It must be every editor's nightmare to publish, only to find you've missed the big story of the day. Well, today's the day because I discover late in the day that the BIG story is this:
In an environment where the government are actively preparing to do battle with the top tier of the civil service over performance, how does Antonia Romeo walk away with plaudits to the top Home Office job,
Home Secretary, the Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP, said:
"I am delighted to announce Antonia Romeo’s appointment as Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. Antonia has huge experience delivering transformation across a range of Government departments, as well as a track record of delivery and strong systems leadership, both of which will be vital to lead the Home Office to deliver its mission on safer streets and border security."
whilst the day after a crock of shite is 'discovered' at the MoJ? Joint statement from the three probation trade unions, including Napo yesterday:-
This Changes EverythingHMPPS has finally admitted that there is a deep and serious crisis in the Probation Service that bears out everything we have been saying in our Operation Protect campaign, launched back in June 2023.
On the basis of information provided to the unions under confidential cover, and which we are not able to disclose at present, HMPPS now accepts that it is thousands of staff short of the workforce it needs to meet existing sentence management demand.
This public acknowledgment of the depth and seriousness of the crisis only relates to sentence management, we expect to receive more information soon about other areas of probation delivery. Until we receive this further information, we don’t know whether the situation is going to be very different outside of sentence management. What we do know is that our members in other areas of probation delivery are struggling with their own workload pressures.
TOTALLY UNMANAGEABLE WORKLOADS
So now it’s official - sentence management staff have been expected to work for years to deliver totally unmanageable workloads. This obviously did not start yesterday.
It is no wonder that staff are suffering burn-out, work related stress and ill-health. And no surprise that successive HMIP reports have identified weakness in the Probation Service’s ability to provide its statutory services.
We note that HMPPS has listened to our Operation Protect Campaign and now accepts what our members and the unions have been saying for years – that there is a workload crisis in Probation and something needs to be done about it!
WHAT WE ARE CALLING FOR
Given just how extreme the workload crisis really is, the unions are now calling for the following:
- An immediate and complete end of Post Sentence Supervision, via emergency legislation if necessary
- A preview of the business case being made by HMPPS to the Spending Review to reassure our members that serious new money is being sought as part of a probation rescue package
- That employer acknowledges that the WMT is no longer an accurate reflection of workloads as it does not count the full extent of work undertaken and should not be used as such.
- Agreement on the total number of cases that can be held at any given time by a practitioner - to be jointly reviewed on a quarterly basis
- The suspension of capability proceedings against staff where excessive workload is a factor
- The suspension of all Sickness Absence Management proceedings against staff and the application of total management discretion
- An immediate review of the current nationally agreed overtime arrangements with a view to an indefinite extension.
- An immediate review of the Prioritisation Framework with all Probation Regions moving to ‘Red’ status
- Urgent agreement between HMPPS and the trade unions on a new Demand Management Strategy to support all staff in making decisions on prioritising work on individual caseloads.
- A moratorium on the introduction of any new work anywhere in the Probation Service pending agreement to a rescue package for the service
- Performance targets to take second place to staff welfare
- Negotiation on the role of AI in contributing to the easement of the capacity crisis and the need for a collective agreement to cover the same
HMPPS, and before it NOMS, has been responsible for running probation ever since Chris Grayling first centralised delivery with the creation of the National Probation Service in 2014. Nearly 11 years on, and the probation workloads crisis is the worst that it has ever been. We therefore call on the Government to deliver on its manifesto promise to review the governance of probation as a matter of urgency.
MEMBER BRIEFINGS
As part of the joint unions’ on-going Operation Protect Campaign we are planning urgent on-line meetings for members to come together to discuss the deepening workloads crisis and what we want doing about it. Please look out for details of these meetings.
Napo/UNISO/GMB/SCOOP
"Antonia has huge experience delivering transformation across a range of Government departments":
ReplyDeleteFrom the transcript of evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee on 12 March 2014:
Margaret Hodge: But the Peterborough model, as I understand it, is voluntary.
Antonia Romeo: That is correct.
Margaret Hodge: And the model that you are designing is not voluntary.
Antonia Romeo: That is correct.
Margaret Hodge: Is there any international evidence on this payment by results stuff?
Antonia Romeo: Very little actually...
romeo later told Civil Service World: "NOMS has a business assurance board designed to give me, the senior responsible officer, the assurance that this is going to work and isn’t taking on any unnecessary risk.”
After trashing probation, romeo was rewarded with a plum job in New York:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8537319/Woman-tipped-No10-job-bullying-row-Claims-diplomat-loved-mix-stars.html
"Antonia Romeo (pictured left with Harvey Weinstein) is a leading contender to replace ousted Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill as Head of the Civil Service, but was investigated for bullying staff and misusing expenses... junior staff members in the UK's New York consulate claimed to have felt pressured to submit expenses on behalf of Mrs Romeo that they did not believe were fully justified... more than £120,000 in fees for her three children at an upmarket New York school which had not been approved by the Foreign Office, expensive taxis and more than a dozen flights, some business class... Those involved in the complaints were told on March 17, 2017, that the claims against Mrs Romeo had been dismissed..."
Ten days later she took up her role as Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Trade.
As someone perceptively pointed out, 'Dame' Romeo was promoted out of the situation because she now doesn't have to face the music and neither does Amy Rees. it's also why so many individuals in industries get promoted because of politics rather than on merit. Clearly there is a squeaky bum issue with prison overcrowding, which should have been indicated by singular squeaky cheek. Community Probation will be the dumping ground suppository for all these pre-warned failings. Meanwhile, we'll get told how much our work is valued by the newly promoted CEO, Phil Copple. It's time community probation pushed back and said enough is enough. Because Probation Reset does not offset what's coming down the pipe and the WMT percentages are being more fudged than a chocolate factory at Easter.
ReplyDeleteCan someone explain where, when and how HMPPS have admitted all the above that the Unions say they have please, have they released as statement or have I missed something due to not working last Friday?
ReplyDelete‘Negotiation on the role of AI in contributing to the easement of the capacity crisis and the need for a collective agreement to cover the same’. Napo Operation Protect
ReplyDelete‘Embrace appropriate technology. Developments in remote supervision and different types of electronic tagging can help to keep supervisors informed and in some cases can help to keep potential victims safer, for example by prohibiting access by perpetrators of domestic violence to their former victims. Cases, where victims are re-attacked by released perpetrators, have rightly led to public concern about early release and parole. There will be little public support for reductions in imprisonment unless public safety can be shown to be a very high priority. Technological solutions can help increase compliance by supervised people where the motivation to cooperate is limited or variable. The Confederation of European Probation has recently produced a report summarising developments and making recommendations about principles (Confederation of European Probation 2024). These issues cannot be ignored, or left to private sector suppliers who provide little personal supervision. Technology is there to strengthen personal supervision and needs to be part of a package of supervision and help which will improve the chances of willing cooperation. We can also hope that improvements in technology might eventually reduce the need for probation staff to spend so much of their time in front of computers instead of dealing with people.‘ Peter Raynor
I think Napo needs to call for HMPPS to invest in equipping the workforce with better and more efficient IT systems and of course the latest AI as a matter of urgency to free them up to do the job they were trained to do. There has been gross under investment in new technologies and probation always lags behind and is last in the line. We should insist on getting AI so that probation do not miss out and end up with crappy make do and mend systems and no AI. The government says they are putting their best people on to AI. Shouldn’t probation benefit from these people and all the money and investment? Napo should not be afraid and demand that we get the best tech cutting edge tech now and negotiate an agreement on AI as a priority for the benefit of the workforce.
Napo negotiate hahaha that is brilliant.
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