It was the AGM of Napo London Branch on Friday and news of the Zoom event reaches me from several sources and particularly details of an address from the Co-Chair David Raho. Whilst likely to raise eyebrows in certain quarters, it will come as no surprise to staff on social media answering the question 'How is everyone doing, nearly two months into unification?' Going off sick or heading for the door appears to be the general tone of responses, which must be very dispiriting for those at Napo HQ excitedly preparing for the anniversary of the 1907 Act:-
Probation Day 21st August 2021Napo has been involved in the organisation of events taking place all week in the run up to Probation Day on 21st August. There's lots going on including on demand videos, talking heads, articles and regional events. Look out particularly for the Joint Trade Union conversation on reflections and shared stories of organisation with Katie Lomas, Napo National Chair, on Wednesday 18th August. Check out the programme on the Probation Intranet.
--oo00oo--
Change is never comfortable but it shouldn’t be this bad
I have been a lifelong fan of sci-fi and especially apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. As a 7-year-old child I imagined a future filled with frozen irradiated wastelands littered with the burned out remains of robots and avoiding capture by technologically advanced corporations’ intent on harvesting my internal organs for some dark and twisted purposes unknown. Later on in the 1980s I discovered William Gibson and cyberpunk.
Unlike his predecessors in the sci-fi genre Gibson portrayed a gritty future that was dirty, smelly, diseased and filled with protagonists who were all too flawed, powerless, etc and human. The resolution is turned up to reveal that everything is rusty, broken or patched up. The world Gibson imagined is one in which governments lack power and are minor players in the scheme of things. Instead AIs and crumbling tech corporations pursue their own mysterious agendas using their power and influence in societies where the old rules barely apply and where there are huge inequalities of wealth and few opportunities for those who are not rich to legitimately access either accurate information or advanced technology. However, some actors somehow find ways to survive in the cracks and dark corners against the odds and fight back.
Gibson’s later novels are set in the near future and are arguably more interesting, thought provoking, and complex as it is always easier to write about the far future - where the smell of coffee might be a distant memory- than the near future that will inevitably contain familiar everyday things like semi-automatic coffee machines that we might take for granted but when looked at within a complex matrix of economic and social relationships, some of which might exploit those less fortunate, might make us slightly uneasy for doing so.
It seems that anyone who wants a good grounding in the workings of the modern probation service should forget reading about rehabilitation and desistance and instead familiarise themselves with the writings of William Gibson as a more accurate guide to where they might concentrate their efforts.
Fast forward to 2021.
How was I to know that following June 26th the future was even bleaker than my worst childhood nightmares and the imaginings of my favourite author. I find myself and colleagues transferred from a slightly more technologically advanced corporation to a centrally controlled Kafkaesque, bureaucratic, nightmarish machine, renamed the Probation Service. A machine that demands to be served on its terms alone. It would be all too easy to be assimilated by it, giving yourself to it body and soul, or simply give up and walk away. The harder options are of course to engage with it, wrestle with it, and to resist and rebel against this fickle machine, even when all appears hopeless and the task simply too great. Even Gibson might have baulked at creating such a soulless inhuman entity whose actual purpose might not always seem clear to its most enthusiastic supporters.
Looking back over the last year then it might sound glib to say that a lot has happened and as you would expect those local reps who have represented Napo in London CRC side have kept the faith and engaged with the employers prior to 26/06 throughout the various changes due to the pandemic and Transition. I could of course traipse through these in detail but I am sure you would find this entirely predictable, somewhat self congratulatory and not a little tedious. The work has been done with little if any help outside of London branch.
Now some uncomfortable facts. The fact is that compared to those staff who transferred who were not subject to the union negotiated national agreement with their existing terms and conditions appear in many cases to be better off. Many have found very well paid and influential positions within HMPPS and will continue to manage and shape the future in the new Probation Service as they have done so previously. However, many of those at the frontline have not fared so well and have in many cases found themselves unmatched to roles or shunted into lower paid roles. Of course, there have been winners in the process who have found themselves promoted, in some cases despite the fact they do not hold the qualifications or experience normally associated with a role. Not much protest from those who are winners however some quickly suppressed murmurings about fairness from those who worked hard to advance their careers in more conventional ways.
One of the greatest difficulties for union reps when there has been a problem, apart from getting a word in edgeways, is finding anyone in a senior management position in the Probation Service who is prepared to commit themselves to sorting matters out properly. Assurances abound but problems get passed around like hot cakes and even when staff send identical complaints several different replies come back, sometimes even from the same person – you could not make it up. You could, however, easily forgive yourself for imagining that no one really wants to sort anything out. Unfortunately, any union representative who makes even a little dissenting noise is immediately reminded that you really should not be rocking the boat or criticising anything as we are all now subject to the civil service code that effectively threatens to silence public debate of any issue even the issue of the Civil Service Code being an issue.
I am told that it is one of Napo’s aims to extract the Probation Service from the Civil Service however I hear very little about any effective action being taken to achieve this and, much like Transition itself, if this is achieved it will not be as a result of union intervention but by virtue of the efforts of other movers and shakers with greater influence. The current lack of influence and voice is lamentable.
Change is never comfortable but it shouldn’t be this bad
I have been a lifelong fan of sci-fi and especially apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. As a 7-year-old child I imagined a future filled with frozen irradiated wastelands littered with the burned out remains of robots and avoiding capture by technologically advanced corporations’ intent on harvesting my internal organs for some dark and twisted purposes unknown. Later on in the 1980s I discovered William Gibson and cyberpunk.
Unlike his predecessors in the sci-fi genre Gibson portrayed a gritty future that was dirty, smelly, diseased and filled with protagonists who were all too flawed, powerless, etc and human. The resolution is turned up to reveal that everything is rusty, broken or patched up. The world Gibson imagined is one in which governments lack power and are minor players in the scheme of things. Instead AIs and crumbling tech corporations pursue their own mysterious agendas using their power and influence in societies where the old rules barely apply and where there are huge inequalities of wealth and few opportunities for those who are not rich to legitimately access either accurate information or advanced technology. However, some actors somehow find ways to survive in the cracks and dark corners against the odds and fight back.
Gibson’s later novels are set in the near future and are arguably more interesting, thought provoking, and complex as it is always easier to write about the far future - where the smell of coffee might be a distant memory- than the near future that will inevitably contain familiar everyday things like semi-automatic coffee machines that we might take for granted but when looked at within a complex matrix of economic and social relationships, some of which might exploit those less fortunate, might make us slightly uneasy for doing so.
It seems that anyone who wants a good grounding in the workings of the modern probation service should forget reading about rehabilitation and desistance and instead familiarise themselves with the writings of William Gibson as a more accurate guide to where they might concentrate their efforts.
Fast forward to 2021.
How was I to know that following June 26th the future was even bleaker than my worst childhood nightmares and the imaginings of my favourite author. I find myself and colleagues transferred from a slightly more technologically advanced corporation to a centrally controlled Kafkaesque, bureaucratic, nightmarish machine, renamed the Probation Service. A machine that demands to be served on its terms alone. It would be all too easy to be assimilated by it, giving yourself to it body and soul, or simply give up and walk away. The harder options are of course to engage with it, wrestle with it, and to resist and rebel against this fickle machine, even when all appears hopeless and the task simply too great. Even Gibson might have baulked at creating such a soulless inhuman entity whose actual purpose might not always seem clear to its most enthusiastic supporters.
Looking back over the last year then it might sound glib to say that a lot has happened and as you would expect those local reps who have represented Napo in London CRC side have kept the faith and engaged with the employers prior to 26/06 throughout the various changes due to the pandemic and Transition. I could of course traipse through these in detail but I am sure you would find this entirely predictable, somewhat self congratulatory and not a little tedious. The work has been done with little if any help outside of London branch.
Now some uncomfortable facts. The fact is that compared to those staff who transferred who were not subject to the union negotiated national agreement with their existing terms and conditions appear in many cases to be better off. Many have found very well paid and influential positions within HMPPS and will continue to manage and shape the future in the new Probation Service as they have done so previously. However, many of those at the frontline have not fared so well and have in many cases found themselves unmatched to roles or shunted into lower paid roles. Of course, there have been winners in the process who have found themselves promoted, in some cases despite the fact they do not hold the qualifications or experience normally associated with a role. Not much protest from those who are winners however some quickly suppressed murmurings about fairness from those who worked hard to advance their careers in more conventional ways.
One of the greatest difficulties for union reps when there has been a problem, apart from getting a word in edgeways, is finding anyone in a senior management position in the Probation Service who is prepared to commit themselves to sorting matters out properly. Assurances abound but problems get passed around like hot cakes and even when staff send identical complaints several different replies come back, sometimes even from the same person – you could not make it up. You could, however, easily forgive yourself for imagining that no one really wants to sort anything out. Unfortunately, any union representative who makes even a little dissenting noise is immediately reminded that you really should not be rocking the boat or criticising anything as we are all now subject to the civil service code that effectively threatens to silence public debate of any issue even the issue of the Civil Service Code being an issue.
I am told that it is one of Napo’s aims to extract the Probation Service from the Civil Service however I hear very little about any effective action being taken to achieve this and, much like Transition itself, if this is achieved it will not be as a result of union intervention but by virtue of the efforts of other movers and shakers with greater influence. The current lack of influence and voice is lamentable.
As Richard Garside, a good friend of Napo, recently pointed out in his response to Mark Drakeford’s Bill McWilliams lecture, ‘Napo is not as influential as it once was’. I must admit I thought of Star Wars and the demise of the Jedi when he said this but no matter. However, what Richard said is undoubtedly true and regrettable, but that is precisely why we should seriously consider a change in direction and very definitely a change in leadership and personnel in Napo at the very top to ensure that members have confidence in its leadership and the union best represents both its members and the probation profession we all want to see continue. We have a duty and responsibility in these bleak days to keep that flame alive and to aim for a better future.
Finally, it is traditional for me to thank others and I would sincerely like to take this opportunity to thank all those members, office reps and the branch exec for their help and support in the last year.
Finally, it is traditional for me to thank others and I would sincerely like to take this opportunity to thank all those members, office reps and the branch exec for their help and support in the last year.
David Raho
Co-Chair London Branch Napo
Richard Garside, a good friend of Napo, recently pointed out in his response to Mark Drakeford’s Bill McWilliams lecture, ‘Napo is not as influential as it once was’
ReplyDeleteNo shit! But that's been the case for at least ten years now.
Everything the so-called 'naysayers', 'disruptors' and 'difficult people' predicted about TR & the faux-reunification has come to pass.
The criticisms of a tame, collusive Napo were proven to be fair criticisms.
The fears about the command-and-control structures, the crushing authoritarianism, the binding of hands, the silencing of dissent - all has come to pass.
The Dystopian Future is here. We've been working towards it since 1979...
Yes the top have needed change for a very long time but Napo had every chance to appoint harder more able talent who had well warned of these events coming. Napo voters have perhaps gotten what they voted for.
DeleteI am happily ill health retired now thanks to David Raho's representation. I know he speaks his mind without fear and is a good rep. I trust what he says. Napo could do worse with him as General Secretary. We need someone who knows the issues workers face at the front line and is not afraid to speak out. He has my vote.
DeleteWhen is the General Secretary of Napo's term up or do we have to do a vote of no confidence following the Transition debacle and dodgy National Agreement? Also can we gt rid of Katie Lomas as well?
DeleteAre you suggesting Mr raho is running for GS. Does that mean the current lipstick pig is time up. Or is this an electioneering posturing process and Mr raho sees himself as the top dog. It will be another Napo example of an assisted career move. That said I doubt the mouthy blowhard Lawrence has enough cash stuffed in his trousers to give up the free beer and poorly rechurned speeches he bellows off . Napo need a new broom and the crank cronies it has become needs to leave asap.
DeleteI would support David he may have faults and some history reputation but he has filled the void from the Pat Waterman days of division domination and reckless attitude to members and management.
Delete1320 I think any confidence vote would be too difficult to organise these days with restricted interactions and zero branch meetings covid and apathy. Napo members will not be moved enough to oust a failure like Ian Lawrence's the poorest performance his term has given. The chair who has no real credence other than blind aggression has managed a long period in office and will no doubt be thinking of the leadership job but that would compound poor Napo one disaster after another. It just needs a new team free of this completely tainted incompetent management allied group. Pathetic lickspittal attitudes.
Delete"I am told that it is one of Napo’s aims to extract the Probation Service from the Civil Service"
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a wet dream it was Napo's aim to get the Probation Service included as part of the Civil Service, to enjoy the benefits & protections afforded to Civil Servants. However, Napo is as Napo does, and its as much of a clusterfuck as the TR 1 & 2 agendas with a half-arsed hybrid worst-case scenario for most frontline staff but, as Raho admits, a jolly nice result for those who have collaborated in the whole process.
Stinks to high heaven.
At least raho opted out of the lawro collisions with moj. He did take advantage of the shoe horn into Napo while stabbing a legitimate candidate in the back. It is perhaps an indication of the nature of napo
DeleteDavid Rahos piece is a great read. Specifically related to probation, but relates to our wider society.
ReplyDeleteDystopian or not, our public services and how they're organised and operate are a reflection on how our society is organised.
Everything has been broken down to a statistical measurable unit of data, and a human beings identy, their use to society and their progress in that society is defined and dictated by their digital DNA.
To some extent the only real difference between today's probation officer and their clients is that they sit on opposite sides of the desk, they're both part of the same process, measured and defined by the same machinery.
"People subject to probation" are really "people subject to process" and "probation practitioners" are really "probation processers".
We've swapped our complexities of human nature to become units of measurable data so we know where everyone fits into the machine.
Probation has gone wrong (and others) because society has gone wrong!
https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/technology/predictive-algorithms-crime.amp.html?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16291018356548&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F02%2F06%2Ftechnology%2Fpredictive-algorithms-crime.html
'Getafix
When Mr. Gates was released from jail in 2018 — he had served time for running a car into a house in 2013 and later for violently threatening his former domestic partner — he was required to visit a probation office once a week after he had been deemed “high risk.”
DeleteHe called the visits his “tail” and his “leash.” Eventually, his leash was stretched to every two weeks. Later, it became a month. Mr. Gates wasn’t told why. He complained that conversations with his probation officers were cold and impersonal. They rarely took the time to understand his rehabilitation.
He didn’t realize that an algorithm had tagged him high risk until he was told about it during an interview with The New York Times.
“What do you mean?” Mr. Gates, 30, asked. “You mean to tell me I’m dealing with all this because of a computer?”
In Philadelphia, an algorithm created by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania has helped dictate the experience of probationers for at least five years.
The algorithm is one of many making decisions about people’s lives in the United States and Europe. Local authorities use so-called predictive algorithms to set police patrols, prison sentences and probation rules. In the Netherlands, an algorithm flagged welfare fraud risks. A British city rates which teenagers are most likely to become criminals.
Nearly every state in America has turned to this new sort of governance algorithm, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit dedicated to digital rights. Algorithm Watch, a watchdog in Berlin, has identified similar programs in at least 16 European countries.
As the practice spreads into new places and new parts of government, United Nations investigators, civil rights lawyers, labor unions and community organizers have been pushing back.
They are angered by a growing dependence on automated systems that are taking humans and transparency out of the process. It is often not clear how the systems are making their decisions. Is gender a factor? Age? ZIP code? It’s hard to say, since many states and countries have few rules requiring that algorithm-makers disclose their formulas.
They also worry that the biases — involving race, class and geography — of the people who create the algorithms are being baked into these systems, as ProPublica has reported.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/17/a-levels-pensions-algorithms-easy-targets-blame-mutant-maths
DeletePoor policy outcomes are not the responsibility of ‘mutant maths’, but of choices made by people in power
I said many times on this blog that the crc colleagues are not coming back to what they knew in the past but the awful civil service. Shared services drive you to despair, you are treated like a disposal number and without professional respect. Orders are barked via emails and as for training the awful e learning. Managers have no time for staff as they are directed elsewhere and if you have a diversity need good luck getting it met. It's truly a vile organisation that silences and ignores dissent.
ReplyDeleteTry looking at HMPPS website for their Diversity statement, aka lies, lies & more lies.
DeleteLink was posted in previous blog comments.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-partnership-framework
Delete"Diversity and Inclusion are at the heart of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) values: Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Together. As a part of our values it is our responsibility to ensure that we deliver faith and belief inclusive services to victims and witnesses of crime, people on probation and members of the public who come into contact with the justice system."
Tania Bassett Napo tweet:- "2pm Amy Rees launches the weeks events. MS Teams Live event outlining the weeks programme and a look at probation firsts".
ReplyDeleteI do hope someone gives us a report.
HMPPS Insights website:-
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Probation Day 2021!
21 August this year marks 114 years since the Royal Assent to the Probation of Offenders Act 1907. In celebration of this we are taking some time to reflect on the hugely positive impact of the work of the Probation Service and celebrate the ethos and traditions of the organisation, past present and future . So we intend to celebrate this date in 2021 and annually from then on as Probation Day!
For this, the inaugural year and leading up to the day itself, we will be running a week long programme of amazing events and features for staff who are now members of the new unified service, but there will also be plenty to interest our partners in the wider criminal justice sector. This commences on Monday 16 August. Each day that week, content will be themed, highlighting areas of our work including victims, courts, staff, People on Probation and partnerships. There will also be a feature on how to join us and come work for the Probation Service.
Stay tuned to the HMPPS Insights website and HMPPS social media for fantastic videos and articles showcasing the hugely positive contributions the Probation Service makes towards protecting the public and changing people’s lives.
Parasites in motion; they'll appropriate anything & everything of value, claim it for themselves & sully it; but they won't take, let alone acknowledge, responsibility for their own woeful incompetence & utter failure to deliver a service that is barely a fraction of the "traditions of the organisation".
DeleteHowever, their sleazy pockets remain stuffed with taxpayer cash & they contnue to believe they are 'excellent leaders'.
Grotesque greed & self-delusion writ large.
These HMPPS bloodsuckers aren't worthy of cleaning the boots of those who established & grew the Probation Service.
DeleteCelebrating the 114th anniversary? How fucking desperate are they that they have to steal the past as well as destroy the future?
Its Johnson-esque in its futility & desire to re-write history in their favour.
Good job that Moonpig/FunkyPigeon/Hallmark/etc have cards for that all-important 114th anniversary.
DeleteI wont be tuning in to the "week long programme of amazing events" because
ReplyDelete- it will just wind me up. How dare the people styling themselves "leaders" of Probation appropriate the history, like they aren't the problem. Many in management will say they are onside: but clearly, they are not the solution
- Already short-staffed, my team is now an officer down for the foreseeable. I haven't got the time to tune into predictable chirpy packages telling me I am appreciated. Pay me my due wages, you absolute shower.
David Raho as always is impressive. He has finally lost patience with Napo HQ. Me too.
Can I offer him, a more erudite reader of Sci Fi than me, another analogy? Star Trek's The Borg Collective. "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile"
I am channelling Capt Jean Luc Picard: walk in line, stay low, repeat the mantra, and in the cracks, do the work as best I can that I was trained and inspired to do. It might make a tiny difference for the good, and also, it feels satisfyingly subversive
Pearly Gates
-
... in other news ..
ReplyDeleteProbation officer defends not recalling Streatham terrorist
The inquest previously heard from Carina Heckroodt, head of the London Extremism Gangs and Organised Crime Unit at the probation service, who also denied it was a “missed opportunity” to recall Amman to prison after his Poundland purchases.
https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/19516644.probation-officer-defends-not-recalling-streatham-terrorist/
So the person running probation in London thought making a suicide vest didn’t warrant a recall.
Wow !!
A former probation service worker has defended a decision not to initiate a process to recall Streatham terrorist Sudesh Amman to prison in the days before his attack, despite evidence he had made “concerning” purchases.
DeleteAlan Reid said that although there may have been grounds to search the 20-year-old’s probation hostel room, the service did not want to compromise covert police operations.
Amman was shot dead by undercover officers on February 2 2020 after he stabbed two members of the public in Streatham High Road, south London.
He had previously been seen buying items – including four bottles of Irn Bru, parcel tape and tin foil in Poundland – that it was feared could be used to make a hoax suicide belt.
But jurors heard that such purchases – described by Jonathan Hough QC, counsel to the inquest, as “concerning” – had not raised the threshold of concern high enough to warrant initiation of the process to recall him to prison.
Mr Reid, former national security lead for the probation service, said he had spoken to a colleague two days before the attack to discuss responses to Amman’s actions.
“(On Friday 31) I didn’t think there was enough information to recall (Amman) to prison,” he said on Monday, giving evidence to the inquest into Amman’s death.
Mr Reid said the probation service “quite possibly” could have justified a search of Amman’s room at the hostel as “routine”.
“There was certainly scope to do a routine search,” he said.
“(But) the overarching impression that I was left with was that we didn’t want to take any action that would compromise the police operation.”
Rajiv Menon QC, representing Amman’s family, suggested a probation officer’s threshold for initiating the recall to prison was “plainly a modest one”.
The inquest previously heard from Carina Heckroodt, head of the London Extremism Gangs and Organised Crime Unit at the probation service, who also denied it was a “missed opportunity” to recall Amman to prison after his Poundland purchases.
Amman had been released from Belmarsh prison 10 days earlier after serving part of a 40-month sentence for terror offences, despite pleas from police and MI5 to detain him for longer amid concerns that he remained a danger to the public.
Jurors will return for a summing up of the case on Wednesday, after which they will retire to consider their verdicts.
Seen on BBC news website:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-57900674
Despite the high profile greedy shitweasels there are still some positive places & people in the world.
Before the pandemic, a group of recovering addicts took part in a unique rehabilitation project, sprucing up a tiny train station in rural Cumbria. But lockdown, tiers and restrictions meant that, for the past year, the branch line stop has had to fend for itself.
DeleteOn a gloriously sunny June day back in 2019 Phil was nearing the end of his therapy.
Initially, he had balked at the idea of gardening as a means of recuperation but he had come to regard the weeding, planting, painting and mending as "a bit of peace after a lot of chaos".
For some of the recovering drug users and alcoholics on this scheme, a trip to Green Road station would once have been as unlikely as a journey to another world. It lies on the Cumbrian Coast Line which skirts the Irish Sea within feet of the beach. Views from the train are stunning and the destination isolated and peaceful.
Many of those making the weekly train trip from Stanfield House, a Turning Point-run rehabilitation centre in Workington, had come from places significantly less peaceful. The beauty of the rural location and the satisfaction of doing something useful was alien to them.
Project team leader Emma Pooley regards the regular journeys to Green Road as part of the therapy. "Yes, you've maybe been on a train a million times, but when was the last time you were on it sober?" she tells her clients.
When we meet on the station platform she is trying to identify a plant that has mysteriously appeared. She decides the newcomer, possibly a sunflower, must have been donated by someone in the little village nearby. The locals had embraced the project, Emma said.
While she inspected the plant, a young man hovered behind her, holding a cup full of brown paint and looking worried. It was Nathan who, at only 22, was one of the youngest on the programme. His job was to paint a picture on a roller blind, but he was finding excuses: he did not know how to draw a hill, he said, and he would run out of paint.
This is the problem, Emma explained. They have no confidence. People have been telling them they cannot do things their whole life. Nathan had gravitated towards addicts because they are very accepting, she said. Which, if no-one else in your life is, can be dangerously attractive.
A really heartwarming story and a credit to the brilliant Turning Point project working in partnership with probation staff in Cumbria that reminds us of what probation work should be about i.e. Connected to the local community, reintegrative and rehabiliative. Such a long way from the Stalinist pen pushing 'we know best' planners in their bunkers deep in the bowels of the HMPPS.
Delete"the Stalinist pen pushing 'we know best' planners in their bunkers deep in the bowels of the HMPPS."? Fair dinkum. But...
Delete... Stanfield House has nothing to do with probation save for the occasional coincidence of a resident being subject to supervision by the probation service.
https://www.turning-point.co.uk/_cache_00f8/content/TP_Tier4-Stanfield-House-Brochure_WEB-5090910000076573.pdf
It must be the 114th anniversary of something... time for more vicarious glories.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regional-reducing-reoffending-plans
ReplyDeleteA brief bit of time travel back to 2014 & a document I don't remember seeing at that time
ReplyDeletehttps://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/12/Transforming_Rehabilitation-Early_Implementation1.pdf
Written by Grayling's mate, the short-term HMI Probation inspector McDowell.
"Transforming Rehabilitation and Resources: We found National Probation Service teams struggling to complete all the new tasks required by Transforming Rehabilitation with their existing staff allocation."
"Probation Services Officer tasks in the National Probation Service: A number of probation services
officers were assigned to the National Probation Service. Apart from those working in court, we did not understand the reasons why probation services officers were placed in the National Probation Service. Several senior probation officers were not clear what appropriate tasks could be allocated to them."
His recommendations?
"All National Probation Service staff should wear visible identity badges when working in court."
"National Probation Service deputy directors should ensure all probation services officers in court and local office teams are trained to deliver written short format reports in appropriate cases."
"National Probation Service senior managers should ensure that arrangements are in place for a
probation officer or manager to be available for probation services officers on court duty for advice and
guidance."
So as early as 2014 the lack of PO resources in NPS was very evident, and the allocation of PSO resources to NPS was questionmable.
Wouldn't that be the time to re-balance the staffing, pre-sale on 1 Feb 2015?
Wasn't that exactly what Grayling had ***said*** the early trial of the CRC/NPS split was for, to "iron out any wrinkles"?
Clearly not. Because? Because TR was never about anything other than smashing the independent social-work oriented profession & re-building it inside the civil service structure of HMPPS, i.e. within the remit of political control.
McDowell's numerous recommendations were clearly designed to suit Grayling.
Probation officers made 'wrong call' when they failed to recall Streatham terrorist Sudesh Amann to prison days before he stabbed two people, inquest hears
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9898891/Probation-officers-wrong-call-failed-recall-Sudesh-Amann-inquest-hears.html
Mr Menon asked: 'You think the decision not to recall was the correct one, the information was available but the decision was taken not to institute the recall procedure?'
'I do,' Mr Reid said.
But Mr Menon said: 'Two members of the public were stabbed and a man was shot and killed, and if they hadn't acted as quickly as they did, more might have been [stabbed] so we can say the risk wasn't managed?
Mr Reid: 'With the benefit of hindsight, yes.'
Mr Hough said police had identified that the items might be used to make a suicide belt and similar devices had been used in knife attacks.
'While you didn't take the view that recall was justified, based on the information you had, another reasonable person with same set of facts could have taken a different view? Mr Hough said.
'They could have done,' Mr Reid said.
But he said in conversation with Carina Heckroodt, the head of the probation service's London extremism unit, he was told the police did not want to expose their covert surveillance operation.
The inquest continues with the coroner's summing up on Wednesday.
I don't know the full details of this but is it a case where concerns identified were not allowed to be disclosed and used for a recall. Recall action has to be justified especially given the scrutiny at subsequent reviews, whilst clearly concerns if the police would not allow for these to be highlighted then how could a recall be justified. Sounds daft as clear indications of risk but when it comes to justifying decisions and the prevention of using Intel its no surprise. I don't know just speculating before anyone attacks here.
DeleteJust been to Latie Lomas’s blog https://katielomas.blog/ Nothing much since 2018.
ReplyDelete