There are staff surveys, conversations on Facebook, comments on this blog and a new one on me but something that seems to be growing, Employee Reviews:-
PSO Offender Manager (Current Employee) – London, Greater London – 14 February 2019
The best part of this job to me was knowing that I was doing my part to help safeguard the public and give people the chance to make changes to their lives for the better. Doing this role you will learn a lot about report writing, problem solving, conflict resolution and, possibly most importantly, about yourself. There are times where the role can be emotionally draining and it can be quite disheartening at times as well. Unfortunately, the bad generally out-weighs the good due to the nature of the people you are working with however when things go well, there is a real sense of achievement. You'll encounter people from all different backgrounds and walks of life which can again be both good and bad. You need to be resilient, caring and determined to do this role. Great communication skills is an absolute must to be good at this role.
Pros
Benefits associated with being a Civil Servant
Cons
Emotionally demanding
*****
Great colleagues to work withProbation Officer (Current Employee) – West London, Greater London – 15 January 2019
National Probation Service is a government agency run by the Ministry of Justice and manages offenders who pose a high risk of harm to society. People who work here are civil servants and are expected to follow the code of conduct. A typical day at work consists is seeing service users and assisting them to manage and address problems in their lives. This can range from 1:1 work, referrals to programmes to initiating enforcement action. The work environment is pleasant and enables you to discuss complex cases with colleagues. The people who work in this industry have a caring nature and genuinely want to help those who are less advantaged.
I have acquired great skills in assessment and management of individuals with complex needs. I have developed collaborative working and established valuable links with external agencies, such as police, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists etc. The company has recently undergone a technology upgrade and we can now work remotely, which assists with timely communication, work life balance and has improved my IT skills. There is a culture in Probation that everyone just accepts changes, whether good or bad, and blame management for lack of representation at higher levels. Management are mainly concerned with targets and wellbeing is second. Encouragement for advancement is poor and there is no ongoing training. In my view, no merit is given for hard work and commitment, which is expected.
Pros
Annual leave entitlement is generous, job security, good pension scheme, recent technology upgrade, Sessional work (court, hostels) available to boost income.
Cons
Caseloads are high. You are required to work for long hours to ensure contact entries are up-to date, reports for external agencies completed, no training for advancement, salary scheme is poor and not in line with inflation. No bonus scheme.
*****
On a typical dayProbation Service Officer (Current Employee) – London, SLough Bracknell – 10 December 2018
A typical day at work would be to supervise offenders on licence (out of custody) or who are serving their sentence int he community. It would also involve one to one work to assist with their rehabilitation and re-integration into the community. The supervision of my offenders would require strict diary management. Having a list of tasks to complete and insuring that I prioritise my tasks daily. I would schedule in my diary, home visits which would require completing home assessments to establish if the home and family are happy/suitable for my Service User to return home. Risk assessments will need to be conducted. This would also involve inter-agency working with the Police/Social Services and Other multi-agency working.
My role would also involve working with a team of colleagues and ensuring that we communicate, gain advice on court reports or assessments we complete and having the confidence and flexibility to ask our colleagues if they are able to assist me if my workload is unmanageable or if a situation that wasn't planned, ie an offender comes out of custody without our prior knowledge or I am unable to supervise an offender at particular time, I can speak to my colleagues who are happy to help me.
The hardest part of my job is the unpredictability of my role. You may have set a list of tasks to complete the following day, however, you may have to complete an oasys assessment or a recall paper if one of your Service Users has committed a further offence which will result in a return to prison or if you service user arrives in the office unexpectedly more...
Pros
Pensions childcare vouchers
Cons
Unpredictability
*****
Could do a lot betterProbation Officer (Former Employee) – London, Greater London – 1 October 2018
Quite dictatorial and pressurising but the money as a subcontractor is very good. However there is no opportunities for progression, most of the jobs are all internally organised and there is no official human resources service. Quite eye opening when you consider that the majority of the customer base are men and enlightening in terms of the rule of law. That said as a professional you are expected to be everything to everyone and the culture is very blaming when things don't go according to plan.
Pros
Salary is good as a subcontractor
Cons
Dictatorial and often uncompromising culture
*****
National ProbationAdministration Officer (Current Employee) – Worthing, West Sussex – 19 August 2018
Interesting, varied, constantly changing. Great staff - most dedicated and hardworking and want to make a difference. Split between private and public sector has been difficult.
Unfortunately now changing towards more impersonal, centralised, hot desking, non team, with emphasis on stats, which changes what has been a good culture and working environment. However, still interesting and worthwhile employment.
Pros
Interesting, varied, challenging, strong on diversity, great people, good degree of trust
Cons
Always changing, can be demanding and stressful, wages not increasing
*****
Pressurised environment
Probation Service Officer (Current Employee) – Portsmouth – 15 January 2018
Over the years the Service has changed dramatically. Particularly since the split in the service 3+ years ago with National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Company trying to work together. Definitely not as an efficient Service as it was when NPS was overall in charge. Many targets not being met.
Pros
Good Colleagues
Cons
The split in the service not working.
*****
Downhill since PrivatisedProbation Service Officer (Former Employee) – Stevenage – 12 October 2017
This was once a great place to work, obtained 1st class training over the years. Helped change lives. Then it was privatised. The cuts where made and took away the true meaning of the Probation Service. Rehabilitate, protect the public and reparation. Now, poor system, work harder for less, less resources and increased workload with poor top management.
Pros
Excellent training and development opportunities
Cons
Long unplanned hours due heavy workload.
*****
Soul destroyingProbation Officer (Current Employee) – Wolverhampton, West Midlands – 10 January 2017
Because of cuts and high case loads, staff sickness is rife and staff morale is low. If you are unlucky enough to enter a negative office, everyday will be soul destroying. Your training will be sub-par depending on the location you are placed and should anything go wrong, for whatever reason, you will be thrown under the bus. This is not an organisation i would recommend working unless you have a real passion for working with difficult people/offenders.
*****
Great WorkplaceProbation Officer (Current Employee) – Lancashire – 8 January 2017
Great place to work, the team are very friendly and approachable. The work is hard but it is rewarding when completed. A typical day at work is managing offenders risk in the community.
Pros
Good staff
Cons
Long hours
*****
High pressure, high stress role
Probation Officer (Former Employee) – N/A – 1 January 2017
High pressure, high stress role where policy/procedural changes seem to occur on an almost daily basis. Co-workers are great though, and may a firm friendships have been made over the years.
Pros
Friendly co-workers.
Cons
Long hours, high stress, very high work-load.
Hi Jim,
ReplyDeleteYour column today is quite rightly headed “probation as a job,” because it is no longer a career.
Long hours, poor pay, lack of professional respect and a management that couldn’t give a toss with their JFDI attitude.
Probation is just a stepping stone after a gap year while you decide what else to do with your life.
I also cam across "COMMUNITY REHABILITATION Employee Reviews" on a different link - thanks for the prompt to the NPS ones
ReplyDeletehttps://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Community-Rehabilitation/reviews
Appointment of HM Chief Inspector of Probation
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday, we conducted pre-appointment scrutiny for the Secretary of State’s preferred candidate for HM Chief Inspector of Probation, Justin Russell.
We published our report, Appointment of HM Chief Inspector of Probation, which welcomes Mr Russell’s appointment.
In endorsing Mr Russell, our chair, Bob Neill MP said:
"I am extremely grateful to Mr Russell for appearing before the Committee to answer our questions.
Mr Russell is clearly a very capable public servant. Given that, if appointed, Mr Russell will be responsible for scrutinising his former employer, the Ministry of Justice, it was vital for us to assure ourselves that he would act as an independent and robust chief inspector.
I am pleased to say that his answers convinced us that he will, and we fully endorse this appointment."
David Fraser writes again in Conservative Women. He says that really whether it's a job or a profession or a career, it's pointless. Rehabilition is a fairytale told by do gooders. It only prison, and lots of it, that works.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think he's got some issues, and may benefit from some rehabilitation activities himself.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/abject-failure-of-the-rehabilitation-industry/
'Getafix
Involving private companies in the supervision of offenders with the aim of ‘reducing’ their offending was an idea that was never going to work. So it should have been no surprise when a report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons and Probation declared in 2017 that this scheme (legislated for by the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, and set up in 2015), had been a ‘catastrophe’, having failed to achieve any of its objectives, and had made no difference to the offending rate of the criminals concerned.
DeleteThe criticism of a more recent National Audit Report (2019) has been almost as damning. It claims that only six out of 25 community rehabilitation companies have achieved ‘reductions in the number of re-offenders’. Even this small crumb cannot be taken on face value, and we should be sceptical about what such a phrase means. Justice officials have a long history of statistical manipulation of reconviction figures; they are, in any case, based on just the tiny minority of crimes which are cleared up, so will be considerably understated; parliament has been presented with unarguable evidence that the police severely under-record the number of crimes to achieve ‘crime reduction targets’; independently of this, separate studies have shown that the official crime figures reported to the public every year understate the true burden of crime by millions. Therefore, reconviction figures of this scheme (as with all others) are likely to be severely understated because millions of crimes each year are never processed.
We should also be suspicious of a link between this disastrous failure and the announcement by the Justice Secretary in the summer of 2018 that he wants to get rid of short prison terms (less than six months). As the Audit Report states, the failure of private companies to cut offending of those released from short sentences of imprisonment has resulted in a ‘skyrocketing of their numbers being breached and recalled to jail’. This is revealing. The government could have seen this as good practice on the part of the companies, who were protecting the public by ensuring breach action was taken.
But this is not what our justice system wants. The preferred solution is to get rid of short prison sentences altogether, so that future breaches, which they fully expect to continue, will result in a non-custodial penalty. This could not be more revealing of their cynicism. It suggests they are prepared for the public to go on being victimised by offenders, but not prepared to take any action which will result in a rise in the prison population.
This apart, the real point to draw on from this latest debacle is not its damning results per se, but that it is yet one more failed rehabilitation method in a long line of other failed methods.
For at least 50 years, probation staff and others have applied every helping technique known to man or woman in their work with offenders. Individual casework, group work, family work, varieties of therapy, outdoor pursuits such as sailing, horse riding, tennis lessons, free holidays, free driving lessons, financial aid, job training, drink and drug counselling courses, cognitive behavioural courses aimed at training them to think differently, anger management courses, sex offender courses, restorative justice, and more recently practical help and support provided by private companies on a ‘payment by results’ basis. All these have provided jobs and substantial career structures for thousands, within and without the civil service. Many so-called ‘academics’ such as criminologists have thrived on the problem, producing research and theories of little or no relevance to everyday concerns of a public besieged by criminals.
DeleteAll have failed to stop offenders from committing crime.
In the pantheon of foolish ideas none stands out so much as the willingness on the part of penological liberals to continue to believe (or pretend to believe) that criminals offend because of pressures not of their making and which are beyond their control, and for which they need help and rehabilitation. These wearisomely recycled arguments are at the heart of the (professed) ideological idiocy driving our crime policies, such as the semi-privatisation of the probation service. This is despite the fact that for at least the last five decades criminals have demonstrated again and again that they commit crime because they want to. For them it pays and brings many advantages and few risks, and increasingly the bonus of official protection. They must think us fools.
Yet no one in officialdom wants (publicly) to recognise this.
This is the major problem bearing down on the public, brought to light once again by yet one more scheme giving help and rehabilitation to offenders who don’t want it, or need it, and all at great cost to the public purse. This is what should now dominate the concerns of the National Audit Office, and the justice department, rather than picking over the remains of Chris Grayling’s ill-conceived policy. It is a waste of time to do so, because whatever changes are made, they will make no difference. Worse, there is cause to suspect they know this, just as they also know that their own evidence makes it clear that long terms of imprisonment are the only way to protect the public and discourage further offending.
That Grayling’s semi-privatisation of the probation service has not worked is no surprise. What is, is that anyone should think (or even pretend to think) that it would.
David Fraser
There's 125 prison officers leaving the service every month. It's easy to understand why. It's a job that's dangerous, unfulfilling and unappreciated.
DeleteHow many leave probation each month for the same reasons?
Why would anyone want to be a probation officer in today's world?
"for at least the last five decades criminals have demonstrated again and again that they commit crime because they want to. For them it pays and brings many advantages and few risks, and increasingly the bonus of official protection."
ReplyDeleteI would tend to agree with this comment in isolation but NOT in the context of Fraser's argument. Why? Because 'for at least the last five decades' a vast number of factors have brought increased pressures to bear upon our society.
1. Growth of capitalism, monetisation & pursuit of financial wealth
2. Growth of want over need, shiny over practical
3. Cult of celebrity
4. Explosion of Political mendacity
5. Starting - & spectacularly losing - the Drug War
6. Polarisation of the population into 'haves' & 'have-nots'
... feel free to add your own...
So when society is encouraged to exclude, despise & abuse 'losers', when discrimination prevents people from achieving, when bigotry & hatred is modelled by our 'leaders', when lying, cheating & deception are regarded as acceptable tactics, what do the disenfranchised do? Curl up & die? Or find alternative means & ways to survive & thrive?
If public monies were used to support, protect & develop society rather than fund wars, shareholder profits & line the pockets of a priveleged few then 'criminality' per se would be greatly reduced.
Fraser's arguments must also extend to bankers, politicians and privateers, otherwise his solutions to offending are located only within a particular class of offending.
DeleteIt advances the 'them and us' feelings of social division and the sense of one rule for them and another for us.
His theories rely on the liberalism paradigm of free will and the notion that everybody possesses the same opertuity to succeed, whether educated at Eton or the local Comprehensive secondary school.
Offending is a more complex dilemma then his arguments suggest. There is no offending gene, its not an innate character of human nature.
Suggesting that those who work in or develop rehabilitation services are simply wasting their time is not only offensive, but smells of an ideology that belongs back in the 18th century.
Interesting observations from a senior PO from March 2006.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4762424.stm
Life as a probation officer
DeleteThe probation service has come under fire after a report found "collective failure" in the handling of two criminals who killed John Monckton. But what is it like working there?
One senior probation officer who did not want to be named gives his personal impression of the job.
He has worked in the service for more than 20 years and is based in a rural county in the south of England.
Essentially the job involves two things.
We write pre-sentence reports which advise courts on how they should sentence individuals. And we supervise people who are on court orders and people who are in prison.
The courts don't always follow our proposals, but they do in about two-thirds of cases.
We are under increasing pressure to write what are called fast-delivery reports which I'm rather uncomfortable about. A standard report takes six to eight hours to write, from the time you get the file to signing it off. But the fast reports are about 90 minutes.
You need your interpersonal skills to make the job not dangerous
With supervision, there are requirements imposed on offenders such as keeping appointments and notifying a change of address. The purpose of supervision is to try to stop people from re-offending and reduce the risk to the public.
It entails an ongoing process of assessing individuals, assessing risks that they pose in terms of harm to other people, harm to themselves, harm to staff and the risk of them getting into trouble again.
It requires all your skills in working with people to divert them in different directions. As well as this one-to-one contact, we also run structured programmes for people who have got into trouble, such as courses for people convicted of drink-driving, where we give them information and try and make them think differently.
PROBATION OFFICERS
1,190 senior probation officers
4,980 probation officers
6,089 probation service officers
Average start salary £21,324 (+ Ldn weighting £3,420)
175,000 offenders begin supervision annually
The caseload on any given day is more than 200,000
SOURCE: Napo, Nat Probation Service.
Figures cover England and Wales
The best practice is when you are allocated a prisoner and you see him periodically through his sentence - so when he comes out you are not confronted with someone you don't know. You have some sort of relationship with him.
DeleteBut this has happened less in recent years, for financial reasons, and there's deep concern about that.
It's a difficult job because you never see your successes. They don't come back. You only see failures because they re-offend.
But it's an interesting job - because people are interesting, even troubled people. And there's satisfaction you're doing good work with people sometimes.
Very few offenders have two heads! I understand that perception, but they are just people. They are troubled and sometimes they're dangerous but they're people. You need your interpersonal skills to make the job not dangerous.
If you rub a young man up the wrong way then he may react. But I've only been assaulted once, by a teenager high on drugs.
There has to be trust on both sides and there needs to be respect. Even if they have committed heinous crimes, you have to treat them with dignity because that's the starting point.
Most people that come into the profession are post-graduates but the two-year training course incorporates a degree as well. The course involves both academic work and on-the-job training.
But there's significant pressure to erode our training and its future is uncertain. We are increasingly employing staff without that training, to fill the gaps.
The workforce is also becoming more feminised - about 60 or 70%, which is a concern because we try to offer model relationships and good behaviour to offenders and it's important we give them perspectives on both male and female officers.
Pay has been an issue but that is being reorganised and we hope it will reap benefits. Over the past 10 or 15 years pay levels have suffered and there has been bad press recently.
I feel deeply for the four officers who have been suspended over the Monckton report, with no support from the service. You would feel devastated if you had supervised one of these men, even without all the criticism.
By and large the probation service does extremely well in diverting people away from offending but you can't live people's lives for them and you can't control them 24-7.
Less than one percent of people who have been categorised as presenting a high risk commit a further serious offence while under supervision.
One of Home Secretary Charles Clarke's aims is to reduce the prison population, quite rightly, but we are less happy with the concept of putting the probation service to market testing. People have enough on their plates without competing for their jobs.
We often work in partnership with the private sector on issues such as employment, education and tagging. But Mr Clarke is proposing to take our core business and give it to other organisations.
I would advocate more end-to-end sentence management. It's fairly simple - put in the money and say part of a probation officer's job must be to visit this person in prison.
And I'd like to spend less time in front of a computer and more in front of the person I'm meant to be working with.
* there's significant pressure to erode our training and its future is uncertain.
ReplyDelete* Pay has been an issue but that is being reorganised and we hope it will reap benefits. Over the past 10 or 15 years pay levels have suffered
* I feel deeply for the four officers who have been suspended over the Monckton report, with no support from the service.
* Mr {Charles, not Ken) Clarke is proposing to take our core business and give it to other organisations... but we are less happy with the concept of putting the probation service to market testing. People have enough on their plates without competing for their jobs.
* I'd like to spend less time in front of a computer and more in front of the person I'm meant to be working with.
Comments from 2006 (see above). That's 13 years ago and all that has changed is market testing became privatisation.
Training? No improvement
Support? Nothing except a firmer shove under a bigger bus
Pay? Nowt, because the shareholders need to be kept sweet.
And no time for the job in question either, viz-"hardworkingPO" tweet today:
Delete"Now I spend very little time with clients, chained to my computer doing admin tasks. My #probation training meaningless."