Thank you to the writer of this, it sums up how most of us feel. I want to add the voice of an SPO to this. We come in for a lot of criticism from colleagues, but also get a lot of support and empathy. Currently I line manage over 15 staff, as everywhere my team are over worked, under resourced and stressed. But they are amazing people doing some amazing work in impossible circumstances.
The concerns I have for the well-being of my team keep me awake, I am constantly having to juggle balls and spin plates in the small hope it alleviates some pressure for them. I know that it doesn’t- it adds heat to a boiling pot. Staff are burnt out. They go home feeling guilty, tired, and overwhelmed. Not only are they trying to manage high caseloads with high need, they are trying to help their colleagues and welcome a constant turn over of new staff in the hope that they stay. New staff are given a bloody awful hand, they are being under trained and hammered with huge caseloads, despite my best efforts I am sure that there are cases they shouldn’t have.
We work in silos- gone are the days when you started to get to know your case pre sentence, and worked with them until the end whatever that sentence was. Courts are understaffed, the initial assessment process is consistently flawed. If they think the Bendall catastrophe has resolved this it hasn’t. Police checks are taking weeks- the focus isn’t on analysing offending or behaviour, we are in a copy / paste culture of OASys and quality assurance!
22 years in probation- 17 as a PO- my highest caseload was 110 cases in the CRC. Caseload numbers are not that stupid anymore but I have POs on 40 cases, PSO’s on 50+- all are complex, high need. How on earth are staff expected to be effective? First thing that is dropped when workloads are high is the 1-1 rehabilitation, group work is touted as the answer.
We work in silos- gone are the days when you started to get to know your case pre sentence, and worked with them until the end whatever that sentence was. Courts are understaffed, the initial assessment process is consistently flawed. If they think the Bendall catastrophe has resolved this it hasn’t. Police checks are taking weeks- the focus isn’t on analysing offending or behaviour, we are in a copy / paste culture of OASys and quality assurance!
22 years in probation- 17 as a PO- my highest caseload was 110 cases in the CRC. Caseload numbers are not that stupid anymore but I have POs on 40 cases, PSO’s on 50+- all are complex, high need. How on earth are staff expected to be effective? First thing that is dropped when workloads are high is the 1-1 rehabilitation, group work is touted as the answer.
Barriers to engagement- breach- enforcement takes months, we don’t look at how we can effectively engage people anymore, deal with resistance and denial and sequence interventions. Targets, targets, targets. No doubt we need performance measures but they don’t mirror what we need to achieve . And then HMIP issue reports stating we have great leadership and research indicating that community disposals work with good 1-1 relationships in probation- ironic, frustrating and why we have an issue in probation, but certainly the latter is not news.
My teams caseload is over 600 cases, am I confident that all bases are covered, that I know all of the really risky cases? no. But I am confident that, despite the tensions, my colleagues are bloody working hard and trying their best. Touch points model on 600+ cases- laughable and impossible, but also meaningless. Managers meetings are a constant discussion on how do we support staff, we don’t hold the keys to the solutions locally and nationally they are not interested. Staff retention is that key- but to achieve this we need to go back to the drawing board and look at the whole structure of probation and it’s value base.
Sentencing- let’s not go there- PSS- principle of rehabilitation- is an utter shambles.
I stay in the service because I care- care for my colleagues, care for the people coming through the door, partners and public. That's no longer seen as a positive by senior leaders / HMPPS. Will I stay until the end of my career, probably not but I will do what I can to look after my team while I am able to.
My teams caseload is over 600 cases, am I confident that all bases are covered, that I know all of the really risky cases? no. But I am confident that, despite the tensions, my colleagues are bloody working hard and trying their best. Touch points model on 600+ cases- laughable and impossible, but also meaningless. Managers meetings are a constant discussion on how do we support staff, we don’t hold the keys to the solutions locally and nationally they are not interested. Staff retention is that key- but to achieve this we need to go back to the drawing board and look at the whole structure of probation and it’s value base.
We have become solely a public protection agency, ineffective at public protection as we no longer assess effectively or rehabilitate. Yes better pay would have an impact but I think we all want the ability to be effective in building those working relationships with our people and do the rehabilitative work, not be chained to a laptop ticking a box or filling in a tool which tells us what we already know (for those of us fortunate enough to have had some decent training).
Sentencing- let’s not go there- PSS- principle of rehabilitation- is an utter shambles.
I stay in the service because I care- care for my colleagues, care for the people coming through the door, partners and public. That's no longer seen as a positive by senior leaders / HMPPS. Will I stay until the end of my career, probably not but I will do what I can to look after my team while I am able to.
Anon
That’s exactly how I feel
ReplyDeleteBy your own words you allocate work when you shouldn’t. I would have much rather read about what you’re doing to “support staff” and challenge your senior managers. Most SPO’s do nothing about the “concerns I have for the well-being of my team”. I’m tired of hearing this same meaningless reply and the collective moaning of SPO’s. Yes you are just as accountable (think about that) but are not doing the same work. We’re not in the same boat.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I am an SPO, I've over 20 years experience, over ten years as an SPO. I've had enough, as soon as I can find and get the right job I'm off. In the area I am it'll cause management some severe headaches as they can't not replace me and replacing me will cost them a PO they can't afford to lose. I'm sorry but that's their problem, they shouldn't have treated me, or all of us, so awfully.
ReplyDeleteThey can and will replace you.
Delete“But they are amazing people doing some amazing work in impossible circumstances. The concerns I have for the well-being of my team keep me awake“
ReplyDeleteThen stop allocating all the bloody work, stop perpetuating the toxic office cultures, stop the unadulterated obediency to the Senior Leadership Team.
Err they don't have the power to do that?
DeleteAnd how exactly does that work? How can you justify the DA victim not getting the support hey need, the perpetrators being in the community no supervision? The parole board not having a report to review a case due for release? SPOs will look at what doesn’t get done with staff- we know they can’t do everything.
DeleteHow can you justify the Staff members suffering?
Delete00:22 THIS. 100% this. 🙌🏻
ReplyDeleteI simply do not understand how an SPO is justified in allocating work to staff ( interesting distinctions made between managers and “ my team” ie the staff, that seems to me to say so much more than a simple pay grade above a PO), knowing that those staff are already holding a full case load and therefore have NO CAPACITY for allocation of additional work. That in itself is an admission of inflicting harm on those very staff if you know people in ‘your team’ are at that point not coping and are stressed. Surely that is a line of accountability here that leads directly to ALL in the management structure? Wringing of hands does not remove or negate this accountability. Saying we know this is wrong but have no choice but to continue harming staff is what seems to be some sort of admission here and for which there can be no absolution because it causes you worry but yet you keep repeating the behaviour. That said, what about those we are allocated, where is the procedural justice, care and support for them? Knowing this is wrong but ‘having’ to keep doing it, is no justification. If you keep shovelling shit down it eventually lands on the most vulnerable and there should be no doubt that this is precisely what is openly being done. So victims, offenders and justice is being systemically failed.
ReplyDeletePO
Question to those saying stop allocating the work, what happens to it and the person, who we know will need support?
ReplyDeleteDo we have cases sat unallocated indefinitely?
I, and a lot of SPOs are doing our job and tasks to help colleagues in the team, this week I have done 2 ISPs, seen cases and will probably do more of this.
Why is there an assumption that SPOs are not speaking up and telling senior leaders of the problems, the solutions and likely outcomes if this continues? A lot of them are.
To be honest I don’t mind the negativity towards management but to assume that all managers are pole climbers who don’t care is rubbish and quite frankly not true. Like all grades there are good and bad, we need to stick together. Some POs became SPOs because they want to support colleagues and cases. I think we need reminding that we work with people, often with complex needs and I don’t just mean the cases. The numbers are horrendous, the circumstances we are in atrocious but the solutions are not immediately impactful.
7:45 we do exactly what the prisons do and say we are at capacity and let Senior Leaders take the necessary strategic decisions. If we are truly one HMPPS then the PS section is AT CAPACITY exactly as the Prison section is and needs a plan to address this immediately it really is simple. Funnily enough that doesn’t seem to register with any managers this must go up the line, urgent action required! The Probation Service is currently a red risk area and required urgent action!
DeletePO
When we become probation service employees we do not leave behind our wider commitment to integrity.
DeleteThat's absolutely right. Capacity is capacity. The rooms full, letting anymore in is dangerous and creates serious risks, and probation is charged with reducing risk!
DeleteI'm struck by the SPO with twenty years in.
That's joining round about the Millennium and probation was already in decline with NOMs on the horizon.
Probation needs to get back to its roots, and become a professional agency again.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/228193503.pdf
'Getafix
Toxic management meetings combining handringing about staff struggling and leaving, then in come the performance figures and get your team to do this. I've heard PDU heads ring their hands about workloads and the consequences of them and then bow down to head of ops who simply doesn't give a hoot. The RPD comes in with fluff about proper probation practice but gaslights people about workloads and fails to take any responsibility by being will ignorant of what's going on, meaning all the pressure falls once again to PO/PSO and SPOs, when it should be going up.
ReplyDeleteI’ve never spoken to a single PO / PSO that felt their PDU heads were fit for purpose. The reality is they aren’t. They have the power to do something about this mess but they don’t. They ‘wring their hands’ and ‘bow their heads’ and knowingly allow the harm to staff to continue. They have far more power than SPOs but they just toddle along like things will magically rectify themselves, without them actually doing anything to make that happen. Then they wonder why they have a mutiny on their hands, where staff have had enough and are saying no. I have no sympathy for them. They contribute to the daily nightmare that never ends. There will be many more catastrophic SFOs and practitioners AND SPOs will take the fall for them every single time. Careers and reputations destroyed, emotional and mental health in shreds, and the PDU heads and RPDs will go unscathed every single time. Cases are people but so are staff and the Service is nothing without its practitioners. Something the higher-ups seem to have completely forgotten. They will remember fast enough when they suddenly have hundreds of cases to reallocate and literally nobody to give them to, because most of their staff are off sick, overwhelmed and unable to function anymore because of the stress they have wilfully dumped at our doors with no thought for our well-being. Duty of care starts at the top. Practice is broken because staff are broken. Hire more agency staff. LISTEN TO STAFF. Understand we are only human and we AREN’T expendable unless they want a Service consisting of trainees and newly qualified officers because experienced staff have either left or are too unwell to work. Stop breaking staff. There are no excuses, justifications or reasons to do this to staff. There will be no staff retention unless they STOP BREAKING US.
ReplyDeleteThey will only listen when you start refusing work and sabotage the entire service. How many more lives need to crushed before staff realize they have more power than they realize. Health and Safety, stick to contracted hours, refuse to cover work. Let’s call it an unofficial work to rule.
DeleteOther services are protecting their work force better than Probation. Some police areas have stopped taking IOM referrals due to lack of capacity. Many children's services have protected caseloads. They know that if they don't protect staff they lose them. So why do we have no control and why are managers not doing more to reduce our caseloads and have a genuine safe working measurement? PSS should go for starters and we should not have to deal with the shambles of accommodation. The task should go to another specialist service. It taking up too much valuable time and contributing to burn out. We need more Probation officers, ones with experience so why are PO's being shifted over to work on quality control? It ridiculous and these jobs need to go, get the PO's back doing offender manage. I read the article from the PO and i's spot on. Sounds like someone has taken my brain contents and splattered it over the blog. It's nice to know I'm not alone but all the more shocking to know how many of us are genuinely suffering and being abused so badly at work.
ReplyDelete23:59 - we are all replaceable. They don’t care about anyone. As soon as you’re out the door you’re not even a memory anymore.
ReplyDeleteFrom Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"Had Chris Jenning (new area director for SW prisons) visit the establishment I work in yesterday. Seemed a capable guy, spoke well what his plans were. Unfortunately they are the same plans I have heard over the years as a prison officer, probation worker and now a team lead."
I take the point about how some other organizations are better at protecting staff, but many social workers are facing redundancies as council cuts are now starting to bite. I have recently looked at two reports that cast a light on the real problems this country faces after 13 years of Tory rule. The first is the Global Tax Evasion Report 2024 and the second is The Joseph Rowntree Foundations report on destitution in the UK. Both are shocking but provide a context to how this country operates. Tax evasion, dirty money and extreme poverty go hand in hand. I also watched Partygate last night. It shows how the great and connected make their way through Government and how they infest the Civil Service at its highest levels. Eton, Harrow, Cambridge and Oxford etc etc. Nothing will change until we are willing to say no more. The Probation Service is merely one part of this shambles and until the Conservative Party is flushed down the toilet of history more people will be exploited as the ones in the know are laughing all the way to their off shore banks. Tax free.
ReplyDeleteFor those who decide to stay, mutiny is the only answer to deal with the weak leadership we currently have. Otherwise they will continue business as usual.
ReplyDelete