Latest From Napo 182

Extracts from the latest Napo magazine:-

Napo NEC – first meeting of the new Napo year

Napo NEC met this week in the first meeting of the new Napo year post-AGM. New NEC reps were warmly welcomed and took great pleasure in ratifying 100s of new members who have joined since the last NEC meeting.

NEC reps play an important part in Napo and at this meeting they agreed the operating plan for the year as well as approving the budget to allow all of the vital work of the union to be done.

Reps were given an update on Napo’s Strategy for Growth and discussed ways that we are working to support members and reps to become more active in the Union including the launch of our new rep and activists training programme.

Delegates to the Women’s TUC conference and the TUC Black Workers conference were ratified, work will now be done to consider motions to those conferences. The motions to the 2018 AGM that were passed are now resolutions and these were allocated to the relevant Napo committees so that work can be undertaken through the year.

Some of our committees have vacancies, please contact your branch chair if you are interested in getting more involved in the work of the union.

Motions passed at the Family Court Section AGM were noted by NEC and a motion from South Yorkshire branch on member expenses was passed, committing us to review the amount paid for mileage to increase it from the very low rate set some years ago.

NEC were informed of the resignation of Vice Chair Denise Mason and thanked her for her hard work, wishing her well for the future. According to our constitution NEC has the power to appoint an acting Vice Chair to fill the vacancy for the remainder of the term (until AGM 2019). David Raho was elected to this position and we welcome him to his new role.

CRC pay – issue being escalated to Probation Programme engagement

At this week’s meeting of the NEC it was made clear that there is considerable anger over the failure by CRC Providers and the MoJ to extend the terms of the NPS Pay award to CRC Staff. The NEC heard about the next steps in our efforts to establish pay parity as part of our ‘8 Good Reasons to Reunify Probation’ campaign. This will encourage all members in the CRC estate and NPS to raise their concerns directly with MP’s about the many problems that you are facing.

CRC Chief Executives will soon be receiving a letter from Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence following the debate at the NEC, where a clearer picture emerged of the pathetic responses by corporate management to our claims for fair treatment on pay for their staff.

This week also saw the unions and senior HMPPS management meet under the auspices of the Probation Programme Engagement Forum (TR mark 2). Work is under way to agree some terms of reference which will allow the unions to raise our concerns about the plans to repeat the selloff of Probation and the need to protect the terms and conditions of staff whilst maintaining our total opposition to the whole concept of marketisation.

In a clear sign that Napo will not forget the needs of our CRC members, we have insisted that a major discussion needs to take place about why CRC owners can claim that they cannot afford a decent pay rise for their staff whilst having received half a billion pounds in bailouts from the taxpayer. We will also continue with our argument that adjustments should be made to current CRC contracts to allow providers to match NPS pay rates, and that if this does not happen, then any new contracts that might emerge in 2020, if this disastrous plan is not halted, will simply be untenable.

Napo and our sister unions are pressing our case that CRC staff currently on (or thinking of) secondment to the NPS should be paid NPS rates of pay. Napo also pointed out that there are some staff who are currently undertaking vital work around Minimum Contact Specifications ordered by the MoJ on failing contractors, who must be paid the commensurate rate for the job.

New HMPPS senior Leadership Structure

It was formally announced today that there is a change to the structure right at the top of HMPPS. Two new Director General posts have been created, reporting to the CEO. These posts have been filled on an interim basis to allow for the structures to be developed but permanent selection will take place once the new CEO (the replacement for Michael Spurr) is appointed next year.

Amy Rees has been appointed as Director General for Probation and Phil Copple has been appointed as Director General for Prisons. Both job descriptions require a professional background in the relevant work area. Napo welcomes this development as an important move towards maintaining a distinct Probation identity within the department and look forward to meeting with Amy to discuss how Probation’s Professional identity can be both protected and developed.