Latest From Napo 181

Mention was made yesterday of the latest Napo magazine mailout that contains the following:-

Gauke asked to tackle two tier probation pay system

Dear David,

Pay in the Probation Service

Just over four years ago, the then Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling implemented the Governments ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ programme.

You will of course be aware of Napo’s ongoing campaign to seek reunification of the Probation Service; this has evolved in light of the lessons learned from what has been a highly controversial outsourcing policy that has been the subject of considerable scrutiny by Parliament and widespread criticism by the Probation Inspectorate.

I understand that the Government will be submitting its response to the ‘Strengthening Probation, Building Confidence’ consultation exercise in the New Year, and my team and I would welcome the opportunity to engage with you and explain our perspective, before you finalise your thinking.

A two-tier pay system in Probation

Last week the three Probation unions resoundingly accepted the pay offer for staff working within the NPS. This resulted from the constructive engagement over the summer between Unions and HMPPS and NPS Officials, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and Under-Secretary Rory Stewart for your support in securing a respectable pay remit from the Treasury.

Whilst all the unions are pleased that a negotiated settlement proved possible, which included a clear commitment to jointly work on a competency framework and a Licence to Practice, you will not be surprised to hear that this success has brought with it some understandable demands and considerable resentment from the members we represent in the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies. They are giving me a very clear message that pay equity should now be applied across both arms of the Probation service.

In light of this, the Probation Unions are already engaging with CRC owners to seek their support for our pay equity campaign. Whilst we have received a mixture of responses so far, it is evident that the NPS pay settlement is causing your CRC providers serious concern about their ability to maintain even minimum standards of service delivery within the remaining life of their contracts.

Moreover, and as we predicted would happen some time ago, we are seeing clear evidence of CRC staff starting to explore (or already applying for) the many unfilled vacancies that exist within the NPS.

Napo has made publicly clear why we believe additional funding should be made available to resolve the ‘two-tier’ pay situation that has now been established.

Frankly, I find it very difficult to explain to our members why half a billion pounds has been found to sustain the CRC contractors, but pay awards (such as have been made) over and above the 1% contractual entitlement are vastly inferior to the NPS pay settlement.

In the longer term, your intention to terminate the current CRC contracts and ‘re-marketise’ service provision under the guise of 10 new contract package areas, looks to be simply unsustainable.

Unless there is to be a consistent pay and reward regime across both arms of the service with adequate financial provision being made available to enable prospective contractors to match NPS pay rates, it is difficult to see how future providers will be able to retain existing staff or recruit to the required delivery standards.

Irrespective of our obvious differences over the merits of privatisation, there is a serious danger that unless steps are taken to bring about equity on pay, then service provision will suffer further and inevitably bring with it a corresponding impact on community safety.

I hope it will be possible to arrange a long overdue meeting between us where we can seek to address the important issues that I have set out above for your consideration.

I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely

IAN LAWRENCE
General Secretary

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Approved Premises update

At yesterday’s meeting of the NPS/Trade Union Engagement Forum, we received reports on the status of the current Double Waking Night Cover outsourcing and the plans for the roll out of the NPS AP Rotas.

DWNC contracts Sodexo and OCS

The view from NPS is that there has been an improvement in delivery from both providers but that ‘hotspots’ exist across 30 sites in the OCS contract mainly in South East and South West England, and long standing difficulties within the Sodexo contract in the North West.

Whilst the statistics show 90% against the delivery target and appear to be an improvement on previous reports, the unions were concerned to hear that the provision of temporary cover for some shifts due to the failure to provide permanent staff is reliant on the services of yet another recruitment agency.

We also continue to receive reports from members about unreasonable expectations around shift cover and some worrying issues about the suitability of some staff who have been sent to cover shifts by recruitment agencies.

Napo raises some serious questions

The unions have posed a number of questions around contract failures, the invoking of penalties, comparative costs and who will be responsible in the event of a serious health and safety incident. We have been promised a response to these points and these will inform our intention to raise the issue of the DWNC contracts yet again with the Secretary of State.

New AP Rotas

Unions have once again expressed our concern following news that NPS divisions have been instructed to finish rolling out the new AP Rotas that were part of the E3 implementation programme.

Some time ago, the unions reached an agreement with the NPS that discussion about the implementation of AP rotas should take place at NPS Divisional level and that there would be a post-implementation review (PIR) on those areas where the rota had been introduced to help inform future roll out.

Whilst we still await an approach as to the PIR, it is now clear that consultation has been patchy and that the rota requirements are proving to be unpopular.

We will include this situation in our future contact with Ministers.

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Unions express concern over CRC-NPS secondment arrangements

Napo, along with our sister unions UNISON and GMB, have registered major concerns following the news of arrangements to transfer staff on secondment from some Community Rehabilitation Companies to undertake NPS work due to the perilous financial position of the parent companies.

Whilst the unions obviously wish to explore all opportunities to avoid the possibility of redundancies within CRCs, the Unions have not been consulted centrally over the intended arrangements, which we are claiming should have been held under the auspices of the National Staff Transfer and Protections Agreement that was underwritten by Ministers at the time of Transforming Rehabilitation.

Rationale

In light of this unsatisfactory situation, the Probation unions formally registered our misgivings about the secondment arrangements, some of which have already commenced, at yesterday’s meeting of the NPS/Trade Union Engagement Forum.

Below are the key issues that we raised and on which we are demanding answers and urgent further discussion as we attempt to protect our member’s interests.
PI 50/2014 which expired in June this year, appears to be the basis of the secondment arrangements and whilst it is appreciated that there has been some local dialogue between CRC providers and unions, we would have expected central discussions to have taken place.

The failure to engage with the trade unions over the appropriate rates of pay for seconded staff who will be undertaking equal work of equal value is obviously our primary concern. We have pointed out the fact that CRC staff will be sitting next to NPS colleagues who will soon be in receipt of superior rates of pay as well as Agency Staff whose hourly rate is also likely to be much higher than those paid to CRC employees.

We have also questioned the potential impact on NPS Staff who may have suffered an unwelcome transfer under E3 from their previous location or who may be awaiting a Transfer request.

What happens next?

Senior NPS management have been left in no doubt that this is another example of inadequate consultation. We have also made the point that when CRCs previously made redundancies the NPS turned down the Union’s request for staff to be taken back in, but are happy to now agree secondment arrangements ‘on the cheap.’


Our National Officials will be advising the relevant CRC providers of our position while we await a response to these points, and especially the demand for Pay equity for CRC staff during the period of their secondment period whilst working within the NPS.

Advice to CRC members

As always, it is a matter of individual choice as to whether you decide to take up a secondment opportunity in the NPS on the terms being offered. Napo has an obligation to point out these important issues, especially our demand for pay parity for CRC staff undertaking work for another employer, albeit on a temporary basis.

Napo will keep you posted on developments once we have more news.