Sorry, but I just couldn't resist the title - 'resistance is futile!' It helps keep our film analogies going, and it also got a mention at the Brighton Napo public meeting last week by Professor Paul Senior. Oh, and we know it's what Probation Board Trust members think because John Steele told us recently. They also think it down at MoJ/NOMS HQ, so all very good reasons to completely ignore the instruction, take inspiration from Captain Kirk and, keep the shields up and boldly go!
There's no doubt in my mind that Paul Senior is rapidly becoming the significant and authoritative voice of dissent on behalf of the Probation Service. His speech at the Brighton public meeting can be viewed here and although only 24 minutes in length, it's a tour de force. He says it all and why this really is a dangerous omnishambles that has to be resisted by all available means.
He pours scorn on the lack of evidence, the ignoring of all reasoned and united professional opinion and the reckless speed of TR's introduction, despite an 80% risk of failure and possible harm to victims and the public. The boundaries of the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies bear no relation to any other, nor do the six arbitrary English sectors of the new National Probation Service. This latter Service will be so small and stretched that 'Local Delivery Units' may well have to cover whole counties FFS!
Prof Senior reminded us that of course we've been here before. Despite the MoJ press release saying that Mike Maiden was the first Director of the NPS, he is in fact the fourth because we were nationalised in 2001 when Ethnie Wallis was appointed the first Director. Ok that might be splitting hairs because we were then de-nationalised when the present independent trusts were set up, but it does serve to remind everyone just how much the politicians have pissed us about.
In less than 13 years we've been nationalised, bureaucratised, regionalised, marginalised, de-nationalised, localised, and shortly to be split in two, abolished, part-privatised and nationalised for the second time. It's crazy, scandalous and an utter omnishambles! No wonder everything feels to be going wrong and many of us have started reflecting on just how the hell we ended up in this mess?
It's a long and complicated story with many players, and I suspect like so much in politics, elements of chance, personal prejudice and poor judgement have played their part. Prof Senior reminded us what Ethnie Wallis said to Home Secretary David Blunket the first time the NPS was set up and she unwisely signalled an ultra-passive stance:- 'we're here to do what ever you want'.
As I find myself cataloguing and commenting on the destruction of a job and profession I feel passionately about, I naturally dwell quite a bit on how and why its all gone wrong. It's so unfair and illogical, but it's happening. Is it cock-up or conspiracy? Is it deliberate or accidental? Is it structural or personal?
As part of the search for the answers I've read quite a few academic explanations and been made all-too-painfully aware of the political neoliberal context, but it still doesn't really help explain it, until that is some colour is added, and that colour comes from the individuals involved of course, like the Ethnie Wallis David Blunkett anecdote. I recall the apocryphal story of another arse of a Home Secretary Jack Straw going ape upon discovering a copy of Radical Non-intervention by Edwin M. Schur on a hapless PO's bookcase. He used that apparently as evidence as to why we needed reigning-in.
I well remember we were all horrified when, as a result of the shot-gun marriage between the Probation and Prison Service in order to create NOMS, we discovered that virtually all the top key management positions went to former Prison Service staff. Of course it was ludicrous to force two such differing cultures together, or possibly deliberate? But the effect was that 'nice' probation management stood no chance against that from the hard-nosed prison service.
It now transpires, through gossip that I gather was conducted in that very strange male bonding opportunity provided by the need to visit the gents, that the then Director-General Phil Wheatley was happy to confide that all the probation managers were basically 'wankers' and would only get top positions 'if they were up to it'. We never had any hope did we, once we'd been swallowed up into NOMS and put at the mercy of the Prison Service?
It's funny, but the urinal moment has happened to me once in my career when I found myself stood next to a particularly charmless and none-too-bright Chief who proffered the observation that 'role boundaries between PO's and PSO's were outdated and it was all going to change'. Of course the arse went on to prosper and rumour has it he's still influencing things at a high level.
Phil Wheatley's wanker comment probably stems from long ago when he was shagging the seconded SPO whilst he was governor at HMP Hull and is thus possibly evidence based.
ReplyDeleteJim, when I read posts like this it always amazes me that despite all the nonsense from Whitehall we're actually a successful service. I wonder what we could have achieved if we'd just been left alone to get on with the bloody job.
ReplyDeleteSeems like every politician and upper management have a great new way of doing things, fuck up then bugger off with a nice pay off or other job offer. "so it goes". i predict that this will be no different.
ReplyDeleteCan't resist bringing it up sorry.
ReplyDeleteThe G4S run prison Oakwood which employs prisoners in call centres (what ever happened to mailbags?), is in the news today again.
Apparently, prisoners have been making insurence related calls to determine the amount of valuables they have and their postcodes.
However G4S have said it's all ok as the prisoner were risk assessed first!
Putting public services in the hands of private companies is just far too risky. They don't have any public interest to start with.
Another ecxellent blog Jim. I recently dug out the 'New Choreography' for a PSO colleague for a final essay prior to becoming a PO and was staggered by the managerialist inanity of the document. Thankfully, Eithne is off doing some blue sky thinking with her beloved or perhaps back on the tractor in Dungannon.
ReplyDeleteIs there any word on the likes of G4S/Serco bidding on probation work. if not i was thinking, is it possible they would set up dummy companies then once these have won, take them over in a year or 2. Would they just wait for charities to run into the ground due to the lack of sustainable funding.
ReplyDeleteThe process is as with the work programme the big boys fund the not for profit organisations and the CICs (community interest companies), then starve them forcing them to form partnerships with other satalite companies owned by the big boys.
ReplyDeleteIt's simple, it's immoral, and the government are very aware of it going on.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23772194
ReplyDeleteRead this short article yesterday. Although not about probation, the concepts somehow seem relative.
Netnipper: Paul Senior's critique of TR rings true throughout. His optimism in Labour is touching. I have my doubts whether Napo should be involved in negotiations with NOMS at this juncture. At the outset of the Napo campaign the word 'Resistance' was emblazoned on the Napo website and it was the supposed rallying cry. Maybe I fell asleep but I have not seen much resistance. Does being in formal negotiations with the unions make the impelmentation process that little bit easier for the government? - 'I'd rather have the guy inside my tent pissing out, rather than outside my tent, pissing in.' - Lyndon B. Johnson. How would it look if Napo was outside the tent?
ReplyDelete"Some public sector spin-outs formed 'without staff consent'", is an interesting artical that should be read in todays 'Civil Society' on line.
ReplyDeleteFor those interested in forming mutuals it's a must read.
Thanks!
DeleteGood spot. In all this talk of mutuals I have seen little or nothing about asking staff what they want - which is surely the point? Or are mutuals simply not-for-profit companies under a fluffy new name?
DeleteBe sure that they're certainly there to make a profit. But also be sure that the only ones that will profit are the huge outsourcing companies. I'm sure that many employed in the public sector for any period of time, however savvy they may be, have no idea how savage, corrupt, and unethical outsourcing has become. And I mean no offence by that, but however bad you may percieve it to be, it's worse.
DeleteUnfortunately, I think anyone entering the private sector from probation who has any moral substance are going to be both shocked and appauled.
jim have you seen this
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/NAPO_Leics/status/370187790883246080
No hadn't seen that - thanks!
DeleteThe sad thing is jim as i glance around by office at the 'offender manager' robots who now outnumber anyone with any wit or initiative it is apparent that the service got the docile, new university 'piss poor 'criminology' graduates it wanted. They on the whole dont even understand who thggggey work for now! They wont put up any fight and quite frankly deserve to work for catch a rat. Incidentally,im not a dinosour jim but qualified in 2003 .
ReplyDeleteBe careful. It's the people who couldn't get a job with 'catch a rat' that may be doing probations work in the not to distant future......
Delete22/8/13.
ReplyDeleteThe Independent,'Mandarins may have been out witted on the probation service deal'.
Noted - thanks.
DeleteIn my Brighton speech the slide referred to Is 'Resistance is NOT futile as I still believe that these changes can be resisted. Whilst we have to prepare to engage with what's happening we need to lever any aspect of resistance that presents itself. This is not to suggest there is any open door her far from it resistance is proving very difficult. My point about labour, amongst around eight different points of resistance, is that there is some evidence of a shift I perspective from Sadiq Khan and his colleagues. There is no commitment to campaign against TR but there is a growing sense that if TR is not implemented by the election it would be opposed by labour. These may only be small acorns but we have to hope they grow into a cacophony of noise which can stall this heinous development. I, for one, will try and keep the pressure on.
ReplyDeleteProf Senior,
DeleteAgreed! This blog is similarly dedicated to resistance for the duration and as you indicate, if only we can find some way of delaying things......
Sorry about the title - it was of course an unashamed appeal to film buffs.
Jim, The leaked risk register was a God send to NAPO but it has not capitalised on it . Unfortunately from the Guardian's assessment of it the risk of senior managers not playing ball is now passed so my view the risk register is now no longer valid and is lost as a useful tool. The workforce have few allies at the moment , I am sorry to say , is it not very soon a paper cull will take place and all our chairs will be moved to different ends of the office ........mmmm what that will do for business as usual !!! I won't suggest which ends will have the better deal , as it compares to electric chair or firing squad ....the end is the same.
ReplyDeleteYes Napo have been pretty useless - the AGM will be very messy indeed - if I can sit on my computer at home writing all this shit everyday, why can't somebody at Chivalry Road find the time to do it?
DeleteAbsolutely Jim but unfortunately Napo national officers disagree and continue to carry on with these nonsense negotiations . I fear they are wasting the moment and have lost touch with what's happening on the shop floor ! My colleagues are so demoralised I fear the ballot will come to late!
ReplyDelete