What's in a Name?

The relatively new chief of the London Probation Trust Heather Munro decided to put her head above the parapet a week or so ago and agreed to an interview with the Guardian. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but it seems the Daily Mail did and particularly took her to task over the use of the word 'customer'. I must admit I agree and have always regarded it as extremely cynical when the term was introduced by the old DHSS in place of the strictly accurate term 'claimant'. You will recall that British Rail substituted 'customer' for 'passenger' some time ago and this still rankles with me.

I suppose in trying to be generous, in each case the organisation involved felt there was an image problem and that by changing the name things could be improved. Hence Windscale became Sellafield and the Police Force became the Police Service. Ever since I can recall, the probation service has used the term 'client' but has never seemed that comfortable with it. This became more of an acute issue with the evolution towards us becoming a Law Enforcement Agency with the result that there have been a number of attempts to come up with an alternative, but it is not easy.

I guess way back the term 'probationer' was used for people being supervised in the community, alongside the more obvious 'prisoner' for those who were not. But there was a need for a neutral term in order to recognise our dual role as Divorce Court Welfare Officers, hence 'client' was universally adopted. At the point we lost that role and were becoming more conscious of public opinion, we had a stab at calling people 'cases'. This didn't last long as the absurdity of talking about inanimate objects having arrived at reception for their interview eventually dawned, so we tried 'offender' instead and I guess this is where we sort of are currently. Of course regular readers will not be surprised to hear that I and many like-minded colleagues have stuck resolutely to 'client' and still proudly sign letters as a 'probation officer' and definitely not as an 'offender manager'. 

So where does this leave us in relation to 'customer'? Maybe Heather Munro was just 'flying a kite' in order to test reaction? I agree entirely with the sentiment she was expressing about according everyone respect and reference to 'customer' seems to have been purely illustrative. In my view the job simply cannot be done in any other way. According to a spokesperson, this was indeed her main message and there is no intention to introduce the term. Surely common sense says that calling people 'customers' when they have no choice in their contact with us is cynical in the extreme?