Lets Look At Napo

It's been some time since I've said much about Napo and that's for a variety of reasons. I didn't attend the AGM and conference and somewhat unusually, I didn't have a lot to say about the motions up for debate because to me the absolutely key issue was a campaign to get probation out of the clutches of HMPPS command and control and the dead hand of the civil service. So where did that feature on the list of motions? Nowhere, apart from Wales where Napo Cymru got their act together as I outlined here. 

Lets remind ourselves of what the 2022 AGM produced for the current years Operational Plan:-

National Executive 

• Fight for our professional integrity and our professional status by working with other Criminal Justice partners and unions to maintain our professional standards in Courts; fight the changes to the Parole process and fight to reinstate our ability to make recommendations; support staff involved in open parole hearings; continue to fight Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) especially the line management of probation staff by prisons; and campaign to take us out of the Civil Service in order to regain our independent professional status (Resolution 7)

• Napo will redouble our demands for Probation to be taken out of the civil service, and unshackled from the Prison Service. Napo members will write to their MPs making this position clear. The NEC will draft a suggested briefing note and letter, and Napo will engage in a press and communications exercise, responding to each of the inevitable future “poor” and “needs improvement” inspection report making this position clear (Resolution 9)

Pretty feisty stuff and clear cut. Fast forward to AGM 2023 and had it not been for Napo Cymru putting forward a spirited motion making the case for probation in Wales being fully devolved, the absolutely key issue of divorce from HMPPS wouldn't even have been discussed at all at Nottingham! 

Thank goodness for the the valiant efforts of Napo Cymru and their unstinting campaigning and assiduous political lobbying. I would venture to suggest that Napo England has much to learn from their efforts and should they bear fruit post the general election and a new UK Labour Administration, probation England is going to look pretty stupid as a totally isolated example of how not to do it. Sadly, Napo will look even more irrelevant than many feel it has already become. One can only speculate how the union is regarded by the MoJ and the HMPPS command and controllers! . 

So, this is what the new 2024 Operational Plan has to say:-

OBJECTIVE 3: CAMPAIGNING AND COMMUNICATING

Maintaining Napo’s high profile in successfully campaigning, promoting and communicating Napo’s policies and values. Organise the re-instatement of a national, amalgamated public Probation service and keep Cafcass as a public service, both with sufficient resources to guarantee jobs and service delivery. To work with unions, relevant organisations, MPs, Assembly Members, peers, parliamentary groups and others as appropriate in relation to wider public service campaigns.

• Actively, urgently and persistently campaign for the devolution of Probation in Wales, focussing these efforts on the Westminster Labour Party, demanding that the devolution of Wales Probation is included in the UK Labour manifesto for the next General Election (Resolution 19)

National Executive Committee 

• Raise awareness of the impact of staff shortages on serious further offences, highlighting this is increasingly through unsafe working practices and negotiate with the employer the circumstances in which Corporate Responsibility will be applied (Resolution 5).
• Call on the MOJ and government to put immediate measures in place to alleviate dangerously high workloads and address recruitment and retention with a decent pay rise (Resolution 6)
• Review recommendations in respect of possible industrial action when reports are received from Officers and Officials in respect of the formal One HMPPS dispute; the recent call from the outgoing HM Inspector of Probation for an independent enquiry into the state of Probation; the Lord Chancellor’s announcement of the early Release scheme and the removal of Divisional Sex Offender Units, which is detrimental to the public protection, the wellbeing of case managers and the communities we serve (Resolution 7)

Pretty feeble and mealy-mouthed I would venture to suggest. But the last reference provides a good example of why probation needs to be out of HMPPS completely. Lets look at what the position is regarding Divisional Sex Offender Units and indeed the MoJ/HMPPS track record on this important and key area of probation work. We've had the scrapping of the much maligned Sex Offender accredited programme; removal of funding for Circles UK; intended scrapping of the DSOU's; no sign of much encouragement of initiatives such as the Safer Living Centre in Nottingham, and then I spotted this from a notice of a forthcoming NOTA training event in Leeds:-

"This training is not available to staff of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service who use their own programmes and toolkits."

Now NOTA are an extremely well respected outfit that have been around a long time in the field of work with sex offenders:- 

NOTA’s Charitable Objectives are to advance education for the benefit of the public, amongst members of the profession or persons working with or providing services for people who have committed sexual abuse or others having a legitimate professional interest in the field, and to promote or assist in promoting research into the skills associated with the professions who work with or provide services for people who have committed sexual abuse and into the efficiency of existing skills and practices, and to disseminate the useful results of such research for the benefit of the public.

Why on earth are probation staff forbidden from attending? In the past we were encouraged to join NOTA and attend events. Methinks it's a perfect example of control freakery from HMPPS, an organisation that is rapidly demonstrating it is unfit for purpose.