and need our time. Somehow we find it; but at a cost to others.
Probation needs to be able to do more for the people they're involved with to prevent reoffending. Probation staff need a professional qualification that allows them autonomy in the decisions they take, and be given the right to defend and explain their decisions when something goes wrong. They need time to spend with the people in their charge, and they need the ability and autonomy to tap into whatever local services they feel necessary that might help to stop someone reoffending. Endless assessments only identify problems, and that process becomes pretty pointless if you're unable to find solutions.
With a caseload of 60+ which is made up of 2/3rds Med RoSH and a third Low, it’s a battle. It is a Sunday afternoon and I’m working. More fool me … maybe… but I am not alone.. Be honest; lot of us are today updating Delius, completing RMPs, clearing the decks as best we can ready for Monday. I am looking after the grandkids, they’re doing homework I’m playing catch up! My age is my saving grace…. How does a young PO or PSO with family do this job? Truth is, we do what we can. Some of our cases get a lot of attention because they present as being desperate and need our time. Somehow we find it; but at a cost to others.
At least I can fight my corner on what I do as knowledge and experience counts. I want to tell my younger colleagues it will get better, that they’ve made the right choice and can make a difference. They have and they can with the right leadership. The reality is… we only have managers who can fill your inbox with edicts from on high.. targets, paint by number toolkits which they have no understanding of. Yes they are under pressure as well, but it is within their gift to push back and say stop this nonsense. Now more than ever we need leadership and less management. Sadly, I cannot say I would follow our current senior management: not even out of curiosity..
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Read the news, spot checks are incoming. Senior Managers are not asking for your fealty or opinion. They are telling you what is required. How you manage your probation work is up to you. Despite your “knowledge and experience” you are working on a Sunday, probably not out of choice, probably not even claiming overtime. You are losing not winning. You are complying and fighting to stay afloat, not “fighting your corner”. You are not doing better than those “younger”. Probation across the country is “inadequate” and every probation officer knows it because we haven’t the time or resources to do the job. It’ll be the same next week and the next, as it was last week and the previous. Managers can not and will not “push back”. It won’t “get better” and only you can say “stop”. I’m sorry to burst your bubble. This is the truth all probation officers need to recognise. The saying goes, it is at the precipice people find the will to change.
Read the news, spot checks are incoming. Senior Managers are not asking for your fealty or opinion. They are telling you what is required. How you manage your probation work is up to you. Despite your “knowledge and experience” you are working on a Sunday, probably not out of choice, probably not even claiming overtime. You are losing not winning. You are complying and fighting to stay afloat, not “fighting your corner”. You are not doing better than those “younger”. Probation across the country is “inadequate” and every probation officer knows it because we haven’t the time or resources to do the job. It’ll be the same next week and the next, as it was last week and the previous. Managers can not and will not “push back”. It won’t “get better” and only you can say “stop”. I’m sorry to burst your bubble. This is the truth all probation officers need to recognise. The saying goes, it is at the precipice people find the will to change.
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Identifying risk correctly may provide the assessor with some protection when things go wrong, but just identifying the correct level of risk won't by itself prevent SFOs. Even whilst in prison people are prosecuted for serious offences, including murder and rape. A probation service that positions itself as the vanguard of public protection is on a hiding to nothing. There's always going to be SFOs committed by people subject to probation, and probation will continue to shoulder the blame. Where else would blame be attributed if not to those charged with public protection? Staff shortages, high caseloads, inexperience and burnout are all things that have to be considered as contributory factors and mitigation, but ultimately an SFO will always be seen as a failure.In many ways those arguments are like the offender on licence caught shoplifting who says they're homeless, cant get benefits, can't access services they need, but ultimately as much as the circumstances can be understood and even sympathised with, it doesn't prevent the prosecution and the consequences that follow.
Probation needs to be able to do more for the people they're involved with to prevent reoffending. Probation staff need a professional qualification that allows them autonomy in the decisions they take, and be given the right to defend and explain their decisions when something goes wrong. They need time to spend with the people in their charge, and they need the ability and autonomy to tap into whatever local services they feel necessary that might help to stop someone reoffending. Endless assessments only identify problems, and that process becomes pretty pointless if you're unable to find solutions.
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This may, or may not seem contentious. But can I suggest that there is another way to respond to the terrible work situation many face. I retired 3 years ago but I spent 5 years counting down to that date. I had returned from a spell in NOMS and was ill prepared for the absolute shit shower on my return to an SPO role in Yorkshire. It soon became clear to me that in order to remain sane I had to manage my work in a way that kept senior managers at arms length without alerting them to the fact that I was only doing what I wanted to do and generally ignoring the rest.
Now I know people will say that I knew I was leaving and had little to lose, but it got me through 5 years. Just imagine what could be achieved if the majority of staff started to manage the service rather than letting the service manage them. I targeted a number of avenues. I spent the first few months perusing a number of policies. The sickness policy was a boon as I quickly worked out how much sick leave I could pull without drawing too much immediate attention. I also stopped filling out sickness absences that only involved a few days. That way staff avoided being drawn into a prolonged HR process. If the computer packed up I went home. If the systems aren’t working then that’s not my fault. The organisation failed to give me the tools to work so I didn’t. And more importantly I didn’t rush to complete a deadline if the computers failed. The service was to blame not me. So they got the blame.
If my manager insisted it got done then I didn’t do something else and made it clear that hadn’t got done as the service was to blame. Then I started to take sick leave. But I was careful and planned it well in advance. On one occasion I got wind that I was going to be moved. So I waited until closer the time to move and promptly went off sick. Long term sick is better than a couple of days. Always take as close to 6 months as you can. I know that seems extreme but stress on a doctors note works a treat. Put your feet up and let your manager know how keen you are to come back…but don’t.
When you eventually return the phased return is a joy. Until it ends then you wait until…another until you can repeat. Just one month with stress and this time a bit of anxiety. You have to break through the garbage we are fed about working hard and the usual tripe about a fair days pay for a fair days work blah blah blah. It’s engrained in us and our colleagues but you have to draw a line. Your objective shouldn’t be about damaging the organisation that’s just a by-product. Keep it simple like working to your contracted hours and easing the work place demands. Use work policies to your advantage. Health and safety policies can be very helpful. Do not involve the Union. They are not your friends and they will not support you. Get your support from like minded peers.
May I suggest you start with your working hours. Once your weekly hours are completed go home. Do not work from home and do not work over a weekend. Study your contract and use it to your advantage. You can not be sacked if you refuse to work more hours than you are contracted to for. If the computers fuck up then push back. Do not rush to complete the work as this is not your fault. These are just few examples I’m sure you can think of others. The strategy is yours to decide. I can go on about work place sabotage but I think I have said enough now.
So in conclusion game the system to your advantage. If you put your head up ensure you are on solid ground (the policies support you). Stick to your hours. If the systems fail you put the blame where it’s needed. Don’t be nice and offer to do it later that evening. Because I know you will want to. Undermine at every opportunity. Use the sickness policy. And when you get really pissed off hit the fire alarm it’s amazing how long that takes out of your day oh and remember it’s not your fault it went off so please don’t rush around or make up your hours just go home.
“Then I started to take sick leave. But I was careful and planned it well in advance.” … “ “when you get really pissed off hit the fire alarm”.
ReplyDeleteThis is where Happy Valley gets its drug hassled emotional wreck wino Probation Officers from, they are real. It’s disgusting there are Probation Officers promoting sick leave as annual leave, Probations historic problem because of people like this. The dinosaurs and has-beens of yesteryear who scrapped through qualification and been a problem ever since. The nasty crew who infiltrated Napo and gave reps a bad name, they made it to management, no wonder bulling and malpractice is rife there. Every probation office has a few sick tourists and they’re usually the worst Probation Officers, disappearing every time their work builds up because they’re not doing it, or they’ve messed up, taking up everyone’s time and making a mockery of those who are really unwell. The rest of us spend the next few months picking up and fixing their work only for them to return and do the same again. Now a sad trend for new POs when they should instead moving on to new and better careers. Yes work your hours and only do what’s within your capacity, but don’t listen to these fools.
It is a mystery who are these so called ‘Nasty Crew’ are that supposedly infiltrated Napo and gave reps a bad name. This is such unbelievable garbled nonsense. Napo has not been infiltrated. On the Officer side people are elected and do 50:50 the job and Napo work. It is a tough brief and Officer reps frequently find themselves subject to additional pressures and crap treatment like zero career progression and black listing. Anyone can apply for a HQ job and ex union officers chairs might head that way simply because they find it is more suited to their skill set and they can progress on merit rather than being discriminated against by people unfairly labelling them as ‘nasty crew’ etc. People have got to eat and if only one sort of person heads to HQ nothing changes. What HQ needs is more ex trade union activists. But who would even want to be a union activist these days? Unfortunately people seem to be lapping up and regurgitating right wing tabloid anti union propaganda and taking cowardly potshots at trade unions from the comfort of their armchairs.
DeleteThe following came in on yesterday's post and to be honest I'm not surprised at the strong reaction. The fact that it's a subject being talked about in such graphic and blunt terms is surely more evidence of what a toxic environment probation has become under civil service command and control.
ReplyDelete" Workload wise correct that’s how to manage it. Do the minimum, work your hours, achieve what is within your capacity, take no responsibility for the inadequacy of systems and the organisation. Working from home is a godsend though.
Sickness wise that’s disgusting. It is people like you that impact on the rest of us. There’s one of you in every office and we all despise you. You go off sick for 6 months for your lies and we pick up your shoddy work. Your advice is really bad and telling people to “hit the fire alarm” just shows how messed up you are.
My advice is if anyone is at the point of wanting to go sick for 6 months then just find a new job. Be proactive, it’s sad to see so many young POs following this advice of people like you when they can instead easily move to new and better careers where they’ll prosper."
You may be missing the point of the post advice. Of course it's a cynical observation. However staff extending their working requirements abuse those that should not have to just to keep up with people who won't protect their health by working to contract. It is not fair to criticise people who's absence is from stress is to suggest they are liars. Many staff ill through work are in need of their recovery time. It is upto management not to make staff ill not to overwork or pressure them going sick is not a choice it is a well being issue. Even raising the subject like that says to me they either were genuinely sick in the first place to illustrate their situation or it was written by a manager or Napo to assist them start to attack further terms and conditions. Whatever the fact is we should all pull back from overworking for all sides.
DeleteThe person that wrote it was the manager!
DeleteHaha brill all staff need protection so all policies apply to all. The process in probation is now managed by some fairly inept management anyway and the attitudes today are all brutal.
Delete“I had returned from a spell in NOMS and was ill prepared for the absolute shit shower on my return to an SPO role”
ReplyDeleteI rest my case about the seedy management structure. If I was the Chief Probation Officer you’d all be called back to the frontline. Secondments, OMiC, Performance, Effective Practice, Probation Workforce, QDOs, Business Managers, Diary Managers, the lot of you.
Yes indeed these hideaway officers are doing just that if your qualified then get them back to doing the po job and help us all out or get lost. Any non qualified staff can deliver the other stuff. After all these people joined as a po so get on with it.
DeleteI am concerned about the OP saying don’t contact the unions, they won’t help you. I have represented a number of staff in respect of the attendance management policy and been successful. I also raise my concerns at JCC meetings with senior management, quite vocally
ReplyDeleteSaw this in the Mirror today. Why isn’t the probation service saying the same?
ReplyDelete“The Youth Custody Service said: “We’re boosting pay so we can better recruit and retain staff to support young people in our care.”
I know a lot of people on probation. Most of them are homeless, sleeping in doorways, or being shunted from one night shelter to another.
ReplyDeleteProbation is just another problem to them when it should be providing an opportunity for solutions.
With so many people on probation finding themselves in such a miserable situation, and exposed to that kind of daily living, surely NO assessment can accurately reflect the level of risk someone in those circumstances might pose?
No doubt risk assessments are a valuable tool, but isn't what can be done to reduce that risk even more important?
So theres a conundrum for the probation service that the state need to address. Do that want probation officers chained to the desk all day identifying the risks that the people they supervise might pose, or do they want probation officers in the field actively engaged in ways of reducing those risks?
If indeed the role of probation now is to protect the public then it's a case of how best that's achieved.
If someone is murdered by someone on probation, the family and relatives of the victim are unlikely to feel satisfied by being told that the probation officer supervising the perpetrator had identified their risk correctly!
They might however be a little more forgiving of the service if the supervising officer can say they had been able to assist with access to mental health services, addiction services, housing, education and employment.
OASyS seems to be the answer to everything in modern day probation.
Well if it's so important, and such a fantastic tool, why not subject the probation service itself to an OASyS assessment, identify the risks and problems it has, and all its problems can be managed accordingly.
Probation should operate in the field, not the office!
'Getafix
everywhere has its ups & downs; everywhere has its scammers & grifters; everywhere has its bullies.
ReplyDeleteProbation-as-was, whilst never perfect or a land of rainbows & honey, used to deal with those who abused the system quite successfully on a local level; they were managed very carefully by skilled & experienced managers.
But in 2000 probation-as-was became infected by a national malaise via the portal of Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. It contracted NPS & NOMS, which developed into full-blown Trust status & latterly mutated into TR/HMPPS.
Resistance to the constant change & evolution of the parasitic virus has now been all but removed, & the festering remains of probation-as-was is increasingly displayed through the distorted lens of the SFO.
There is no modern equivalent; just an occasional wistful echo can be heard in remote parts of England & Wales.
The "system" needs bining not fixing, nostalgic memories of The Prisoner rising to the surface
ReplyDeleteI’m glad I limited my observations yesterday as my sickness observation appears to have touched a bit of a nerve. Can I just say that in most cases people take sick leave because they have to, in fact staff are more likely not to take sick leave because they are frightened of what might happen. My point being you shouldn’t be afraid to take sick leave, just make sure you know what you are doing. So that out of the way let me offer some background. I came from a working class family and left school with no qualifications. Expect that is for a loathing of authority exercised vindictively. Which is a significant thread in the blog. You now have managers who behave badly. You have a senior leadership who never listen, and even if they did won’t really bother doing anything about it. A union that has little interest in changing things, largely because it can’t but in some cases because it won’t. What they want is for you to be divided, which judging by some of the posts you are. As long as that continues you will change nothing. You must draw collective strength. Without this you are just individuals. That’s how they like it. I do agree with some observations. If you are not happy then leave. Although to do what may be another matter. If you like the service as it is then we’ll good luck. I have nothing to say that will change your mind. Although the evidence tells us it’s failing on so many levels you must have had some pretty crap jobs to think this is ok. But I know there are worse jobs out there. I’m talking to those who don’t want to leave or can’t leave. And please don’t tell me you always have a choice because you don’t really. There are all sorts of reasons why staff stay. But if you want to stay fight back a little and take some bloody control. Guerrilla tactics have been common over the years, usually as a very last resort. It’s my view that the service will not change voluntarily but it can be fucked about until it has to change. Actions like this start with a very small step. A refusal to take more work, resisting pressure to complete a report when you don’t have all the details. But to achieve this you need to organise yourselves. One of my favourite early tactics was to keep sending rambling emails to senior manager that never got to the point but required them to find me to explain. My interventions in management meetings deliberately missed the point but in most cases derailed the topic and required even more discussion so that the meeting either over ran or ended without any agreement. I always insisted on things in writing. Which I then haggled over. People will dismiss you as childish before they even realise what you have done. I used to look on it as “pissing them off time”. The more time spent explaining things to me the less time they had for anything else. I then escalated it until I had created a space around me. My managers stopped coming in to our shared room. They stopped talking to me and increasingly had little idea about what I was actually doing. The first step was to remove my manager from my day to day activity. I bored them to death. Once I had achieved that then I could push back even more.
ReplyDeleteTrust me it was liberating. And it gave me the first taste of the control I needed to function properly. Try it, start small, know your friends , act daft, be verbose, be boring, be pedantic, make demands, and as before go home when your hours are done. The fact is this service is wobbling and if, if some of you take action to make it worse then you might push it over completely. Just think if you stick to your hours and don’t take more work, where exactly will it go? You have more power than you realise you just need to work together.
Is there a direct correlation between the number of specialist teams we now have and the decline in front line delivery? We must go back to delivering the day job and actually valuing that surely? I can’t think why frontline staff are so undervalued and completely taken for granted by senior managers.
ReplyDeleteWe need a free market economy to see who delivers the best. The CRCs were just taking off for the better when the plug was pulled so soon. Now there is no competition, so we are getting what we have. I’d personally go 100% privatisation and see what happens.
ReplyDeleteI doubt your serious. The management of the CRC I got lumbered were not ruthless but thick. Blunt obtuse. They bullied. They did not prepare . Some of their flagship staff in key roles had zero response to small polite knock back. A series of e mails on the record never saw response. There senior directors were fearful of facing able opposition.they only wanted money had no ideas on how to work with people wanted everything on minimum never paid the bills the trucks had no Mots or maintenance was halted. The buildings they closed for sheds a bit like Napo. Staff were encouraged to go. Disciplinary issues were taken for completely wrong reasons. When confronted they continued to proceed because the could not understand what they were doing. Stupid HR helped them. Some really stupid pso managers felt they were now in the club and helped them. 5 years of decline. Take a cheese grater and imagine the damage they did rubbing it across everything they controlled. Shredded everything to get a return. Didn't pay rates water bills electricity. Working and wondering if they could pay us come the last few months then zap they were foreclosed. The lot em shite people bad in many ways but absolutely incompetant public sector in all forms was demonstrably superior and to privatise is the Tory way to decline both state and lead us to complete poverty while the bullies take more.
DeleteI'm guessing you mean Working Links? If so, why not just say so?
DeleteWe are all struggling but certainly not helped by staff encouraging people to have 6 months off sick. It is an insult to anyone that is genuinely unwell and we are very fortunate to have a safety net. That's what makes the job so hard on top of high caseloads we also have to carry staff that think it is their right to have months off every year with no thought for anyone else. The service would be better off without these people.
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe any Probation Officer sets off fire-alarms!
ReplyDeleteJim, I’ll let you decide if this is a reasoned message or an incoherent, inconclusive rant, a comment, guest blog or something for the recycle bin.
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 we’re 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 https://probationmatters.blogspot.com/2015/02/guest-blog-26.html?m=1
ReplyDelete“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 shines 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”.
ReplyDeleteI 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 everytime 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.
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
I’ve worked in the Service for 21 years and have never seen it in such chaos. We need to go back to basics and focus on risk assessment/management instead of being bogged down in the bureaucracy, policy and processes that have been imposed by the countless teams who are working in silo and imposing changes without even consulting staff on the frontline.
ReplyDeleteWithout the right staff in sentence management, you don’t have a Probation Service. I think they need to get the POMs/SPO’s back out of custody and scrap OMIC. Take the staff out of courts, have minimal court cover and let PP’s write the PSR’s on their own cases (they should know the PoPs and be better placed to write the report). Get all of the QDO’s back in field teams and carrying a reduced caseload. Deliver quality training instead of training via teams or e-learning. Develop a learning and development team that is actually fit for purpose instead of relying on overworked SPO’s to pick up the pieces. Recruit the right people at all grades. People getting promoted after a couple of years in the service is silly - all because they can talk the success profiles talk!