First off I want to mention another BBC Radio 4 programme I was listening to last night, Radical with Amol Rajan and this episode: Jamie Oliver: Obesity and Debt are Killing Britain
Jamie Oliver thinks diet-related illness and growing levels of debt are killing the country he loves. In this frank and open conversation, he tells Amol why we need to go further to help people understand the nutritional value of the food they eat. And although his campaign for the sugar tax brought significant change, Jamie says there is still more to do on school meals, breakfast clubs and food packaging. But Jamie’s mission doesn’t stop at food. He wants children to be taught how to manage their money and he also sets out a case for reforming education so it better serves children with diverse ways of learning. Reflecting on his own dyslexia, he emphasises the importance of giving every child the support they need to thrive.Now, what's this got to do with Probation and our predicament I hear you ask? Well, firstly it's worth listening to because Jamie goes on to talk about how many children are neurodivergent and many end up in the criminal justice system. But imagine a similar programme featuring a knowlegable person who is able to outline a radical way of fixing just as big a problem that we have. I don't think the radical plan would take much effort to knock together, but I suppose finding the voice might be.
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Any plan has to deal with this:-
This from Russell Webster back at the end of October:-
Indeed, the MoJ also published “Transparency Data” on the number of people released under the Standard Determinate Sentences 40% (SDS40) early release scheme yesterday which revealed that almost 40,000 (38,042) people were released from prison early in the 9 month period between 10 September 2024 and 30 June 2025 – all of whom, of course, were required to be subject to probation supervision. The accompanying data tables still exclude the one key piece of data that everyone wants to know – how many of people released early with minimal support are recalled.
However, we do know (from the OMSq) that 11,041 people were recalled on licence in this last quarter – an increase of 13% on the same quarter last year. There usually is more than one reason for recalling an offender on licence. Of recalls in April-June 2025, about 74% involved non-compliance, 36% involved failure to keep in touch, 23% involved failure to reside, and less than one quarter (22%) involved a charge of further offending.
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This collapse was not an accident. It was the result of political decisions. The workforce is depleted because ministers refused to resource it. Moral injury is endemic because leadership rewarded defensibility over truth. Recall culture spiralled because political optics were valued above rehabilitation. Reset and Impact exist not because they support staff, but because the service became structurally unable to deliver its core duties.
A real recovery plan means rebuilding staffing, restoring autonomy and dismantling the surveillance-first culture that now treats people on probation as risks to be contained rather than humans to be supported. Nothing changes until those facts are admitted by the people who created them.
If ministers want to claim they are easing caseloads, then they must fund the workforce, reduce unnecessary licence conditions, stop offloading risk downward and stop treating probation like an extension of the prison estate. Anything else is denial dressed up as reform.
Removing PSS without rebuilding the foundations is not recovery. It is political damage control masquerading as progress.
Unless those with power stop protecting their reputations and start repairing the damage they created, probation will remain a collapsing structure that punishes the people inside it more than the people it claims to supervise.
For the love of God get rid of PSS.
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PSS is one necessary fix, but it is the lowest-hanging fruit in a garden that has been left to rot. Scrapping it does not amount to reform. It simply removes one failing mechanism in a system that is failing everywhere. If those in power want to talk about a probation recovery plan, they must first confront why the service needs recovery at all.This collapse was not an accident. It was the result of political decisions. The workforce is depleted because ministers refused to resource it. Moral injury is endemic because leadership rewarded defensibility over truth. Recall culture spiralled because political optics were valued above rehabilitation. Reset and Impact exist not because they support staff, but because the service became structurally unable to deliver its core duties.
A real recovery plan means rebuilding staffing, restoring autonomy and dismantling the surveillance-first culture that now treats people on probation as risks to be contained rather than humans to be supported. Nothing changes until those facts are admitted by the people who created them.
If ministers want to claim they are easing caseloads, then they must fund the workforce, reduce unnecessary licence conditions, stop offloading risk downward and stop treating probation like an extension of the prison estate. Anything else is denial dressed up as reform.
Removing PSS without rebuilding the foundations is not recovery. It is political damage control masquerading as progress.
Unless those with power stop protecting their reputations and start repairing the damage they created, probation will remain a collapsing structure that punishes the people inside it more than the people it claims to supervise.
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The service officially needs 3,150 more staff to deliver a “basic” standard, and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) itself underestimated the need by about 5,400 staff. Disgusting!!!******
Staff lose an average of 13.2 working days to illness annually (compared to a national average of 5.7), with nearly 60% of these absences due to mental ill health. Get the f**k out and leave. You don’t deserve this and you can do much better. I have applied for other jobs. Leaving soon as I can. It’s going g to get worse.******
You’re right that it’s going to get worse, because none of the pressures driving sickness, burnout and collapse are being fixed. The workforce is shrinking faster than it can be replaced, and whenever someone goes off sick their work just gets dumped on everyone else. No wonder so many are looking elsewhere now, myself included.And the sentencing reforms won’t ease anything. A presumption against short custodial sentences sounds sensible, but in reality it means more people supervised in the community by a service that cannot safely manage the caseload it already holds. Organisations responding to the Bill have said openly that this will increase pressure on probation unless staffing and resources rise sharply, and the inspectorate has warned that expanding community sentences without capacity risks making things worse. Less prison time does not equal less probation work. It means more supervision, more admin, more risk and less time to do meaningful work.
Meanwhile, £700 million is being thrown at AI, tagging and “digital transformation” as if technology can substitute for a workforce that has been hollowed out. It is treated like a magic bullet, but it won’t build trust, it won’t support change and it won’t repair a service that has been systematically stripped of the basics required to function.
And through all this, the system still prioritises metrics and bureaucracy over listening, humanity and rehabilitation. Practitioners haven’t stopped caring. They’ve had the conditions for caring removed by people in power who treat connection as inefficiency.
It’s going to get worse because those with power refuse to confront the damage they created. Until they rebuild the foundations instead of managing the symptoms, the spiral will continue and probation will keep losing the very people it depends on to survive.
*****
What worries me more than anything is how numb we have all been forced to become. We are describing sickness, resignations, burnout, fear and moral injury as if they are just workplace inconveniences rather than signs that something fundamental has broken. Probation is not just strained. It is being hollowed out from the inside and everyone can feel it.At its best, probation has always been a profession built on belief. Belief in change, belief in humanity, belief that dignity matters even when people are at their lowest. But belief does not survive in a system that exhausts its workforce, strips out time, piles on pressure and refuses to acknowledge its own part in causing harm. When the conditions for dignity are removed, the dignity itself disappears. When purpose is crushed, people walk.
And here is the truth that cuts deeper than caseloads or processes. A service that cannot protect the wellbeing of its own staff cannot pretend to be protecting the public. Exhausted, depleted, morally injured practitioners cannot sustain safe practice. Losing experienced staff is not just an operational problem. It is a public safety crisis unfolding in slow motion.
What makes this so hard to swallow is that the people with the power to intervene still talk in managerial language while the service bleeds. They talk about innovation, transformation, efficiency and resilience as if this is a technical issue rather than a human one. It is not technology that keeps people safe. It is not dashboards or metrics that support rehabilitation. It is people. Skilled, steady, supported people.
And yet those very people are now leaving faster than they can be replaced. Not because they do not care, but because caring has been turned into a liability. Not because they lack resilience, but because resilience has been misused as an excuse not to fix what is broken. The workforce has not failed. The leadership has.
If the country genuinely wants probation to function, for staff, for people on probation and for public safety, then the conversation has to change. Not how do we squeeze more out of what is left, but how do we rebuild something worthy of the people who rely on it. How do we restore dignity, purpose and stability. How do we make it possible for staff to do the job the public believes they are doing.
Because if we cannot value the people who hold up the justice system, then we cannot claim to value justice at all.
*****
My most important take from Rutger's lectures thus far:"one hour of real human attention is not something you can easily automate."
I'd go further - one hour of real human attention is not something you can automate at all. Ever. Regardless of what ellenmusk or markysuckerbugs or peterevilthiel or any of the so-called 'techbros' say.
What so many people could do with - whether one-off, weekly, monthly - is one hour of real, face-to-face human interaction, where the attention is focused upon the client/patient/attendee, when people are listened to, are heard, are acknowledged as part of the conversation.
It boils my piss when, in so many interactions with others, people talk over, shout down, cut across, or otherwise make it clear all they want to hear is their own opinion, their own voice.
One of the skills I learned on my (yawn) social-work-based CQSW was listening. We had a (double yawn) 'counselling' unit to complete which involved an assessment of a recorded interview (with a student colleague, not a client) as part of the exam. For me, this was one of the most critical pieces of leaning I undertook - not just for the probation work, but for life.
As a university tutor I would simply go silent when students were more interested in themselves than in the subject at hand. On numerous occasions it took several minutes for them to realise I had stopped speaking & sat down. It only took a couple of sessions with each group before they started to listen & engage respectfully. Only then did the sessions come alive, with great questions from students who had listened & who appreciated those questions being heard & debated by their peers and the tutor.
The art of listening is an art; a dying art.
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Active listening, real human attention and the sense of being understood are at the heart of any rehabilitative relationship. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is that the system has made it almost impossible for practitioners to offer the very thing that makes probation meaningful. People on probation haven’t become harder to work with. The system has become harder to work within.
The quality of training used to prepare practitioners to work relationally, creatively and reflectively. Over time that has been eroded and replaced with training geared toward risk management, defensibility and procedural compliance. New staff are being trained into a model where listening is optional but box-ticking is mandatory. Experienced staff are burning out under the weight of moral injury because they remember what the job should be and cannot deliver it under current conditions.
The pressure to meet performance measures at a pace that bears no resemblance to the reality of current caseloads strips out the ability to slow down, to think, to understand and to listen properly. Every minute is accounted for. Every task is timed. Every action must produce a metric. Humanity has no measurable output, so the system quietly removes the space for it. Practitioners aren’t choosing not to listen. The structure has removed the oxygen that listening requires.
And this is where accountability sits. It is not the workforce who decided that surveillance matters more than understanding or that throughput matters more than trust. It is leadership and ministers who redesigned probation into a machine that values compliance over connection and defensibility over truth. They created an environment where the things that actually help people change are treated as inefficiencies to be eliminated.
Active listening is still essential. The tragedy is that the people with power treated it as expendable. Until they stop protecting their own narratives and start rebuilding the conditions that make real work possible, the system will continue silencing both practitioners and the people they supervise.
The quality of training used to prepare practitioners to work relationally, creatively and reflectively. Over time that has been eroded and replaced with training geared toward risk management, defensibility and procedural compliance. New staff are being trained into a model where listening is optional but box-ticking is mandatory. Experienced staff are burning out under the weight of moral injury because they remember what the job should be and cannot deliver it under current conditions.
The pressure to meet performance measures at a pace that bears no resemblance to the reality of current caseloads strips out the ability to slow down, to think, to understand and to listen properly. Every minute is accounted for. Every task is timed. Every action must produce a metric. Humanity has no measurable output, so the system quietly removes the space for it. Practitioners aren’t choosing not to listen. The structure has removed the oxygen that listening requires.
And this is where accountability sits. It is not the workforce who decided that surveillance matters more than understanding or that throughput matters more than trust. It is leadership and ministers who redesigned probation into a machine that values compliance over connection and defensibility over truth. They created an environment where the things that actually help people change are treated as inefficiencies to be eliminated.
Active listening is still essential. The tragedy is that the people with power treated it as expendable. Until they stop protecting their own narratives and start rebuilding the conditions that make real work possible, the system will continue silencing both practitioners and the people they supervise.
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"It is of concern that there has been a sustained increase in the number of notifications of an arrest and charge for an SFO over the last two years. In the period 2023/2024 the figure increased from 478 to 770, and in 2024/2025 it increased further by 13 per cent to 872.
We have quality assured 90 SFO reviews this year, with 53 per cent of these rated as ‘Requires improvement’. In contrast, just 46 per cent were rated as ‘Good’, and one per cent as ‘Outstanding’. Disappointingly, these findings show no improvement from the previous year.
In last year’s SFO annual report we made 11 recommendations, seven of which were repeated from the previous year’s’ SFO annual report. It is discouraging to note that while HMPPS have taken forward some activity against most of these recommendations, the outcomes and their impact is still not clear."
Prison building boom to make streets safer
A prison building boom is underway across the country as the Government presses ahead with the biggest jail expansion programme since the Victorian era.
Then we have this just out from HM Probation Inspectorate:-
"It is of concern that there has been a sustained increase in the number of notifications of an arrest and charge for an SFO over the last two years. In the period 2023/2024 the figure increased from 478 to 770, and in 2024/2025 it increased further by 13 per cent to 872.
We have quality assured 90 SFO reviews this year, with 53 per cent of these rated as ‘Requires improvement’. In contrast, just 46 per cent were rated as ‘Good’, and one per cent as ‘Outstanding’. Disappointingly, these findings show no improvement from the previous year.
In last year’s SFO annual report we made 11 recommendations, seven of which were repeated from the previous year’s’ SFO annual report. It is discouraging to note that while HMPPS have taken forward some activity against most of these recommendations, the outcomes and their impact is still not clear."
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What Jones meant to write, but it got lost somewhere in Petty France:
"It is tedious to note that we have made eleven recommendations, seven of which were repeated from the previous year, yet despite HMPPS taking forward some activity against some of our recommendations, outcomes and their impact is still not clear. So unclear as to be invisible.
Thus it is of no surprise whatsoever that, in these tumultous times of new austerity, overflowing prisons & an overstretched probation service, there has been a sustained increase in the number of notifications of an arrest and charge for an SFO over the last two years.
We have quality assured 90 SFO reviews this year. One was okay. Inevitably, given the staffing crisis, the limited HMPPS response to previous recommendations & the general state of decaying morale within the probation service, these findings show no improvement from the previous year."
What Jones meant to write, but it got lost somewhere in Petty France:
"It is tedious to note that we have made eleven recommendations, seven of which were repeated from the previous year, yet despite HMPPS taking forward some activity against some of our recommendations, outcomes and their impact is still not clear. So unclear as to be invisible.
Thus it is of no surprise whatsoever that, in these tumultous times of new austerity, overflowing prisons & an overstretched probation service, there has been a sustained increase in the number of notifications of an arrest and charge for an SFO over the last two years.
We have quality assured 90 SFO reviews this year. One was okay. Inevitably, given the staffing crisis, the limited HMPPS response to previous recommendations & the general state of decaying morale within the probation service, these findings show no improvement from the previous year."
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The government's answer published 9th December 2025:-
Prison building boom to make streets safer
A prison building boom is underway across the country as the Government presses ahead with the biggest jail expansion programme since the Victorian era.
What struck me in Jim’s reference to the Jamie Oliver programme was the framing rather than the detail. From what’s described, the argument is not about individual failure but about systems that were never designed for how many people actually live, learn or process the world, and the predictable harm that follows. Education that struggles with neurodivergence, practical support stripped out, and help arriving too late are structural problems, not personal ones.
ReplyDeleteThat framing applies directly to probation. We supervise large numbers of people who are neurodivergent, traumatised or cognitively impaired, yet the systems they move through assume stability, memory, verbal fluency and compliance as standard. Probation talks about supporting difference and encourages practitioners to adapt their approach, but the conditions required to do that work properly are largely absent.
Supporting neurodivergent people is not about awareness alone. It requires time, continuity and flexibility. Longer appointments, predictable relationships and adjustments that are built into the system rather than left to individual goodwill. High caseloads, constant churn and rigid compliance driven processes mean people are still expected to function in neurotypical ways. When they cannot, the system treats that as disengagement rather than difference.
Just as education cannot serve children using models never designed for them, probation cannot work safely or humanely while ignoring human variability. Until the service is built around how people actually think and cope, claims about supporting difference will remain rhetorical, and the same people will continue to be recycled through a system that was never built with them in mind.
I. This country where vape shops out number Holland and barrat 50 to 1 phone shops. Survive by there shed loads highs streets are non recognisable from my youth I'm not surprised there is an agenda to see us all ill NHS dependant when we should all be living like they did post war. McDonald's should be evicted for a start.
DeleteOne thing I think we don’t talk about enough is how much neurodivergence among people on probation is likely to be undiagnosed. Many have spent their entire lives navigating the world in ways that make sense to them, often without knowing why they struggle with certain expectations. Those ways of coping don’t disappear just because someone is placed under supervision.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone has adapted over years to survive in a world that doesn’t work for them, expecting them to suddenly operate in a neurotypical way is unrealistic. Change for neurodivergent people is rarely quick or linear. It usually requires understanding, consistency and trust built over time. Without that, instructions feel confusing, pressure feels overwhelming and non compliance becomes almost inevitable.
Supporting change in these circumstances isn’t about issuing clearer rules. It’s about building relationships where people feel safe enough to understand themselves differently and try new ways of coping. That takes time and continuity. When supervision is rushed, fragmented and compliance driven, the system unintentionally sets people up to fail.
If we want probation to be effective and safe, we have to recognise that many people are not choosing to be difficult. They are navigating life differently, often without language or diagnosis to explain it. Until the system can work with that reality rather than against it, we will keep misreading difference as defiance and wondering why outcomes don’t improve.
The discussion about SFOs often focuses on individual decisions rather than the conditions in which those decisions are made. Risk is not managed safely through process alone. It relies on time, continuity and informed professional judgement. When caseloads are high and contact is fragmented, practice becomes defensive and recall becomes the default response. That may reduce organisational anxiety, but it does little to reduce long term risk.
ReplyDeleteAs probation has shifted toward enforcement and containment, compliance has increasingly been treated as safety. But compliance is not the same as stability. Without the space for relational work, risk is managed superficially rather than meaningfully. SFOs do not happen because practitioners care too little. They happen when the system makes caring work difficult to sustain.
If we want fewer serious harms, we have to fix the conditions in which risk is managed, not just scrutinise the decisions made inside a broken system.
In following this debate we can’t ignore the United Kingdom has an enduring fixation with building more prisons and sending more people to them. Yet prison could quite feasibly be reserved for those who commit serious violent or sexual offences, or for truly prolific offenders. Doing so would free up enormous capacity, and the billions currently poured into expanding the prison estate could be reinvested into probation, community sentencing, and community services. Of course, it’s unlikely to happen. Karl Marx would remind us that the relationship between the economic base and the superstructure ensures that the rule of law, and by extension the prison system, plays a central and grossly manufactured role in protecting the economy, the bourgeoisie, and the owners of capital.
ReplyDeleteBut amid all the debate, an obvious question goes unasked: Why are probation Approved Premises and youth offending services consistently rated outstanding, while probation sentence management is not? https://hmiprobation.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/impressive-eden-house-approved-premises-in-bristol-rated-outstanding-following-inspection/
The answer lies in their focus: rehabilitation, resettlement, trauma-informed practice, direct access to services, and crucially, low caseloads. In ongoing discussions about capacity, overcrowding, and system pressures, we often ignore these simple, practical measures that could deliver immediate and meaningful improvements.
Instead of centring the conversation solely on reducing the prison population without strengthening community support, or spending millions on AI and large-scale IT reform, we should start with the basics: providing mobile phones, food bank vouchers, guaranteed access to housing and benefits advice, and simple digital tools for people leaving custody or serving community orders. Alongside IT upgrades for staff, why not prioritise staff to client ratios, probations potential role in directing community services and accessible apps and tools that help people on probation understand licence conditions, track appointments, and navigate essential services?
I recently read this submission to the Justice Committee’s inquiry, Rehabilitation and resettlement: ending the cycle of reoffending, which contains several powerful ideas for reframing the national conversation:
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/132400/pdf/
It’s unclear how much of it influenced the final report (probably none), found here but I’ll pick out a few points as it was the only submission I saw from probation:
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8678/rehabilitation-and-resettlement-ending-the-cycle-of-reoffending/publications/
Continued
Central to effective rehabilitation is high-quality probation supervision, something that depends on real investment in practitioner training and accessible, reliable resources. To unlock this potential, the Probation Service must be funded to ensure that staff genuinely have the time, skills and tools to support people with complex needs. A return to the social work-based training that historically underpinned probation would not be difficult, and the benefits would be immediate. It’s not difficult or expensive to top-up existing qualifications either.
DeleteFor those who in the eyes of the courts genuinely need to be imprisoned, and there are many, effective rehabilitation means ensuring that every sentenced and remand prisoner receives a meaningful induction and consistent support that addresses past, present, and future needs, housing, employment, health, literacy, addiction, and maintaining positive relationships, access to useful programmes and interventions not tick-box stuff. That support should be continuous, from custody to community. The existing network of probation offices and hostels is well-placed to do this, if properly resourced.
In the community, people leaving custody or under supervision should receive prioritised access to substance misuse treatment, employment services (including immediate access to vocational training and paid work), and mental health support. This requires genuinely direct access from the point of conviction or release, not weeks or months later, by which time engagement has often broken down. Local authority housing teams must be placed under a compulsory duty, not a discretionary one, to provide accommodation. Removing the priority/non-priority distinction would establish a clear, consistent obligation to house all who need support.
Looking ahead, the probation strategy should be shaped by those who understand it best: frontline practitioners and the people who have successfully completed supervision and desisted from offending. Their insights are invaluable in creating approaches that work in practice, not just in policy documents.
Supervision itself should be reinstated as a full, standalone community sentence, similar to earlier Probation Orders, Supervision Orders, or Community Rehabilitation Orders, without any requirement to add punitive elements. For individuals who spent time on remand, Post-Sentence or post-release Supervision could be voluntary, without the shadow of breach or recall. PSS is not inherently the problem; it simply needs to be proportionate to the sentence and designed to support any short-term sentences that remain after the implementation of the sentencing review were all tired of hearing about, rather than operating as the current anomaly with it’s dystopian enforcement policies.
Additional enhancements could include:
• More reliable and user-friendly electronic monitoring technology.
• Community Payback that directly builds employability through real skills, qualifications, and meaningful work.
• Expansion of probation hostels, ideally several in each area, brought back in-house and closely integrated with probation offices, to provide safe, supported transitional accommodation and reduce homelessness-related risks.
• Renewed commitment to the historic ethos of probation supervision: “Advise, Assist, and Befriend”, or whatever more fitting mantra we can think up to replace monitor, control, punish!
This is just the start we need, it’s not rocket science. Ultimately, meaningful rehabilitation is not achieved through technology, legislation, or sweeping structural changes alone. It requires practical support, accessible tools, stable foundations, community partnership, and a careful recommitment to the relational heart of probation practice.
If only probation, HMPPS, MoJ would take this on board. The sentencing review, the justice committee, they didn’t and won’t listen to practitioners.
DeleteWhy would they no complaints and the unions are silent so no problems.
DeleteThe direction of travel is hard to ignore. Faced with rising pressure, the government response has been to expand prison places and invest heavily in technology and monitoring, while continuing to avoid meaningful investment in the people who actually make the system work. That is a political choice, not an inevitability.
ReplyDeleteMore prison places and more technology may manage numbers and risk on paper, but they function largely as sticking plasters. They do not rebuild probation capacity, reduce churn or create the conditions in which rehabilitation and risk reduction happen in reality. Without a stable, properly supported workforce with time and professional space to work relationally, these measures simply contain problems rather than resolve them.
It is tempting to point to other countries with lower reoffending or imprisonment rates, but those comparisons need care. We cannot lift another society’s model and drop it into ours. Different levels of inequality, welfare support and social cohesion matter. But what does translate is this: systems that perform better invest in people and relationships, not scale and surveillance.
This goes deeper than rehabilitation as a concept. It is about what we choose to value. At present, we are investing in infrastructure and control while allowing the human foundations of the justice system to erode. As long as people remain the cheapest and most expendable part of the system, failure will continue to be managed rather than prevented.
The games up the battle is lost the majority of people employed in probation are punitive and right wing it is purely another branch of control and anyone who is vulnerable needs to be steered away as if does nothing to help anyone who doesn’t arrive on time ,nod politely and listen to a 20 something poorly educated criminology graduate tell you how risky you are for shoplifting
ReplyDelete100 percent sadly went that way a long time back . There are two or three camps . The older group rapidly diminishing think they are still doing old work but they are not there is no time for that . The recents like punishment control and ego driven power they are the most pathetic group. The. Third are management ready to dictate whatever direction told to them. They simply don't care as long as shut don't land in their desk and they get to boss people around.
DeleteInnovator Award – Splink Team, Ministry of Justice:
ReplyDeleteSplink is a free open-source software package for deduplicating and linking large datasets, supporting the government’s National Data Strategy. Originally created to link MoJ datasets lacking a shared unique identifier, Splink enables more accurate reoffending data and cross-system analysis, overcoming challenges of duplication and siloed data. Since its first release in 2020, Splink has been downloaded over 12 million times and adopted by central government departments, local authorities, NHS bodies, charities, universities, and international organisations including the UNHCR, EMA, and governments in Germany, Canada, Australia, and Chile. It works on datasets 1,000 times larger and 100 times faster than alternative software, with a positive match rate rising from 83% to 92% at MoJ. Splink has improved data quality across key government assets, including the census, Demographic Index, Business Index, NHS patient data, and justice datasets. The software has delivered significant cost savings, avoiding licensing fees and contractor costs estimated at over £2 million per year, with wider government savings likely in the tens of millions.
Excellence in Delivery Award – BOLD Programme – North Essex Probation Delivery Unit Case Information Dashboard, Ministry of Justice:
The Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) programme created a digital system for probation officers which brings together holistic information from across prisons, probation, and police into a single unified view of an individual. As a result of this work, over 70% of probation practitioners said that it made a positive impact on their way of working and enabled them to make evidence-based decisions. Tentative evaluation findings indicate a 17-minute reduction in time spent preparing for an appointment with an offender, saving over 33,000 hours of time per annum (equivalent to approximately £1m in savings) for the North Essex Probation Delivery Unit. The proportion of probation practitioners reporting that they had confidence in having a good understanding of an individual’s needs from using this tool increased by 40%, and over two thirds of users reported high confidence in assessing risk of offenders.
More Awards for IT!! Is that what we really need?
DeleteI think the way people contrast “old school” probation and newer staff often misses what is really going on. This isn’t primarily about individual values or attitudes. It’s about what the service now trains people to do, what it rewards and who it promotes.
ReplyDeleteNewer staff are entering a probation service that is far more compliance and enforcement driven than it once was. Training, performance measures and organisational anxiety prioritise defensibility, escalation and process. If that is what people are taught and assessed on, that is how they will practise. Not because they are punitive by nature, but because those behaviours are presented as safe and correct.
It’s also important to be clear about who is moving into management. Increasingly it is not highly experienced practitioners, but newer staff, sometimes with very limited frontline experience, who progress quickly. That progression is rarely based on demonstrated skill in working with people or managing complexity. It is based on the ability to navigate civil service interview frameworks, evidence the right competencies and align with the current direction of travel.
Those frameworks do not meaningfully recognise experience, relational judgement or the skills required to support human change. Experience counts for little if it cannot be translated into the right language on paper. The result is leadership selected for compliance rather than competence, which then further shapes practice around targets, control and defensibility.
This helps explain why morale continues to deteriorate. Experienced staff feel unheard and undervalued. Newer managers are placed in positions where they must enforce systems they did not design and may not fully understand. Practice narrows, discretion shrinks and the same patterns reproduce themselves.
So when people say probation has changed, they are right. But the change is not mainly in the people. It is in the system they are trained into, promoted within and expected to survive.
Very insightful comment thank you. It is indeed systemic. Calls for individuals to resist are naive, it’s gone way beyond that. Can we point to a model somewhere in the world that we want to emulate or sell to those with the power? There are pockets of what I would consider old school probation work in places but sadly feel the world has moved on from what many of us would like the service to be. We have firmly gone down the road of commissioning specific services and monitoring their performance. Social workers wherever you go are on a production line. An assessment is done a service is commissioned. Case closed then pops up again when another assessment needs doing. The old school social work model of having a long term caseload and supporting people to change has gone apart from in very niche specialist areas. In these areas jobs rarely come up. Social workers considered too expensive. Much cheaper to commission a support worker to try and do the work. I don’t like the model. I would say commissioning is killing us. But look at the NHS we are going further down that road at the moment there is no appetite to move away from it.
DeleteWe’re getting Gauke’s sentencing review - hey ho!
DeleteI recognise this pattern in parts of the service, though not everywhere. Increasingly, progression can depend less on depth of practice and more on the ability to demonstrate alignment with centrally defined competencies. Skills that are harder to evidence on paper, such as judgement, relational work and managing complexity over time, can carry less weight than they should.
DeleteThis shows up at times in who is asked to provide oversight. In some cases, people move into management roles where they are required to scrutinise or sign off decisions about offences and risks they have not personally worked with. Oversight without lived practice tends to become procedural rather than professional. Decisions are judged against policy and process because there is no experiential reference point, which can leave practitioners feeling second guessed by people who have not had to sit with the complexity themselves.
I don’t see this as an individual failing, and there are many capable and experienced managers who do the role well. But where progression is decoupled from practice and experience is not treated as a prerequisite, it has consequences for confidence, trust and morale across the service.
I posted this before but it disappeared. I’ve now read the MAPPA report “Voice of the Practitioner” in guest blog 107, and it confirms what practitioners have been saying for years. Not seen anything like this before in a MAPPA report. It’s correct, it’s not just a failure of leaders listening — it’s a failure of policy. Only policymakers can make the legislative and structural changes this work urgently requires.
DeleteThe report is clear:
“probation practitioners must be empowered to provide timely and prioritised access to essential resources. These include accommodation, education, training, employment, healthcare, and addiction support, which are critical lifelines for individuals transitioning from custody or under community supervision.
A key challenge also lies in the absence of adequate enabling legislation, which restricts probation’s ability to directly access or commission vital services. These include emergency and move-on accommodation, mental health provision and addiction support, and operational resources including supporting journeys for individuals on release”
This is not a knowledge gap. It’s a political one. Without enabling legislation and direct access to resources, probation is being set up to manage risk without the tools required to reduce it.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69032d5a92779f89baa51fb3/Bedfordshire_MAPPA_Annual_Report_2024_to_2025.pdf
I’m not convinced the answer lies in pointing to another country and saying “do that”. Different societies have different levels of inequality, housing stability, welfare support and trust in institutions. We can’t lift a probation or social work model from elsewhere and drop it wholesale into England and Wales and expect it to work in the same way.
ReplyDeleteWhere international comparisons are useful is in showing that systems are shaped by choices. In places where outcomes are better, services tend to be organised around continuity, professional discretion and long term relationships rather than transactions, commissioning cycles and throughput. That isn’t about national character. It’s about design.
So when we ask what model we want to sell to those with power, I don’t think the answer is a nostalgic return to an idealised past, or a rejection of accountability. It’s a clear articulation of what is lost when services are organised primarily around transactions rather than relationships.
In practical terms, a different direction would mean fewer handoffs, fewer commissioned silos and more responsibility held by practitioners over time. Smaller caseloads where complexity is high. Professional judgement trusted rather than constantly second guessed. An acceptance that meaningful change is uneven and slow, and that systems designed for speed and volume will always struggle with complex human need.
That’s why reviews like Gauke’s risk missing the deeper issue. Sentencing thresholds and eligibility matter, but they sit on top of a delivery model that is already fragmented and overstretched. Without addressing how probation and related services are structured, resourced and incentivised, reform will rearrange the furniture rather than fix the room.
If the world has moved on, it has moved toward systems that are easier to manage from the centre, not toward ones that work better for the people they are meant to serve.
The cumulative insight of individuals abandoning the front line as soon as practicably possible for management, is as has been pointed out part of the ‘problem’ ,such as it is…….its all designed to abandon the concept of rehabilitative probation to replace it with punitive management…..in preparation for One hmpps Correctional services……
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that sits underneath a lot of this is how stagnant probation now feels as a profession. Progression is oddly narrow. There are routes upward, but very few that deepen practice or recognise expertise. If you want to stay working with people, build skill and judgement over time and feel more competent rather than just more senior, the opportunities are limited.
ReplyDeleteOngoing professional development doesn’t really fill that gap. Training often feels basic, risk focused and disconnected from the realities of complex casework. There’s little investment in advanced practice, reflective learning or genuine specialism, which leaves people carrying increasing responsibility without feeling better equipped to do the work.
The pay disparities raise similar questions. Why are practitioners in some specialist or centrally prioritised roles placed on higher bands with smaller caseloads, while frontline staff manage large numbers of equally complex and risky cases for less pay, despite holding the same qualifications and accountability? How is complexity being defined, and whose risk is being counted?
From the frontline, the work doesn’t feel less demanding or less skilled. It’s just less visible and harder to reduce to neat frameworks. When that is matched with lower pay, limited development and few progression routes that value expertise with people, it’s hard not to wonder what kind of practice the organisation is really trying to encourage.
It starts to feel less like a profession you grow within and more like a role you pass through, and that shift has consequences for morale, retention and the quality of work probation is able to offer.
Probation was once a respected profession with clear progression and credibility beyond the service. That has been decisively dismantled. The dilution of qualifications, the removal of social work, and chronic organisational failure laid bare by repeated, damning HMIP reports have hollowed out the role. As a result, it is no surprise that former probation officers are now undervalued by external employers.
DeleteManagement has actively contributed to this decline, maintaining an unspoken expectation that staff remain at the operational ‘coalface’, prioritising retention over development. This is compounded by entrenched institutional racism, which continues to restrict progression and silence challenge. Together, these failures have deprofessionalised probation and wasted its workforce.
Many probation officers view promotion to SPO as an unattractive, even undesirable, step. Similarly, a significant number of SPOs see progression to the next internal management tier as an equally unappealing prospect.
There is no opportunity for a Probation Officer to increase their academic knowledge unless they pay for it themselves. There is a lack of understanding within the managerial levels that if you want to retain high performing staff then you need to provide them with the challenges that they crave. The ‘noddy’ online training dished out every few years is neither stimulating or knowledge forming, it is the results of a lack of foresight of those in charge of training and the QDO’s who just pander to box ticking exercises. OAsys has regular new tick boxes added and the RMP is so prescriptive that the use of experience and professional judgement is challenged by the new managerialism who do not have the experience or knowledge themselves. The quality of countersigned OAsys that I see on a regular basis when someone else goes off sick or maternity shows exactly why the inspectorate have a field day in ripping PDU’s to pieces.These managers feel challenged from those operational staff who deal with the face to face challenges of supervising offenders on licence and community penalties, preferring instead to sit in their offices on teams making ridiculous policy decisions. I regularly sit in ‘team’ meetings bewildered by the roundabout of changes and the ‘good ideas’ club. There has also been the rise of the not what you know but who you know that offers opportunities to progress. The inspectorate releases ‘good practice’ publications written by people with no academic integrity or research based qualifications, it is embarrassing. Success Profiles do not look at knowledge or experience, just if you can fit your story into the format. The Probation Service is an absolute joke destroyed since 2014 and not a service I would encourage anyone to join as the quality of training delivery and supervision is shocking.
ReplyDeleteCan’t disagree with any of that.
DeleteThere are ‘good practice’ publications by practitioners but they tend to be ignored by probation, justice, HMIP and all the rest.
Although HMIP probation published this recently which is well worth a read.
Embracing the views and perspectives of those with lived experience
This report was kindly produced by David Honeywell, highlighting the need to fully embrace the views and perspectives of those with lived experience of the criminal justice system.
https://hmiprobation.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/document/embracing-the-views-and-perspectives-of-those-with-lived-experience/
I’m hesitant to add this, but as someone working as a QDO I think it’s important context. A lot of the frustration about training and professional development is justified, but it risks oversimplifying where the problem actually sits.
DeleteQDOs don’t have the freedom people often assume. Like practitioners, we are required to deliver what is asked of us. Content, formats and priorities are centrally defined and heavily constrained by time, resources and risk appetite. The emphasis is on consistency, assurance and evidencing completion, not on deep, reflective or academically rigorous development. That isn’t because those things aren’t valued locally, it’s because there is very little permission to prioritise them.
Many of us would welcome richer learning, space for critical thinking and genuine investment in expertise. But QDOs operate under the same compliance driven pressures as the rest of the service. We are measured on delivery and alignment, not on whether training meaningfully transforms practice over time. Deviating from that comes with risk.
So while criticism of box ticking training is fair, it’s important to recognise that QDOs are not the architects of this model. We are part of the same system, working within the same constraints. If probation wants a skilled, confident and reflective workforce, that permission has to come from the top. Until then, training will continue to mirror the wider managerial logic shaping the service
If you are a qualified probation officer you are needed on the front line at the moment, we are in an emergency situation and need all hands on deck….
DeleteIf being a qualified PO automatically means you should be on the frontline during periods of pressure, then the same expectation would apply across the board, including to managers and others with professional qualifications. Taken to its logical conclusion, that would strip out supervision, oversight, training and support functions altogether.
DeleteThe real issue isn’t which individuals should be redeployed, but why probation is perpetually operating in crisis mode instead of addressing workload, retention and capacity in a sustainable way.
I apologise Ive posted this on the wrong blog Could JB delete the previous one
ReplyDeleteOff topic Public Accounts Committee Transcript 1st Dec 25
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/16853/pdf/
Whilst awaiting the Committees report/recommendations which would be worth keeping track of, they make for very interesting reading . Numerous suggestions HMPPS are listening and they are looking to reduce workloads by 25%.. I’m assuming that is within contractual hours. They are introducing following consultation with staff new IT systems and digital tools which will significantly reduce time spent at your screens . They were challenged about staffing and retention and lead the Committee to believe this is being actively addressed and there are signs of improvement. They are going to ensure that staff have proper space for learning/training. They are confident that they now have a firm grip on staffing required for sentence management and so much more. I was struck by the interventions/challenges of Lloyd Hatton and if he is someone’s MP do please invite him to read this Blog . Why this might be important going forward, I guess for Transparency and Accountability purposes . It has already been suggested that maybe some-one from the Probation or indeed NAPO may want to make a submission to any future Justice Liaison Committee meetings. Im intrigued and will try to access the submission from the Academic Forum having recently read Making Probation a Hope Based Organisation iangould5
How this will probably work, Ian, is this. All reports and referrals will continue being moved onto a single digital platform so activity can be standardised, monitored and timed. A new risk assessment tool will be introduced, relying heavily on tick-boxes to speed up completion rather than improve professional judgement. The case recording system will be adapted to include AI copilot transcription.
DeleteOnce recording, referral and recommendation processes are fully digitised, they can be streamlined and time-limited. In theory, this reduces the time spent on individual administrative tasks. In practice, it will not reduce caseloads. As with previous “efficiency” drives, these time savings will simply be absorbed by higher caseload expectations.
We have seen this before. When OMiC was introduced under the E3 efficiency measures, it was sold as a way to reduce community caseloads and significantly lower WMT. The reality was the opposite. Workloads increased, risk was displaced rather than reduced, and probation staff were expected to carry out resettlement planning with even less time available than before.
The same dynamic is now repeating itself. With reduced use of custody, the removal of PSS and its partial replacement with licence supervision, caseload numbers will rise. Overall workload, complexity and risk will increase accordingly. Digitisation does not remove work, it simply makes it easier to measure, justify and then add more of it. It also turns professionals into robots completing monotonous tasks.
If the Justice Committee, the sentencing review team, HMIP Probation and policymakers genuinely wanted to address workload pressures, they would confront the one issue that is consistently avoided: a clear, enforceable cap on probation caseloads, or a defined maximum for what a probation caseload should be. They’d also be helping identify what quality hands on work with people in prison and on probation actually is, not how to speed it up.
Thank you 17.11 for your helpful and informative response. I genuinely don’t know if this is helpful but HMPPS are clearly advising MP’s these measures have and will make a difference. I guess what these blogs evidence is that this is not what is being experienced or indeed expressed on the ground . Somehow and in some way this needs to be feedback either via the Union or possibly Probation Institute or maybe an Academic Institution/Forum Ive just read this and maybe they could become more of a voice. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/151136/pdf/
ReplyDeleteNone of those academics work in probation. That’s part of the problem.
DeleteThere are a number of pracademics about with substantial experience in Probation however this blogs commenters have a poor record in supporting them. The Probation Institute is probably the best bet at present currently led by the very eminent Professor Lorraine Gelsthorpe who also leads the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge. Probation could not hope to have a better academic heavyweight on their side. Stop whingeing and get behind the leaders dedicated to positive change. Probation is a divided profession that spends a lot of time and energy attacking anyone that try’s to build anything or campaigns for change. Join and help support the change you want to see.
DeleteI don’t think this can fairly be dismissed as “whingeing”. What’s being expressed here is sustained, thoughtful challenge, much of which has existed for years and has often gone unheard. The problem hasn’t been a lack of voices, it’s been a lack of listening.
DeleteSupport for leaders or academic institutions doesn’t require uncritical alignment. A healthy profession should be able to hold respect and challenge at the same time. Many of the issues being raised here are not abstract or ideological. They are about daily practice, workload and the erosion of professional judgement.
It’s also worth asking what “join and help support the change you want to see” actually means in practice. Support implies participation, dialogue and influence. What many people describe instead is change that is decided elsewhere and delivered downward, with limited scope for frontline experience to shape outcomes.
Blogs like this exist precisely because many people don’t feel safe or able to speak openly elsewhere. When challenge is sidelined or reframed as negativity, people retreat to the few spaces where honest discussion is possible. If probation is serious about change, it needs to treat critique as evidence of engagement, not division. Otherwise we risk repeating the same pattern of talking about reform while those closest to the work continue to feel unheard.
“There are a number of pracademics about with substantial experience in Probation however this blogs commenters have a poor record in supporting them.”
DeleteThe claim that practitioners have a “poor record in supporting pracademics” gets it backwards. Practitioners have engaged with academic work when it has been grounded in reality and prepared to challenge power. What’s been lacking is consistent academic support for probation practice when it mattered most.
Where were these voices during TR, E3, Unification, OneHmpps and the damage that followed? For the most part, they were absent, or carefully non-committal, while the service was dismantled.
A bit of PSO experience, or a probation career that ended decades ago, does not equate to understanding the realities of probation today. And where an academic’s current link to probation is through delivering training to PQiPs or managers, the silence becomes even more striking. They are either best placed to speak out and choose not to, or constrained by a clear conflict of interest. Either way, it tells its own story.
Too many academics and pracademics operate within a closed system that rewards access, funding and influence over challenge. They sell theories, cultivate relationships, and rarely issue clear, public opposition to government policy.
And when Cambridge is cited, let’s be honest: it hosts the Probation Journal editor and delivers master’s programmes to probation leaders. Institutions embedded that deeply are unlikely to bite the hand that feeds them. The last PJ editor is also heading a project in Wales probation or elsewhere. Time and time we see these, followed by a write up in the PJ that’s great for their cvs but doesn’t help ours.
The Probation Institute is no different. By its own description it is “a charity and cannot be political”, which largely explains its limited willingness to challenge government policy. Little has changed since it was described as “the lipstick on the TR pig”.
Probation doesn’t need safe critique or academic hedging. It needs people with influence to say plainly that government policy has repeatedly damaged the service. If they won’t, practitioners are right to ask who these voices are really speaking for, because it isn’t probation.
For balance, it’s fair to say the Probation Institute has enabled a small number of articles that genuinely speak up for probation and challenge current thinking. Some have been shared here, and without the Institute they would likely not have been published at all.
DeleteThe Probation Journal once fulfilled this role; it rarely does now in my opinion although I rarely read it. If the Probation Institute were prepared to take more risks, with its current editor, it could become a real voice for probation.
Anon 11:27 I've always supported the Probation Institute from the beginning and Prof Paul Senior's involvement, however I'm not a member and everytime I espouse them and their efforts, I'm shot down. Hey ho.
DeleteReading the recent comments together, what stands out is how consistent the themes are across different angles. Whether people are talking about training, HMIP findings, digitisation or management oversight, the same pattern keeps appearing.
ReplyDeleteProfessional judgement is being squeezed by systems designed for standardisation, measurement and speed. Training becomes about completion rather than development. Digital tools promise efficiency but mainly make work easier to monitor and expand. Oversight increasingly focuses on process compliance rather than depth of understanding. None of this is accidental. It reflects what the system now prioritises.
What’s striking is that many of the proposed solutions don’t address that core issue. Better tools, new platforms and revised frameworks are presented as answers, but they rarely come with enforceable caseload limits, protected time for learning or serious investment in expertise. Without those, efficiency gains are simply absorbed into higher expectations and greater pressure.
That gap between what is being reported upwards and what is being experienced on the ground is becoming harder to ignore. Blogs like this matter because they expose that disconnect. If policymakers genuinely want to understand why morale, retention and confidence remain fragile, they need to look less at new mechanisms and more at whether the system still allows professionals to practise with depth, judgement and integrity.
Depth judgement and integrity has not been happening for 10 years all this suggestion anyone id still delivering good practice as was is just dreaming.
DeleteI agree to a point. The system no longer supports depth, judgement or integrity in any consistent way. But I don’t think they’ve disappeared entirely. Where good practice exists now, it tends to survive despite the system, not because of it, and it takes far more effort to sustain while wading through layers of metrics, process and scrutiny.
DeleteThat’s part of the problem. When good practice requires exceptional effort rather than being the norm, it becomes fragile and uneven.
Mmm at a push I make few judgements open for personal interpretation. The oasys driven recoding leaves me fed up to cold brain freeze. The narratives are all guided in making decisions. These are all now couched in a limited set of expectations based on Standard input. Any boundary pushing choices i may want to think about and then feel I'm constantly second guessing what the risk to me would be if it goes wrong. I feel like looking for some easier ways to help but I gave up on the risk to be supportive it's become too worrisome what if later on in my mind so to spare myself that tension I do nothing and instead feel frustrated I am too scared to really engage to male any difference. I am used to this tension now but hate the job change.
DeleteThat comment really captures something important. When systems make the personal cost of judgement feel too high, the safest option becomes doing less rather than doing better. That isn’t about lack of care, it’s about self protection.
DeleteA culture where people are afraid to engage deeply because of how decisions might later be scrutinised is one where risk isn’t reduced, it’s displaced. Over time that erodes confidence, satisfaction and the very purpose of the work.
Anon 08:59 - This says it all I think:-
ReplyDelete"Blogs like this exist precisely because many people don’t feel safe or able to speak openly elsewhere. When challenge is sidelined or reframed as negativity, people retreat to the few spaces where honest discussion is possible. If probation is serious about change, it needs to treat critique as evidence of engagement, not division. Otherwise we risk repeating the same pattern of talking about reform while those closest to the work continue to feel unheard."
Blogs like this don't exist there is only this blog and it is unique . Anything else like this let me know .
DeleteAnon is all that protects individuals thankfully it provides a truth of what some are reporting as stated sometimes Rae to raw even for the publisher. Pulling down where it may inflamed is ok. However anyone contributing as well as they do and the heartfelt and the clever stuff is not worth a carrot. The moj employers won't listen unless there is a real case of action. While your official representation is silent on your issues you simply don't have any. Lawrence has to do the job he is supposed or let's try and hold him and the dishonest secretive non functioning Napo to formal account. A certifications officer complaint . The fact they have no annual motions to work to this year then no office no staffing paid full time issues need a real and lawful inquiry. The contract to the members is broken and the NEC must be tasked to account to members via branch national collective inquiry motion. Get this underway and Lawrence will get gone. Give the means to the officer to get rid . Lawrence after 5 years could not tell us the average starting rate of a po. Nor did he understand the difference between community and custody probation supervision. We have a a real problem and it's costing us our careers the role and we pay for this extinction.
If there is a genuine concerted effort to depose Lawrence, it should be combined with rule changes to ensure that we are never in the position again where someone who is handsomely paid to represent the interests of members fails to do so without recriminations.
DeleteIndeed but whole the elected lay officers have all generally been assisted into a role they have no effect in they cannot hold him to account. Napo selected duds every time based on women or grading and that's the foolishness you need trade unionists not pos to run a union. This is what we have. There was a time Chris Pearson held Lawrence up for all to see at AGM. However the AGM voted to change the rules to let him off having broken them all so off the hook he was rather than have him held to account. Chris Pearson lost faith with Napo after this and he was a good guy just didn't have the Lawrence support group weighed up. He is the lynch pin to all our problems and I'm fed up with his ability to remain free of accounting for his inability. The officers group should deal with him or all resign . This continual support is like Boris Johnston's operation big dog. Lawrence has no bite no talent just bark. It's time to call him out as he stayed. All officers resign and the crisis then ensues to get a new leader in role. We need intelligence not this clown probation has far too much history and continued need for social justice than one idiot putting us to the guillotine.
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj69w7kezdzo
ReplyDeleteViolence against women and girls is a "national emergency", the home secretary has said, as she announced plans to set up specialist rape and sexual offence investigation teams in every police force in England and Wales by 2029.
Violence against women and men is such a big priority the government - yet men who are violent to women are amongst those who can be released from prison early. You couldn't make it up!!!!!
Deletelords, hansard 3 dec 2025
ReplyDeleteLord Keen of Elie (Con): Does the Minister agree that the concept of us imprisoning individuals on the grounds of a perception that they may commit a crime at some indeterminate point in the future is utterly anathema to our whole system of criminal justice?
Lord Timpson (Lab): Our expert probation staff who manage the risks in the community are experts in determining the risk that offenders pose, including IPP offenders. It is therefore their professional judgment and their decision whether they recall someone or not.
_______________________________________________________
really?
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/deputy-prime-minister-speech-at-the-openai-frontiers-conference
ReplyDeleteThe Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy MP spoke at the OpenAI Frontiers Conference about partnering with OpenAI and cutting admin time for frontline staff.
"The Probation Service is currently trialling something called Justice Transcribe, one of the AI Exemplars sponsored by the Prime Minister, built by the Government’s very own leading AI engineers.
It records and transcribes probation officers’ conversations with offenders automatically, cutting hours of work to transfer handwritten meeting notes into digital systems.
That means probation staff can spend more of their time doing the things only humans can do: Working with offenders to protect the British public, person-to-person, face-to-face, eye-to-eye.
In fact, eighty percent of officers surveyed said it improved engagement with offenders, making it easier for them to read important changes in body language and tailor their approach.
This kind of technology frees probation officers to do the things they signed up for: Changing lives, cutting crime, protecting the public.
We’re really privileged to have Anna and Charmain here with us today, two probation officers already using AI.
When we asked Anna and Charmain how AI is transforming their day-to-day work, they were really clear that it means they can be more present with offenders. Thank you both for your service to our country, let’s show them our appreciation.
I think their testimony demonstrates the power of AI: Handling the routine tasks at lightning speed, so that people can take their time over what really matters.
Today, I am thrilled to announce an expansion of Justice Transcribe: The Ministry of Justice will equip a thousand more probation officers with this technology so that they can be more human, not less.
We estimate that using AI in my department can save around 240,000 days of admin every year, the equivalent of freeing up around one thousand members of staff in our frontline workforce.
I’m proud to say that, driven by its broad partnership with the UK Government and with the Ministry of Justice specifically, OpenAI is expanding its UK data offer by introducing data residency, giving British customers and developers the option to store their data on servers right here in the UK."
Sounds like a script from a hollywood disaster movie
Sept 2025:
DeleteDavid Lammy Deputy Prime Minister, The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
"We are determined to back our hard-working probation staff by investing up to £700 million by the final year of the spending review, and an initial £8 million in technology to reduce administrative burdens. We will also recruit 1,300 trainee probation officers in the next year."
i.e. OpenAI will pocket the cash.
Also:
"My hon. Friend (andy slaughter) and I did a lot of work together while the Probation Service was decimated by a badly botched privatisation that ruined such an incredible service. He is right that we will need to recruit more officers. The £700 million that we found is essential, and I will be looking closely at the allocations over the coming months."
"decimate" - to reduce by 10%... Dayviiid, probation was reduced by over 30% as a result of the tr project that so many labour MPs did NOTHING about.
As for the Lammy Review:
"Recommendation 31: The MoJ should bring together a working group to discuss the barriers to more effective sub-contracting by CRCs. The working group should involve the CRCs themselves and a cross-section of smaller organisations, including some with a particular focus on BAME issues."
"Recommendation 32: The MoJ should specify in detail the data CRCs should collect and publish covering protected characteristics. This should be written into contracts and enforced with penalties for non-compliance."
Endorsement.
He's been outspoken against privatisation of the land registry & NHS, but probation? Only post-tr as far as I can see: "tories were warned", "told you so", etc.
“We are determined to back our hard-working probation staff by investing up to £700 million.”
DeleteIf that were true, probation staff would see it in their pay. They don’t.
Where is our 25% pay rise? Even that wouldn’t make a dent in £700 million.
The reality is this: not a single probation officer, probation services officer, administrator or receptionist will see a penny of that money.
Everyone knows where it’s really going, on contracts, consultants, IT platforms, licences and “transformation” schemes that make life harder, not easier.
Government hides behind the language of “investment”, and probation leaders nod it through, while frontline staff are left underpaid, overworked and blamed when the system fails.
This isn’t backing probation staff. It’s spending money around them, over them, and without them, then having the nerve to call it support for “hard working probation staff”.
Piss off !!
Yes your right I agree. I don't hear a word lammy say though because we can all see a thicko when they jump out . Over paid over promoted provided for as as the worst example of special accelerated help looks like. The problem is it shows. It will mean more women will be brutalised or murdered. We know partners commit the worst crimes while women and children do the running away. These problems need more resources directly. Womens refuges compromised and it's the men that need the control. We may not see the pay I don't doubt but what we never see is any professional response from Napo to these pr stunts. In my day we had a professional committee that was hot on it with immediate response to all media. Harry fletcher was contributing with his nurtured network of specialised officers and there was balance of what these proposals would mean on the ground for staff. Guess what not a word from useless Napo . Nothing as usual Lawrence do the job your paid for or fu#@ off will you.
Delete"Today, I am thrilled to announce an expansion of Justice Transcribe: The Ministry of Justice will equip a thousand more probation officers with this technology so that they can be more human, not less."
DeleteDavid, that is one fucking creepy skincrawling statement from the ai speech bot in the marketing dept at techbros inc.
"so they can be more human" - did you really say that? seriously?
How about giving the 7,500 or so struggling frontline probation staff a straight £5k pa rise across all grades? That's less than the average "bonus" the useless mofos at hmpps get for utter failure, delivering nothing but misery, crisis & catastrophe.
That might *actually* help the hard working probation staff feel "more human" without having to worry about cost of living, to eat, to stay warm.
And what will that cost you? £40million? £50million tops with oncosts? That's only a fraction of the £700million budget you magicked up for your special de-humanising project, and an even smaller fraction of the cash gifted to the privateer grifters during those tr years. Seeing as the previous govt refused to claim that cash back, maybe you could stand by your claims of "backing the hard working probation officers" & re-balance the books?
"Today, I am thrilled to announce an expansion of Justice Transcribe: The Ministry of Justice will equip a thousand more probation officers with this technology so that they can be more human, not less."
ReplyDeleteYes that's another cracking statement to go with that recent MoJ press release:-
"Prison building boom to make streets safer"
I can sense a festive competition evolving.........
https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/ministry-of-justice-moves-to-teams-phones
Delete'Getafix
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has begun the roll out of the Teams Phone solution to its staff, and is planning to sign a contract for a new Justice Video Service early next year.
DeleteIts Justice Digital team has outlined the plans in a blogpost on the progress of the voice, video and integration (VVI) elements of its Evolve portfolio of workplace technology projects.
This includes breaking up the services within VVI into small, more specialist chunks under different contracts.
Evolve Voice has involved a move away from using fixed cable desk phones to Microsoft Teams Phone to enable staff to work from different sites working with integration partner Insight Direct.
So far, the solution has been made available to over 900 users across 50 sites, and MoJ has signed contracts with Specialist Computer Centres to supply and maintain the devices needed, such as Teams certified handsets, and manage the infrastructure.
All of MoJ’s users are expected to migrate to the solution by the end of 2027.
He also reported that the BT has completed the installation of the cloud based Genesys contact centre solution across all MoJ’s eight organisational units.
mired in acronyms & even more bullshit
Delete"MoJ is planning to upgrade its on-premise video systems with a new cloud based solution under a Justice Video Service contract."
justice digital
vvi
evolve portfolio
genesys
And even more contracts signed to 'save money':
* Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has agreed on a contract with Atos IT Services = £58.5million
* Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has retained Harris Computer Corporation for the support of NOMIS = £21.3million... this is three years after the digital team at HM Prison and Probation Service indicated that there is a long term plan to replace NOMIS due to poor performance
* Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has announced a big expansion in the use of electronic monitoring to keep track of offenders = backed by a new investment of £100 million
* Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has agreed on a 10-year, £163 million contract with Vodafone for wide area network (WAN) services
* Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has launched an innovation challenge aimed at combating the threat of drones to prisons... it will provide successful applications with £60,000 each over 12 weeks to develop proof of concept solutions... govt is already investing £10 million on anti-drone measures for prison
* Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has signed management consultancy Baringa Partners = £18.3 million for the Synergy Programme
* Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has awarded data products company Modular Data a new contract to support, maintain, and enhance the HM Prison and Probation Service Data Hub = £9.9million
* Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has agreed on a contract with CGI IT to provide a digital service desk function = £35million
* The Evolve Video project will complete the disaggregation of VVI. A new Justice Video Service contract is due to be signed in early 2026
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MoJ: "As we move into 2026, our tech strategy has four ‘pillars’ and the changes we’ve made have laid the foundations for them"
Also MoJ: "They will operate within a capability model consisting of five pillars"
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MoJ seeks tech for ‘prison outside a prison’
https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/moj-seeks-tech-for-prison-outside-a-prison
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and loads more crap here:
https://mojdigital.blog.gov.uk/
forgot to add up - the above contracts alone total £half-a-billion; not much chance of a pay rise then
DeleteCalling a transcription tool a way to make staff “more human” says a lot about how the problem is being framed. A workforce crisis is being treated as a technical one.
ReplyDeleteNo one is against better IT. But technology doesn’t create humanity in a system that strips people of time, stability and professional space. At best it saves minutes. More often, those minutes are simply converted into higher expectations and tighter monitoring.
What’s striking is how readily money appears for tools, platforms and surveillance, while pay, caseloads and retention remain “too difficult”. If the aim is to support humane practice, the most effective interventions are well known and consistently avoided.
You can digitise the work, but you can’t automate trust, judgement or morale.
How can you make a human more human . Oh add a digital tool called ai which is never going to be human. Are we all mentally ill in some way . If the management want a more human workforce free us of it ai computers . Let reign relationships of social value replant the infrastructure that people matter and allow us to return to tied and proven methods of engagement will result in positive change or just pretend the machines are better thinkers . Oxymoron and lammy your the moron part. We are all had it.
DeleteYes ok a bit of reality probation staff are a mixed bag and some regulation and direction is overdue given the way some of them have behaved in the past.
DeleteWe've been regulated and directed to death over the last 10 plus years and it has got worse and worse, that's the point . And every large organisation is a mixed bag numbnuts, we're humans not robots
DeleteToo many corrupted by authority too many bullies too many favoured to much crap fished onto other good people. Too many complaining staff too many self important way to many selfish expectations entitled staff . Long drawn out self righteous complaints inquiries bullshit. Not going back to that crap are we now you do as your told work your days get held to account for sickness abused and required to deliver some uniformity . Good news .
DeleteRevisiting this paper from 2016 may help the discussion going on.
ReplyDelete"The essence of probation."
Its a lengthy read, but seems even more relevent today then 10 years ago.
https://mmuperu.co.uk/bjcj/articles/the-essence-of-probation/
'Getafix
At the ‘conversation with Paul Senior’ event in January 2016 at Kendal the group had to go back to first principles to test out a basic proposition – whether probation, however it is defined, has a place in 21st century responses to crime and any societal attempts to rehabilitate, reform, reintegrate and/or restore offenders back into communities. If we could agree the core principles of what constitutes ‘probation’ and also understand and articulate the boundary issues, would most societies driven by human rights and equality of opportunity for all its citizens inevitably seek to create some form of probation? This was the proposition. This has been seen to happen for instance in recent years in Eastern Europe where the limitations of a penal system based just on imprisonment has led to the creation of services in the community akin to probation. Or is an opposite proposition equally possible that there is nothing universal about probation and we are seeing its death knell in the UK? The changes wrought by Transforming Rehabilitation have suggested that the very future of probation is at risk. Commentators have talked about the death knell of probation (Senior, 2014); questions of legitimacy attendant upon privatisation (Deering & Feilzer, 2015); or the most radical change since it was introduced a little over a century ago (Newburn, 2013). This is the core question at the heart of this paper, is there a future for probation and, if so, what defines its essence?
DeleteAlso worth a read:- https://probationmatters.blogspot.com/2021/10/probation-reflections.html
DeleteToday is ‘Thoughtful Tuesday and most certainly the above shared by ‘Getafix and JB are very thought provoking indeed. Wishing all those across Probation a kind and good day . Long May this discussion, reflection and dialogue continue. IanGould5
Deletehttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/694024f9adb5707d9f33d7a4/2025_12_16_-_Recall__v12_.pdf
ReplyDeleteRecall, review and re-release of recalled prisoners
Mandatory requirements and guidance for prison and probation staff involved in the recall, review and re-release of recalled prisoners.
Updated today... the torture never stops.