Both of these comments underline something uncomfortable but unavoidable. What we’re describing here isn’t just burnout or disappointment, it’s prolonged exposure to organisational conditions that steadily strip people of agency, confidence and health. When staff talk about self-preservation, it’s because the system has normalised harm and then reframed leaving as personal weakness rather than a rational response.
The second comment is important because it shows how this damage travels downwards and sideways. SPOs and middle managers are left holding responsibility without support, absorbing HR functions, managing sickness, wellbeing and risk in an environment shaped by TR’s withdrawal of infrastructure. That doesn’t create reflective leadership, it creates containment and firefighting. People end up managing decline rather than developing staff or practice.Taken together, these experiences point to the same conclusion: this isn’t about a lack of commitment or professionalism at any level. It’s about an organisation that has been redesigned to operate without adequate support, realistic capacity or genuine care for those expected to hold it together. In that context, leaving early isn’t abandonment of probation values, it’s often the last way people protect what’s left of them.
If this service is serious about retention, wellbeing and quality, it has to stop individualising harm and start owning the conditions that make self-preservation necessary in the first place.
*******
15 years in as a PO and could have written that myself. I felt it to my core reading that. I am at a crossroads. I have given so much of myself and so many unpaid hours over the years to do my best at work but feel like our purpose and meaning of our work is being eroded. Everything feels so much more transactional and box ticking. It feels like a culture of learned helplessness has been created since TR which is toxic. It feels like the message is as long as we skim over the cracks and make it look on paper like work is being done it’s like that’s good enough…. I’m not driven or motivated like that. I come to work to give my very best and as a result I am feeling increasingly disillusioned.
15 years in as a PO and could have written that myself. I felt it to my core reading that. I am at a crossroads. I have given so much of myself and so many unpaid hours over the years to do my best at work but feel like our purpose and meaning of our work is being eroded. Everything feels so much more transactional and box ticking. It feels like a culture of learned helplessness has been created since TR which is toxic. It feels like the message is as long as we skim over the cracks and make it look on paper like work is being done it’s like that’s good enough…. I’m not driven or motivated like that. I come to work to give my very best and as a result I am feeling increasingly disillusioned.
********
As an SPO, I recognise every part of this thread. The idea that middle managers are “leading” anything right now is largely a fiction. Many are firefighting, absorbing HR work, managing sickness, risk and performance with inadequate tools, and doing so under constant pressure to keep the machine moving. That doesn’t create reflective leadership, it creates containment.
What worries me most is the number of experienced staff describing resignation rather than anger. That’s the point at which people stop believing change is possible. When probation reaches a stage where committed practitioners either numb themselves or plan their exit, the damage is already done. No amount of rebranding, recruitment or process tweaking will fix that unless the organisation is willing to confront the conditions it has created and stop relying on individual sacrifice to mask systemic failure.
********
What’s being described here isn’t a morale problem, a bad year, or a failure of resilience. It’s managed decline. People are staying far longer than is healthy out of loyalty, guilt and professional identity, not because the organisation deserves it. Others are leaving quietly because they’ve reached the point where self-preservation is the only rational option left.
The most alarming thing in these comments isn’t the anger, it’s the resignation. That’s what develops when staff learn, over time, that raising concerns goes nowhere, formal processes protect hierarchy rather than truth, and commitment is rewarded with more pressure instead of support. At that point, people don’t fight the system; they disengage from it.
If probation leaders, managers or union representatives are reading this, the challenge is simple: stop explaining why things are hard and start responding to what is actually being said here. This isn’t noise, negativity or whingeing. It’s a detailed account of why experienced practitioners are switching off or walking away. If there is no credible, collective response to this, not another consultation, review or statement, then the silence will be taken for what it is: confirmation that decline is not an accident, but a choice.
********
Reading this as someone still working in the probation service, I can only say how deeply it lands. What you’ve written articulates what many of us feel but struggle to say out loud — partly because there never seems to be a safe or meaningful space to do so.Those of us who are still here haven’t stayed because things are fine. We’ve stayed because of the same loyalty you describe: to the work, to the people we supervise, and to the colleagues sitting beside us who are carrying the same impossible loads. Caring is still what gets us through the day — and, paradoxically, what is wearing us down.
As an SPO, I recognise every part of this thread. The idea that middle managers are “leading” anything right now is largely a fiction. Many are firefighting, absorbing HR work, managing sickness, risk and performance with inadequate tools, and doing so under constant pressure to keep the machine moving. That doesn’t create reflective leadership, it creates containment.
What worries me most is the number of experienced staff describing resignation rather than anger. That’s the point at which people stop believing change is possible. When probation reaches a stage where committed practitioners either numb themselves or plan their exit, the damage is already done. No amount of rebranding, recruitment or process tweaking will fix that unless the organisation is willing to confront the conditions it has created and stop relying on individual sacrifice to mask systemic failure.
********
What’s being described here isn’t a morale problem, a bad year, or a failure of resilience. It’s managed decline. People are staying far longer than is healthy out of loyalty, guilt and professional identity, not because the organisation deserves it. Others are leaving quietly because they’ve reached the point where self-preservation is the only rational option left.
The most alarming thing in these comments isn’t the anger, it’s the resignation. That’s what develops when staff learn, over time, that raising concerns goes nowhere, formal processes protect hierarchy rather than truth, and commitment is rewarded with more pressure instead of support. At that point, people don’t fight the system; they disengage from it.
If probation leaders, managers or union representatives are reading this, the challenge is simple: stop explaining why things are hard and start responding to what is actually being said here. This isn’t noise, negativity or whingeing. It’s a detailed account of why experienced practitioners are switching off or walking away. If there is no credible, collective response to this, not another consultation, review or statement, then the silence will be taken for what it is: confirmation that decline is not an accident, but a choice.
********
Reading this as someone still working in the probation service, I can only say how deeply it lands. What you’ve written articulates what many of us feel but struggle to say out loud — partly because there never seems to be a safe or meaningful space to do so.Those of us who are still here haven’t stayed because things are fine. We’ve stayed because of the same loyalty you describe: to the work, to the people we supervise, and to the colleagues sitting beside us who are carrying the same impossible loads. Caring is still what gets us through the day — and, paradoxically, what is wearing us down.
The feeling of having no real choice is already familiar, even for those who haven’t yet left. Many of us recognise that slow narrowing of options: adapting, absorbing, keeping going, telling ourselves we can hold on a bit longer. We speak up where we can, often carefully, often repeatedly, and too often into a void. The language of wellbeing and support exists, but the reality is relentless pressure, shrinking professional space, and a growing gap between what probation claims to be and what it has become.
It matters that we acknowledge managers in this too, because from where l stand, they are as trapped as anyone. Many are trying to shield staff, meet impossible demands, and keep services afloat within systems they did not create and cannot fix. The strain runs right through the organisation, and it shows.
What is hardest is knowing that people are already weighing up exit not as a career move, but as self-preservation. That staying may eventually come at too high a cost — to health, family, and identity. I don’t see clear solutions either. From inside, it often feels as though the choices are limited to enduring harm or stepping away.
So please know this: your decision is understood. Your honesty matters. And to everyone still here — practitioners, managers, administrators — doing their best in a probation service that feels increasingly dysfunctional and, at times, abusive towards its own staff: you are seen. You are not failing. If you reach the point where leaving becomes the only option, that is not weakness. It is survival.
********
I didn’t choose this probation service. I chose a profession built on judgement, experience and human responsibility. What exists now is a hollowed-out system that extracts everything from staff while stripping them of voice, influence and protection.
Those of us who remain after decades aren’t here because we believe in the leadership or the direction of travel. We’re here because lives have been built around a career that no longer resembles what we entered - mortgages, children, geography, and the reality that walking away isn’t simple when your profession has been dismantled around you.
Risk has intensified, accountability has hardened, scrutiny has become punitive, yet professional autonomy has vanished. Experience is mined, not respected. Loyalty is demanded, not returned. Decisions are imposed by people who will never carry the consequences of them.
With hindsight, knowing what probation has been turned into, I would not choose this career again. This isn’t resilience or commitment. It’s containment. We are not a workforce being supported, we are numbers being managed until we break or disappear.
I didn’t choose this probation service. I chose a profession built on judgement, experience and human responsibility. What exists now is a hollowed-out system that extracts everything from staff while stripping them of voice, influence and protection.
Those of us who remain after decades aren’t here because we believe in the leadership or the direction of travel. We’re here because lives have been built around a career that no longer resembles what we entered - mortgages, children, geography, and the reality that walking away isn’t simple when your profession has been dismantled around you.
Risk has intensified, accountability has hardened, scrutiny has become punitive, yet professional autonomy has vanished. Experience is mined, not respected. Loyalty is demanded, not returned. Decisions are imposed by people who will never carry the consequences of them.
With hindsight, knowing what probation has been turned into, I would not choose this career again. This isn’t resilience or commitment. It’s containment. We are not a workforce being supported, we are numbers being managed until we break or disappear.
********
"Risk has intensified" - primarily because the risk industry needed it to. And labelling theory works.
"Risk has intensified" - primarily because the risk industry needed it to. And labelling theory works.
********
That’s exactly it. Risk didn’t just increase, it was manufactured, expanded and monetised. Once risk became a product, it required constant inflation to justify tools, frameworks, audits, roles and oversight structures. Labelling theory does the rest: define people as permanently risky, then design systems that can never declare success. Practitioners are left carrying liability for risks that have been structurally exaggerated and procedurally impossible to manage. This isn’t public protection, it’s risk theatre, and staff are the expendable props.
That’s exactly it. Risk didn’t just increase, it was manufactured, expanded and monetised. Once risk became a product, it required constant inflation to justify tools, frameworks, audits, roles and oversight structures. Labelling theory does the rest: define people as permanently risky, then design systems that can never declare success. Practitioners are left carrying liability for risks that have been structurally exaggerated and procedurally impossible to manage. This isn’t public protection, it’s risk theatre, and staff are the expendable props.
********
This legislation expands community sentences, suspended sentences and post-custodial supervision while saying virtually nothing about workforce capacity, professional skill, or risk ownership. In other words, the courts are being given more options and probation is being handed more responsibility, liability and scrutiny without any guarantee of time, staffing or professional autonomy to deliver it safely.
This isn’t reform; it’s displacement. Prison pressure is being pushed downstream into probation, where risk is already concentrated, caseloads are already unsafe, and accountability is already punitive. Every new requirement, condition or recall power lands on an officer who will be blamed if it fails but has no say in how it was designed.
If Parliament passes sentencing reform without legislating for caseload caps, professional standards and proper resourcing, then it isn’t strengthening community justice, it’s knowingly loading more risk onto a service that has been hollowed out for over a decade. And when it goes wrong, we already know who will carry the consequences.
This legislation expands community sentences, suspended sentences and post-custodial supervision while saying virtually nothing about workforce capacity, professional skill, or risk ownership. In other words, the courts are being given more options and probation is being handed more responsibility, liability and scrutiny without any guarantee of time, staffing or professional autonomy to deliver it safely.
This isn’t reform; it’s displacement. Prison pressure is being pushed downstream into probation, where risk is already concentrated, caseloads are already unsafe, and accountability is already punitive. Every new requirement, condition or recall power lands on an officer who will be blamed if it fails but has no say in how it was designed.
If Parliament passes sentencing reform without legislating for caseload caps, professional standards and proper resourcing, then it isn’t strengthening community justice, it’s knowingly loading more risk onto a service that has been hollowed out for over a decade. And when it goes wrong, we already know who will carry the consequences.
********
I attended a briefing this week about E-POP where those pops who are low or medium risk (with no active safeguarding or MAPPA) will complete online tick box reporting rather than face to face appts to alleviate appointments and improve capacity…. Another step away from developing actual relationships with those you supervise. I can see the value for those with standalone requirements but for the majority, especially those who have been subject to probation for years this will feel like the service is trying to shut the door on meaningful contact. SFOs are mainly perpetrated by medium ROSH offenders if I recall rightly so what’s the evidence base for this??? Risk is fluid - how can know if risk is escalating from someone ticking a few boxes which they decide!?
I attended a briefing this week about E-POP where those pops who are low or medium risk (with no active safeguarding or MAPPA) will complete online tick box reporting rather than face to face appts to alleviate appointments and improve capacity…. Another step away from developing actual relationships with those you supervise. I can see the value for those with standalone requirements but for the majority, especially those who have been subject to probation for years this will feel like the service is trying to shut the door on meaningful contact. SFOs are mainly perpetrated by medium ROSH offenders if I recall rightly so what’s the evidence base for this??? Risk is fluid - how can know if risk is escalating from someone ticking a few boxes which they decide!?
********
When I started in probation in the 1980s we called the people we worked with clients of the service. It was respectful and no one questioned it was the appropriate thing to do. I shudder now everytime I hear pop although nothing wrong with person on probation. This happened on Sonia Flynn’s watch and the present CPO Kim Thornden Edward’s lacks the understanding and wherewithal to realise it is wrong to allow this to go on and do something. As for the RPDs a disreputable bunch of uselessness you could ever hope to encounter. I have even heard trade unionists use the acronym that I think is a shocking example of collusion with a demeaning and dehumanising practice. Stop referring to the people we work with as pops and simply call them people. That is after all what they are.
When I started in probation in the 1980s we called the people we worked with clients of the service. It was respectful and no one questioned it was the appropriate thing to do. I shudder now everytime I hear pop although nothing wrong with person on probation. This happened on Sonia Flynn’s watch and the present CPO Kim Thornden Edward’s lacks the understanding and wherewithal to realise it is wrong to allow this to go on and do something. As for the RPDs a disreputable bunch of uselessness you could ever hope to encounter. I have even heard trade unionists use the acronym that I think is a shocking example of collusion with a demeaning and dehumanising practice. Stop referring to the people we work with as pops and simply call them people. That is after all what they are.
********
The claim that this is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for probation doesn’t stand up when set against what was said to the Public Accounts Committee. The evidence given makes clear that senior officials have known for years about unsafe workloads, retention failure and a workforce model that no longer works. This is not a sudden moment of insight or ambition, it is overdue acknowledgement of problems that have been repeatedly raised and repeatedly ignored.What Parliament was told confirms what staff already know: probation has been running on deficit staffing, stretched capacity and goodwill for far too long. Dressing this up as transformation doesn’t change the reality. Recruitment promises, digital tools and legislative tweaks are being offered instead of the fundamentals the Committee was effectively probing for - workload caps, retention, professional confidence and stability.
If this really were a once-in-a-generation moment, the response to Parliament would include binding limits on caseloads, meaningful pay restoration and a clear commitment to rebuilding probation as a profession. Instead, we are hearing familiar language about efficiency, innovation and “doing more differently”, while the structural risks Parliament questioned remain unresolved. That isn’t renewal. It’s managed decline, repackaged and the people giving evidence won’t be the ones carrying the consequences on the frontline.
The claim that this is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for probation doesn’t stand up when set against what was said to the Public Accounts Committee. The evidence given makes clear that senior officials have known for years about unsafe workloads, retention failure and a workforce model that no longer works. This is not a sudden moment of insight or ambition, it is overdue acknowledgement of problems that have been repeatedly raised and repeatedly ignored.What Parliament was told confirms what staff already know: probation has been running on deficit staffing, stretched capacity and goodwill for far too long. Dressing this up as transformation doesn’t change the reality. Recruitment promises, digital tools and legislative tweaks are being offered instead of the fundamentals the Committee was effectively probing for - workload caps, retention, professional confidence and stability.
If this really were a once-in-a-generation moment, the response to Parliament would include binding limits on caseloads, meaningful pay restoration and a clear commitment to rebuilding probation as a profession. Instead, we are hearing familiar language about efficiency, innovation and “doing more differently”, while the structural risks Parliament questioned remain unresolved. That isn’t renewal. It’s managed decline, repackaged and the people giving evidence won’t be the ones carrying the consequences on the frontline.
It’s been said repeatedly, in countless reports, inquiries, articles and practitioner testimonies. We’re not adding new insight anymore, instead we’re reiterating what has already been explained, evidenced and validated. The issue is not conceptual complexity or a lack of vision; it’s an absence of political courage, organisational will, and basic follow-through. At this stage, rather than endlessly reframing the same conclusions, we should be asking why those with responsibility refuse to act upon them. We shouldn’t have to write new explanations, we should be able to say: you were told already. If unions, Napo, Unison and GMB Scoop were not so complicit this’d already be happening.
ReplyDeleteThe path forward is not obscure and never has been. Pay people properly. Cap caseloads. Reject cosmetic reforms and insist on evidence-based changes backed by resources, professional development and shaping a coherent rehabilitative identity for probation. This is the foundation of effective probation work and always has been. Failure to do these things is not a debate about models, it’s a decision to tolerate dysfunction.
“The future of probation lies in evidence-based reform, practitioner development, and adequate resourcing. Practitioners and managers must be empowered to lead and challenge from within, cultivating a workforce of champions who articulate the service’s purpose with clarity and confidence. Probation must resist the urge to overpromise on crime control and risk management. Therefore, reframing public safety as a natural consequence of effective rehabilitation rather than an isolated goal.”
https://www.probation-institute.org/news/shaping-probations-identity
“Political courage may be required to advance this understanding of probation. It is unfashionable to assert that probation has a duty to care for people under its supervision, or that the wider community has responsibilities towards people with criminal convictions as well as claims against them. It is therefore all the more important that probation and other social work services should stand as authoritative representations of how a good society should relate to those of its members who are struggling. No doubt these professions often fall short of the idealistic standards set out in this paper. Nevertheless, these are the values to which they should commit themselves and which they would be more likely to achieve if their historical connections were revived and reaffirmed.”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02645505241241588
Abstract
DeleteIn England and Wales probation was regarded as social work for most of the twentieth century, but some thirty years ago the government rejected this conception. In the context of continuing deliberations about the purpose and character of probation, it is timely to revisit its relationship to social work. It is argued that a principal reason for the politically motivated repudiation of social work was its associations with care, but this rested on confusion about care and a comparable misunderstanding of the concept of control. Appreciation of social context is argued to be fundamental to the work of probation. Social capital is no less important than human capital in achieving desistance. The skills and values of social work continue to inform probation because they match up to the demands of the job. Reaffirming connections between the professions would enhance the policy and practices of both.
Introduction
Many countries regard the activities of probation agencies as social work undertaken in the criminal justice system. This used to be the case in England and Wales, but this understanding was overturned when social work was rejected as a way of characterising probation's work. The Probation Service, set back and damaged by the project of Transforming Rehabilitation (Burke and Collett, 2015; Deering and Feilzer, 2019), has now embarked on a process of unification as a national service. Since the organisation of any agency should be fitted to its purposes, a review of the character, meaning and point of probation is timely. In a recent contribution to this debate, the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee (2023) remarking that ‘Caseloads are unmanageable and job satisfaction is low.’ (page 4), referred to an occupational ‘identity crisis’ (page 70). In this paper it will be argued that, while the matter of whether probation ‘is’ social work sounds like a stale debate, reopening discussion can illuminate much about what probation is or ought to be and in particular the values that should find expression in its practices.
I think the blog is excellent at describing the problem. What we need to do is to get better at exploring realistic and practical solutions. The fact is that the leadership of probation in headquarters is distributed and different directors pursue their own agendas. The CPO is no more powerful than other directors involved in Probation and is just rolled out occasionally to say nothing and change nought but no one really knows what she does 9-5. Let’s get her diary published. This means that accountability does not rest with anyone and only ministers can direct policy direction. Ministers as we know get a highly redacted version of what is going on so we need to find a way to get them clued in. So efforts to suggest change really need to be primarily directed at ministers rather than slagging off the unions etc. Currently the RPDs have too much autonomy. They all have their own ideas but are subject to divide and rule. Chaos is deliberately maintained. They do not have standardised procedures nationally and positive reform will take a long time. We must stop attacking the unions and focus our energies on ministers then HMPPS HQ and the individual directors and their responsibilities. Then encourage the unions to meet with them about specific themes and let us know the outcomes. For instance pay. Let us name those responsible and call out ministerial steers. Embarrass individual directors about their appalling performance and we will soon see some movement because they will not like it. Use FOI and subject access requests. This is their greatest fear. . Publicly outing them is the way. For instance we could highlight that the Chief Inspector of Probation has regular battles with certain directors who ignore inspection recommendations. Let’s support the chief inspector. Let’s make those disputes public and highlight the issues and those responsible. Whistleblowing is an essential democratic right. This will also help the unions and others like the PI to put pressure with greater precision as they are dealing with a range of bureaucrats that would rather not be named. Let the directors know we are coming for them and that they are accountable for the problems faced and that they have nowhere to hide. They must individually explain their decisions.
ReplyDelete"The second comment is important because it shows how this damage travels downwards and sideways."
ReplyDelete"I attended a briefing this week about E-POP where those pops who are low or medium risk (with no active safeguarding or MAPPA) will complete online tick box reporting rather than face to face appts to alleviate appointments and improve capacity…."
I do a lot of voluntary work with homeless people. The majority of those I meet are on some sort of probation order, and the majority of those are actively wanted for recall.
Nearly all have addiction problems, and their recall has been triggered by failing to attend appointments. Some forget their appointments because everyday is just the same, some can't be bothered to attend because it's just an inconvenience without any benefit to be gained, and some don't attend because they know they will only fail their drug test anyway.
These are a group of people that commit low level (although not insignificant) offences, who are caught on the treadmill and being subjected to post sentence supervision is only a costly process to damage damaged people further.
I find the idea that some on probation will only be expected to complete electronic tic box exercises as utterly stupid, and quite frankly just plain nasty.
Either someone requires supervision when they're released or they dont. Ticking a few boxes online once a month suggests to me that supervision is not really required, and instead of wasting resources, just don't funnel them down the probation chute in the first place.
Probation has become destructive for many people regardless of which side of the desk they sit on.
If there is no real benefit to subject someone to probation then they shouldn't be there. Its a waste of money. Its a waste of resources. Its a waste of life.
The current focus is all about how to get more people out of prison system. There should be just as much focus on how to get people out of the probation system.
'Getafix
Let’s stop pretending this is a problem of understanding. The Ministry of Justice, HMPPS, senior civil servants and successive ministers have been told, repeatedly and unambiguously, what is wrong with probation and what is required to fix it. They have been told by HMIP, by parliamentary committees, by academic research, by unions, and most consistently by practitioners themselves. The evidence is not missing. The warnings are not unclear. The solutions are not novel.
ReplyDeleteWhat is missing is action because those with power have chosen not to act.
The MoJ and HMPPS have chosen not to cap caseloads. They have chosen not to restore professional autonomy. They have chosen not to fund probation staff in line with the risk, responsibility and harm they are expected to manage. They have chosen managerial control, performative reform and technological distraction over workforce stability and public safety. Ministers sign off the direction; senior leaders operationalise it; both then feign surprise when the system continues to fail.
Asking practitioners to keep restating the same truths is not engagement, it is avoidance. It forces those already carrying the damage to keep justifying their own harm while decision-makers hide behind “complexity”, “future reform” and “lessons learned”. At this stage, repeating the evidence is an act of generosity probation staff should no longer be expected to provide.
When harm is this longstanding, this evidenced and this foreseeable, inaction is no longer passive. It is an active decision by the MoJ and HMPPS to tolerate failure, grind down staff, and accept diminished public protection as an acceptable price of doing business. Own that choice and stop pretending this is anything other than deliberate.
I agree but you have to name names and hold the individuals responsible to account there aren’t that many holding the strings so any solution needs to be targeted at individual responsible officers/directors. Unions know who are the decision makers are and they should insist on meeting them directly rather than the dancing double dealing underlings. Decision makers will not care unless they are individually held to account and forced to given written assurances - something they wish to avoid. This terrifies them. Anything else is just huffing and puffing to blow the house down without any effect. Today Napo members were told that the unions are very cross with the employers. No shit Sherlock. Tell us who has made the decision regarding pay and why and if it is another decision makers fault then tell us who they are until we get to the faceless bod who says ‘no’ It is pointless to do negotiations behind closed doors as they are clearly not getting anywhere. If you cannot get a deal then let someone else have a go. Instruct some TU lawyers to attend and litigate them . Time to try something else.
Deletehttps://insidetime.org/newsround/serious-offences-by-people-on-licence-have-risen-sharply/
ReplyDeleteThe renewed interest in probation’s social work roots is not about nostalgia or professional identity debates. It is about whether this service still understands that people are not risks to be processed but human beings whose behaviour changes through sustained, skilled relationships. That was always the point of probation, long before it became dominated by metrics, tools and remote compliance.
ReplyDeleteThe current enthusiasm for healthcare provision in probation offices needs to be treated carefully. Health input is necessary and overdue, but it cannot be used to mask the erosion of probation practice itself. If supervision is reduced to digital reporting, scripted contact or transactional check-ins, then healthcare simply becomes an adjacent service bolted onto a hollowed out core. Mental health support cannot compensate for the removal of professional judgement, continuity and meaningful engagement.
Risk is not static and it is rarely declared. It emerges through patterns, deterioration and moments that only become visible when there is regular, face-to-face contact and trust. Tick boxes do not register escalation. Algorithms do not notice despair. Remote systems do not replace human presence.
Reconnecting probation to its social work foundations is not about resisting modernisation. It is about acknowledging a basic truth this system keeps ignoring: supervision without relationship is surveillance, not rehabilitation.
If probation abandons its relational core, no amount of health pilots, technology or reform language will prevent the harm that follows.
ReplyDelete“At this stage, rather than endlessly reframing the same conclusions, we should be asking why those with responsibility refuse to act upon them. We shouldn’t have to write new explanations, we should be able to say: you were told already. If unions, Napo, Unison and GMB Scoop were not so complicit this’d already be happening.”
It seems to me that this sentence taken from the above neatly summarises the current position.
I have just looked on the NAPO website. Their last comment on the wage claim was 28.11.25. They have nothing to say on any other matter either. I don’t think it is too much to expect our representatives to justify their lack of activity and explain to the membership who pay them handsomely exactly what the strategy going forward will be. Instead the silence is deafening.
In less than a fortnight, the pay claim will be celebrating its first birthday and the proud parents appear to be absent from the party.
Are you a NAPO member? If so check your emails as they are being sent out regularly including today
Deletehttps://youtu.be/N6qTkXfBjA8?si=F2AbFBU60UZ2Hwed
ReplyDelete'E-POP' is being framed as capacity management, but in practice it represents a withdrawal of supervision from people deemed administratively inconvenient rather than unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteAnyone with frontline experience knows that risk is not static and rarely declared. Many serious further offences originate with individuals assessed as medium risk whose disengagement, relapse or deterioration only becomes visible through consistent human contact. Online reporting captures compliance, not change. It cannot register escalation, distress or instability.
If someone does not require meaningful supervision, they should not be on probation at all. And if they do, replacing face to face engagement with tick box reporting is not innovation, it is abdication. That approach may reduce appointment pressure on paper, but it increases recall, churn and harm in reality.
At this point the most damaging fiction is that probation is failing despite everyone’s best efforts. It is failing because the system has been redesigned to tolerate harm as normal operating conditions. Unsafe caseloads, hollow supervision and staff attrition are not unintended consequences, they are accepted outcomes. When failure becomes predictable and nothing changes, it stops being failure and starts being policy.
ReplyDeleteTo the Minister of Justice and those signing off probation policy:
ReplyDeleteYou have received repeated HMIP warnings, parliamentary scrutiny, academic evidence and frontline testimony describing the same structural failures year after year. You know caseloads are unsafe. You know staff are leaving in large numbers. You know supervision quality is deteriorating.
Given that knowledge, what specific decision have you taken to not cap caseloads, not restore professional autonomy, and not properly fund probation staff and on what basis have you decided that the resulting harm to staff, service users and public safety is acceptable?
To anyone adversely affected by the deterioration in probation service provision regardless of which side of the computer you sit - practitioner, supervisee, victim, victim's family, prisoner:
ReplyDeleteBased upon the observations, comments & evidence already provided on this blog & elswhere, isn't it time someone took probation/hmpps/moj to court for the harm caused by wilful neglect?
It seems abundantly & explicitly clear from the available evidence that there has been intentional structural decline from 2010 onwards, that organisational failure has become normalised, that 20% performance levels across the board (as measured by HMIProbation) are deemed to be acceptable, given that no so-called 'leaders' have ever been held to account for their unconscionable failings. Indeed the principal achitects & highest levels of leadership have simply been allowed to 'carry on regardless' &/or receive stratospheric plaudits, bonuses & promotions.
For far too long so many unappetising decisions & intolerable behaviours have been choked back, re-swallowed & gagged upon.
Its time for someone to hold these shitweasels to account in a court of law, to expose their lies, their deceptions, their plundering of the public purse for no good reason.
The idea of legal action isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds, but it’s also not as straightforward as many would hope. Courts don’t deal in moral outrage or systemic decline as such; they deal in breaches of specific legal duties. That’s the trap this system has been built to survive. You can preside over prolonged organisational harm, collapsing standards and predictable damage to staff and the public, and still remain legally insulated if it’s framed as policy choice rather than unlawful failure.
DeleteThat said, there are pressure points. Judicial review can challenge specific decisions where evidence has been ignored or consultation has been a sham. Health and safety law is potentially more powerful than people realise, because employers have a duty to protect staff from foreseeable harm, including stress and violence, and much of that harm has been documented, warned about and then disregarded. Employment claims around constructive dismissal, disability discrimination and failure to make reasonable adjustments already show the pattern, even if they individualise the damage.
What won’t work is a single sweeping case about “wilful neglect” of probation as a whole. The courts will say it’s political, not justiciable, and defer to ministers. That isn’t an accident. The system has been redesigned to be legally survivable while professionally destructive. Decline can be intentional without being unlawful. Harm can be foreseeable without triggering accountability.
So the real issue isn’t feasibility, it’s appetite. Any meaningful legal challenge would have to be tightly focused, collective, properly resourced and prepared to escalate. It would need unions or external backers willing to stop managing decline and start forcing disclosure, embarrassment and constraint.
Courts won’t save probation. But used strategically, they can make neglect more expensive, more visible and harder to deny. The question is whether anyone with power is prepared to stop absorbing the damage quietly and accept the risk of confrontation.