Fancy Being a Probation Officer? 4

Remember when initial allocation of a case was followed by a groan, then to be informed “they are in custody” - gave a sigh of relief and respite. However, under the ever-changing ECSL tectonic plates, release dates of prisoners now calculated in something akin to an FA Cup draw or ‘Wheel of Fortune’ format, rather than being something planned and embedded. The pressures and chaos this creates, along with an already substantial and sustained level of change, is leaving staff utterly bewildered. I am now of the opinion that if a custody case is allocated it will now be met with a groan.

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As much as early release of prisoners will cause significant problems for probation, probation itself is part of the problem. There are many thousands in prison on recall, not because they have re-offended, but for non compliance. It's penal ping pong. Prisons release and probation recall. Prisons are full because there's too many routes into them. Is there really any need to have everyone leaving prison subjected to at least 12mths probation supervision?

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With all this going on we’ve been told we must fill in weekly timesheets to explain our hours. Our SPO then told us from Monday she’s coming into the office 5 days a week “to model it to you all”. Not sure what’s going to be modelled. This SPO sits in her office with the door closed firing off emails and gossiping to her cronies all day. Ask her about a case she’s like a cat caught in the headlights.

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If we are all due to be called back into the office five days a week, watch the sickness rates increase exponentially! Flexible working prior to Covid was a joke and you needed a letter from your mam and the local priest to be granted a work from home day. We also do not have the infrastructure for it. They have changed most if not all offices to only hold 60% of the work force in the buildings.

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I’ve just received a call from my SPO. They are releasing a very high risk case on 2nd April and apparently there’s lot more of them. POP is on a standard recall but his sentence is less that 12 months custody so those cases are all being altered to fixed term recalls and being released, regardless of risk or MAPPA. Ive asked if this was national and he said he was but this is the first I’ve heard about it. I’ve been told not to share this with my colleagues because the legislation is not yet finalised. They also don’t want all staff seeing the list of names on there and they said this is because it’s confidential data but they don’t normally have a problem when we can see each others POP’s names on PP Dashboard, daily performance reports or when we need to cover another PP’s case on delius. Maybe they don’t want my colleagues to see the list for other reasons.

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"I’ve been told not to share this with my colleagues because the legislation is not yet finalised. They also don’t want all staff seeing the list of names on there and they said this is because it’s confidential". This is an absolute shitshow. Back awhile the term Omnishambles was coined. This is on a whole new level: Omnishambles on Amphet. Ministry: doing what exactly? Doubling down on failed strategy. Ministers presumably hiding under their temporary desks,
Civil Service: doubling down on failed strategy and waiting for eviction of Ministers, so they can advise the New Boss to be Just Like the Old Boss.

Professional Leadership 1 HMPPS: that leader is a prisons leader. Number one priority get some space in the prisons, probation - whatever that is - will have to cope

Professional Leadership 2 Probation: (where is the Chief?) No idea

Local Management: Fractured coms, headless chickens, rabbits in headlights

Frontline: not enough staff, and being churned out of training into the frontline on a wing and a prayer.

...in the trenches, at all levels actually, good decent people are trying to get the best done for people, living and breathing human beings who should be entitled to a competent service. In every place, a knackered stressed person coming out of prison is faced with a knackered stressed person in a probation office and neither of them have much options. Omnishambles squared.

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I am more than qualified for PQiP - at level 7 already - but I won't make that transition from PSO because of what I read about from current NQO's and RQO's, who criticise the excessive caseload, stress that creates due to the extra free time put in to meet deadlines - and there is the fear of SFO's which is more likely to come from a PO caseload than a PSO's. What is the point of working hours free of charge only to paid per hour the equivalent of a much less stressed specialist PSO?

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The academic side of the PQIP is somewhat easier now the 8,000 word dissertation requirement has been removed. Caseloads are not in the mid-20s/30s before qualifying because of the high profile tragic and horrific cases that have caused Probation to reflect rather than the daft conceit of piling work on as a trainee in preparation for the high caseload to come. This never tackles the caseload, but further puts the emphasis on the NQO/PQIP- this is a 'get out of jail free' card for Probation to continue to culturally emphasise that it's the NQO's fault of how they manage cases not the caseload itself. PQiPs don't have to do duty if they're doing a PAROM - when the kitchen sink was thrown at me when I did my training. But will they be prepared to undertake high risk on their own without co-working? 

Cases all start with proper work made in the courts or prisons with meaningful work to prepare them for community testing - not the attitude that most offenders have when they believe that when they leave prison that's the 'end of their sentence'. Much more has to be done at the Court or prison end of the system so as to make the COM's job just slightly less arduous. In addition, cases are often more or not a success if the allocation is made as well as it can be. This comes from risk literacy and making sure that an NQO doesn't have a case of abiding magnitude that they feel overwhelmed and this may turn into an SFO.

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The ads for the job are basically lies. A lot of the trainees that join would make brilliant probation officers. But they’ve been lied to, they’re disillusioned, and they want a better working life. Nobody can blame them for that. They may lack life experience, but they don’t lack intelligence. They value themselves. The younger generation would rather walk out of a job that makes them unhappy, and find jobs that pay less, if it means they’re happy, and not burned out every moment of every day. I respect them for that. They’re being honest with themselves. They’re valuing their worth and their mental health.

Maybe it’s not the trainees that should be criticised, but the recruiters. Recruiters know how pressurised the job is. The high staff turnover is a clear indication of that. Recruiting for numbers doesn’t work. There needs to be a re-examination of the recruitment process. Having hundreds of people join only to have hundreds of people leave again is a waste of time and resources. All it does is add to the pressure the existing staff are already under. It’s an optical illusion so the powers-that-be can say they’re recruiting X number of people to help ease the pressure, when in reality they’re just making it worse, through being dishonest about the leave-rate. Criticise the right people, and not those who try.

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I qualified 18 months ago and have never felt so undervalued in a job. My WMT is 175% and my anxiety is through the roof for fear of an SFO. I do not feel supported. I cannot manage risk when I do not have the time to spend with the people I manage. I'm ready to quit.