We all know OASys was the best way yet invented by man to both waste as much time as possible to absolutely no useful end, and in the process drive the poor bloody author to lose the will to live. It pretty much destroyed the skill inherent in report-writing and effectively chains probation staff to their data input desks for 70% of their time. While we're at it, note how, in a Service dominated by young female practitioners, it's suited men poring over the bloody forms as well.
Exploring the new OASys quality assurance framework at OMiC workshop in Worle today.
*****
Jim - I reckon you're right on the money with your observation: "I'm rapidly gaining the impression that probation service staff must have been sufficiently cowed, purged, bullied and silenced under the dead-hand of civil service bureaucracy and central command and control by HMPPS."
*****
Jim - having read today's blog & some of the posted comments I think it really IS all over now. So it looks like the truly nasty amoral political class have finally succeeded in their efforts to eliminate the remnants of what was a free-thinking, independent, humanitarian vocational profession by slicing & dicing, ducking & diving, slipping public money into the greasy palms of unscrupulous profiteers, and getting HMPPS to tailor a bespoke political straight-jacket for the NPS, i.e. the Civil Service.
If you build it, they will come: "My message to anybody who dislikes the NPS so much that they want to 'fight' is that they need to leave... if you're paid to do a job then your employer has a right to expect you to do as you're told." If I were to write the book it would be entitled "When Advise, Assist & Befriend became J.F.D.I."
*****
We are trained to challenge, confront and change offending (and offensive behaviour) but are we expected to simply bow, scrape and tug our forelocks to those who claim to be in control but who have driven the ship onto the rocks. Sometimes I despair.
*****
Totally agree and on both points. We are treated like disposable robots now, numbers and god forbid we display the very skills they incorporated in training. We are professionals in a so called career with degrees and [not] those without experience and responsible decision making. Why should we then simply shut up and follow mis-management and organisational bullying and accept the stress and blame culture they place on us? Are we not supposed to be honest and fair people by nature of wanting to do a job working with others?
Might there be a connection with a failure to keep probation as a part of the local judiciary rather than for it to become a small subsection of the Civil Service and several headlines I am reading to day.
ReplyDelete"Superjails will not keep up with rise in convicts, spending watchdog says"
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/superjails-will-not-keep-up-with-rise-in-convicts-spending-watchdog-says-qz2q8ft79
YET even despite jailing so many more since the coming of automatic conditional release in 1992 - which I suspect was partly designed to cut the cost of prisons.
"Crimes unreported as public lose faith in police"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51408921
You think oasys and ndelius is bad try using mysis and msat. Didn't work for 3 days last week. No-one knows what they are doing on it. Very little information and doesn't make sense the rest of the country and nps are using different systems.
ReplyDeleteHere goes Rory Stewart trying to boost his London Mayoral campaign.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing what we don't know about prisoners he writes - it is not amazing at all there are no longer the probation officers seconded who did reception interviews as I did when training in a prison in the 1970s - on all prisoners at just about every prison (depending on local arrangements)
Then they effctively abolished pre sentence probation inquiries or allowed so little time that proper reflective inquiries can not be performed.
Then there was the post sentence interviews at court on all those going off to prison - as time allows - that was a good way of identifying vulnerable and suicidal prisoners - I have done those interviews as well - in many courts over many years - getting emergency information to a responsible person at a prison was often problematic, but usually eventually possible.
Sadly Ministers of Justice - like many lawyers do not understand the complexities of the integrated criminal justice system - once the convict leaves the dock.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2020/02/as-prisons-minister-i-saw-how-bad-things-really-are-on-the-inside/
I have not been keeping up have others?
ReplyDelete"The SFO is conducting a criminal investigation into individuals associated with Serco and its subsidiaries in relation to the company’s electronic monitoring contracts."
There are now different additional comments for Serco & G4S
SERCO
https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/serco/
G4S
https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/g4s/
On 3 July 2019, the SFO a Deferred Prosecution Agreement in principle with Serco Geografix Ltd (SGL), which recevied final approval from Mr Justice William Davis on 4 July 2019.
ReplyDeleteIn entering the DPA, SGL has taken responsibility for three offences of fraud and two of false accounting arising from a scheme to dishonestly mislead the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) as to the true extent of the profits being made between 2010 and 2013 by SGL’s parent company, Serco Limited (SL), from its contract for the provision of electronic monitoring services. By deceiving the MoJ about the true extent of SL’s profits, SGL prevented the MoJ from attempting to limit any of SL’s future profits, recover any of SL’s previous profits, seek more favourable terms during renegotiations of contracts, or otherwise threaten SL’s contract revenues.
On 16 December 2019, the SFO charged Nicholas Woods, former Finance Director of Serco Home Affairs, and Simon Marshall, former Operations Director of Field Services within Serco, with fraud by false representation and false accounting in relation to representations made to the Ministry of Justice between 2011 and 2013. Nicholas Woods was additionally charged with false accounting in relation to the 2011 statutory accounts of Serco Geografix Ltd.
This case is subject to reporting restrictions.
SGL will pay a financial penalty of £19.2 million, and the full amount of the SFO’s investigative costs (£3.7m). This is an addition to the £12.8m compensation already paid by Serco to the MoJ as part of a £70m civil settlement in 2013.
SGL will be credited for payments made pursuant to Serco Limited’s 2013 Settlement Agreement with the UK’s Ministry of Justice (MoJ), which fully offset the compensation (£12.8 million) SGL otherwise would be obligated to pay. This also represents SGL’s disgorgement of profit.
Judgement (Mr Justice William Davis) in full here:
Deletehttps://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/serco-dpa-4.07.19-2.pdf
There may be cynicism in some quarters about the process by which a corporate entity can take advantage of a DPA. This cynicism is not well-founded. On the previous occasions when a DPA has been approved the point has been made that approval will only be given where there is the clearest possible demonstration of integrity on the part of the company concerned once the criminal activity has become apparent. This will require early self-reporting to the authorities, full co-operation with the investigation, a willingness to learn lessons and an acceptance of an appropriate penalty. The willingness to learn lessons must be shown via real, substantial and continuing remedial measures. All of that has been demonstrated by Serco Group PLC in this case."
Copy of the agreement per the DPA here:
Deletehttps://www.sfo.gov.uk/download/deferred-prosecution-agreement-serco-geografix-ltd-sfo/
The SFO is conducting a criminal investigation into G4S electronic monitoring contracts.
ReplyDeletePage published on 12 Nov 2014 | Page modified on 26 Jul 2019
Where is the inquiry into Working Links?
ReplyDeleteThese questions have to be asked as to how a recently awarded government contract to Working Links could have been genuinely let? The Working Links group were bought by Aurelius less than 18 months into a government approved process which is now owned by another company who were not part of the original bidding vetting? They were not assessed as suitable, under the rules of the bidding yet here we are. Aurelius have a government contract without any real commitment to the terms of that contract as laid out when Working Links were solvent. For whatever reason, Working Links were awarded a significant regional piece of the TR agenda despite any checks , that saw them bankrupt with no chance of delivery of that contract. How could this be a genuinely honest award from the Government?
DeleteQuestions asked already cover up on-going?
DeleteDPA's seem to be an instrument of choice:
ReplyDelete"
The Serious Fraud Office has entered into a record-breaking Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with the global aerospace company Airbus SE following its approval today by Dame Victoria Sharp, President of the Queen’s Bench Division.
Under the terms of the DPA, Airbus SE agrees to pay a fine and costs amounting to €991m here in the UK, and in total, €3.6bn as part the world’s largest global resolution for bribery, involving authorities in France and the United States."
The SFO also seem to have a habit of 'disappearing' investigations that might be uncomfortable for those in powerful positions:
ReplyDelete"The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating a company with links to the former Chancellor, Lord Lamont of Lerwick. Arrests have been made as part of the inquiry into Balli Group, which was announced in May this year.
It is not believed that anyone has yet been officially charged, and no names of those being investigated have been released. Norman Lamont has not been named as a suspect or person of interest.
In 2010 Balli Aviation Ltd pleaded guilty to charges of illegally exporting Boeing aircraft from the United States to Iran, in breach of sanctions."
Did I just read correctly...YET ANOTHER OASYS QA??? Have they not realised that the first three iterations have been complete FAILURES - they demoralise staff and as pointed out, chain staff filling out irrelevant information into boxes, after boxes after boxes! I've seen some wonderful sentence plans lately, and yet, according to OASYS QA cannot technically score "GOOD" if the "assessor" and "offender" comments boxes have not been completed with a few sentences of crap. CAN THESE EPF PEOPLE NOT HEAR US - IT IS OASYS that needs changing, NOT the people using it - perhaps if we got rid of the EPF team, and all the salaries that go into paying them to churn out tools, the money can go into creating an OASYS which works? Or better still....just write assessments on a Word for Windows document generated through delius, like ARMS is.
ReplyDeleteIn a climate where the NPS has just been told in no uncertain terms by the HMIP that it's not working well, in a climate where staff are leaving in drones (perhaps created by the climate of fear generated through incessant focus on spending hours and hours updating OASYS in such meticulous terms), in a climate where there are hundreds of vacancies, when will NPS understand that THEY need to change not the staff working for it?????