Many thanks for the get well messages. It's been a long haul, but I'm now much improved from the very nasty viral arthritic attack and ready to resume something like normal service. So, lets start with this that came in over night:-
Also, I was thinking the other day about volunteers. Probation in many areas used volunteers to support clients with resettlement. I know this awful government wants to be seen as tough on those who commit crime (unless they are members of their cabinet or give them cash for their election campaign) but why not involve the community by establishing a local volunteer probation service that would do much of the support work that the newly qualified wet behind the ears probation officers are too busy to do.
Also, lower the bar a little for Unpaid Work Supervisors. There are many people who are released from prison who could do that role, or indeed drug and alcohol counselling roles or employment, benefits advice or and housing advisor roles. Surely the money would be best spent there rather than on more layers of management. The probation service could be rebuilt as a local service from the grassroots. Of course the naysayers will say it's all gone to hell in a handcart, but that is because we let it happen and so if we pitch in and do our bit we can turn things around.
Ah Jim, its great to hear you are on the mend. Missed you! I guess you will be hauled in for a Formal Unsatisfactory Attendance Meeting, where you will be warned that if you so much as sneeze during the next decade, you will face potential sacking for being a malingerer. In the face of apalling sickness rates, the majority down to work related stress, the cunning plan of our "leaders" appears to be based on the theory that you can threaten exhausted and ill people into good health and compliance. And dont get me started on Wellbeing Initiatitves, the subtext of those being that it is All Our Own Fault, for not embracing the knitting group and taking a lunchbreak, which would have prevented burnout, potentially lethal blood pressure, and the flu.
ReplyDeleteThreatening people is the method applied by probation today to its service users. Comply, or face the consequences.
DeleteIt's not so strange then that the same format is imposed on staff.
Regarding the original post today I'm in full agreement. Too many people subject to probation. For some it's an impediment, for some it's inappropriate and for others it's just pointless and unnecessary. It's also a two way street. Probation staff should not have to plough time and resource into something that has no productive outcome.
Probation should be by consent, an agreement by all parties involved. Acting as an enforcement agency probation just becomes a home for a lot of unhappy customers and staff waiting to see if the next SFO will be landing on their desk.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280208169_Consent_to_probation_in_England_and_Wales_How_it_was_abolished_and_why_it_matters
'Getafix
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
ReplyDeletePSS was brought in to fatten up the contract for the privateers. now costing a fortune .
ReplyDeleteIt will be scrapped, please note, for no other reason
I thought post sentence supersion for short custodial sentences was brought in to create new business for TR?
ReplyDeleteGlad you are feeling better Jim. I think given your credentials, CQSW and your general Probation attitudes over the years, it's more likely you have now retired so have at least been spared the horrors of the last few years and can focus on having a life outside of Probation as well as your fantastic blog of course. I feel like I might have known the author of the piece above! Well maybe not but it does hark back to better times! If your initials are JW, hello there! Anyway I fear things are too far gone for what is suggested. However I fully agree that PSS was a huge mistake and should go. Also that Probation needs to be cut out of the Civil Service which is completely unfit to run Probation and far too beauracratic. I will likely be gone by the time this happens but I'll definitely celebrate that occasion.
ReplyDeleteCourt work & report-writing were the probation gateway; we managed our workload in this way by advising sentencers, by screening in/out those who were suitable for probation interventions, by having on-the-ground knowledge of the cases, the backgrounds, the views of others. Conversations with the widest range of relevant voices - defence solicitors, cps, police, custody staff, court clerks, family members, even victims - were all fed in to the mix.
ReplyDeleteWhen consent to probation per se was removed, consent to participate in accredited programmes remained, as did the need to assess suitability for community service/unpaid work.
Who remembers the MPSO (money payment supervision order)? A fine piece of work which meant those struggling to pay fines had someone (it was a PSA [probation service assistant] back then) undertake work looking at budgetting... which would often unravel out-of-control finances, childcare issues or distressing family circumstances that could be referred to CAB/benefit advisors &/or social services - usually before matters became critical.
Volunteer work was always a good source of future probation staff; it allowed both volunteers & probation to get to know each other & allow both sides to ascertain their suitability for each other.
Now? No such considerations, just impose a sentence & implement it to tick a box. The purpose, meaning & efficacy of any probation intervention seems to have disappeared completely, replaced by a rigid system of bullying, coercion & punishment.
Trouble is sscl order it as a process issue and all the aco managers do as they are told just following orders as we destroy staff we are daleks . Destroy destroy . No mention of training or values this is your po status kill colleagues. What training is that then . Hardly professional.
DeleteI remember MPSOs, I remember family court supervision orders too. Gross net widening & I was not sad when they went either. However I agree with the volunteer point, I was one, I used them, I managed them and they were good value. However they went because recruiting and supervising them took a lot of resources. The best balance I worked with was volunteer/mentors recruited, trained and managed by the local volunteer bureau. We had such a a scheme but the CRC killed it off & NPS doesn't seem able to let local initiatives take off. NPS seems to be stuck in the one size fits all, yet clearly it doesn't in this area as so many others. Maybe that's the real problem!
ReplyDeleteVolunteers they won't do the vetting and who would want this sort of burden anyway. We are hard pressed and not allowed to what was the best part of our role in forming social contracts to change conduct. Just another work offload.
Delete11:15 A number of voluntary organisations use volunteers successfully and a closure relationship with the community is surely desirable. Many people give their time freely volunteering in their local communities. Some community payback workers stay on at their work-placements as volunteers. The first probation officers were volunteers. Maybe think about how the nature of probation work has changed to the extent that even the thought of involving volunteers to help out generates negative responses. Many probation volunteers in the past got a taste for the work and decided to become probation officers. I am proud to say I was one. I volunteered in a day centre and it was the most rewarding work I had ever done making tea and chatting with those waiting for appointments.
DeleteWe didn’t have great success with volunteers in UPW. One reoffended - DV and the other one slept with two service users. UPW is harder than you think.
Delete19:08 Sounds like chaos. The probation service clearly has a lot to learn from the voluntary sector who are the experts in this area. Training is key. I have seen some good schemes. Your experience sounds like an episode of Eastenders.
Deletehttps://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/homeless-north-east-prisoner-dies-28568406
ReplyDelete"A recently published report found that Mr Skinner was expected to report to a homeless team for an assessment of needs and emergency accommodation AFTER being released - however, he did not report to the Middlesbrough Probation Office."
DeleteSo what happened to the prison-based assessments of need we're assured about BEFORE release?
It started with social workers & re-directing child protection work to social work assistants, then came teaching assistants (taking classes), probation service officers, lawyers & fast-tracking police... now they're pushing for Physician Associates & more.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Bargain Basement UK plc, the only place in the world where you can get paid fuck all & be expected to do the job someone once studied years to do; something they took pride in & were valued for their professionalism & continuous professional development.
Meanwhile the scammers, the shitweasels & the lying grifters pocket £billions & publicly lay bets that they can break international law & fuck people over.
Vile, crass inhuman motherfuckers.
How can it get any worse? Who the fuck can possibly consider voting them back in?
Two “significant reports” about SPOs. It leaves out what incompetents, bullies and narcissists they are. Ours haven’t been in the job more than 5 minutes yet they run around the office monitoring where people sit, eat, arrive, depart ….
Deletehttps://www.probation-institute.org/news/hmi-probation-publishes-two-significant-reports
Exactly. That is what I've experienced too. It really grates. It almost seems like a personal crusade of my SPO to demoralise PP's rather than motivate and retain them. Too many have left for the same reason. In my case, there is something seriously wrong when a practitioner keen to do their best, be diligent and interested and also passionate about the CJS, takes on a PP role and after 1 year can't be arsed to put in more than the bare minimum to stay in post - and not due to the money or workload either.
DeleteMy experience of volunteers, including ex offenders, in the south west was largely good.There are many cases of POs transgressing, indeed the case often cited here of a newly qualified PO accused of espousing racist comments subsequently promoted to SPO speaks volumes- look closer to home!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat's all this about.
DeleteSurprise, surprise. The London Regional Probation Director is leaving.
ReplyDeleteHeaded for Yorkshire the lucky buggers! But at least it’s not some prison crank filling the RPD role.
Delete19:08 exactly!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/media/press-releases/2024/01/spo-management-pn/
ReplyDeletehttps://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/01/The-role-of-the-senior-probation-officer-and-management-oversight-in-the-Probation-Service.pdf
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/01/Effective-practice-Insights-from-a-thematic-inspection-of-the-role-of-the-senior-probation-officer-and-management-oversight-in-sentence-management-and-court-teams.pdf
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68219504.amp
ReplyDeleteWtf I get a bit past the point of this stuff. It is a fact when my young 15 plus days in London's east and not being black it was not uncommon to have been searched at least once a month and on summer evenings out on the wreck twice a night. It isn't shocking it is policing then as is today . If it's shocking the met owe me compensation all corrupt and all real nasty officers in my day . Today it's woke so I guess a cuddle and a few quid shush money will close it down.
And now we have Kilvinder off to Yorkshire as RPD under some kind of managed move to replace Lynda. Make of that what you will…
ReplyDeleteThe Civil Service is unfit to manage and operate a probation service on so many levels. Their thought processes and decision making are beyond belief. A small example: who made the decision to call those we supervise POP (person on probation) I always loathed the title. Typical civil service, reducing people to an anachronism! I refused to use the term and used Service User instead (rather than offender which is also labelling) I wouldn't say POP or refer to it with colleagues or in meetings. I inwardly cringed everytime I heard the term being used, it really grated on me. I complained about it and said I wouldn't use it, that it was demeaning. Newer members of staff seemed to relish it and would be 'POP this,pop that' in meetings, keen to please. Then sudden we are told to only use the full name, person on probation, and not to reduce to letters. Honestly, saw that one coming, the penny finally dropped did it? If they had consulted us then we would have said why use of an anachronism is a really bad idea, but of course they don't listen because that's not the way of the civil service (CS) Does that stand for Crapulent Service maybe?) Now I read that POP in NHS terms stands for pelvic organ prolapse and relates to the mesh implant scandal. Anyway, before someone notices, yes, I'm up at this ungodly hour due to chronic insomnia and yes, it's related to working for the civil service ( don't con yourselves into thinking you work for probation service, there is no such thing and we are all civil servants, with the emphasis on crap and servant in equal measure. Keep serving folks and don't question the master. Remember not to look them.in the eye either, dismissable offence.
ReplyDeletePeople on probation to refer to people subject to supervision is fine but the use of the an acronym Pop is not. I still use client and it raises eyebrows. I have been instructed to use the prescribed language. I simply point out that the person instructing me was not born when I first used client. Offender may be a label and I have been told to use Pop internally and Offender when talking to anyone outside the service. Apparently Tories love offender unless it is applied to them. I have used punters and service user with colleagues. What would clients prefer?
Delete02:43 I also was a refusenik on the PoP front, in the north east it is a commonly used term for grandfather so it really grated on many of us not to mention on the people it was used about. I also find the term PiP utterly disrespectful. Civil Service nonsense again.
ReplyDeleteThe role manner treatment disrespect bureaucratic brutality of the abusive civil service. They have no idea what a probation service is . Human sensitive reflective moderate caring guiding supporting. No no no no we are punitive just dictate. Be quiet dissent will be destroyed.
DeleteAnyone heard about OneHmpps being in some type of organisational trouble..?
ReplyDelete12.50 Do you mean trouble on top of what we already know, such as prisons bursting at the seams, suicide rates rocketing, drugs being smuggled in ( sometimes by staff) drug dealers ruling the wings, record number of assaults, prisons taking patients who should be sectioned instead.officers leaving faster than can be recruited, so no, I can't possibly think what the trouble is, all perfectly normal from what I hear!
Delete12:50 Full steam ahead of schedule. Nothing can stop the empire.
DeleteI retire in few weeks from my lifetime career as a Probation Officer. A vocation and mission -the Service was started by missionaries to the courts- that has inspired and driven me to distraction over the decades.
ReplyDeleteIronically, the last four weeks of my working life in the criminal justice system has seen me called up for Jury service for the first two of the four.
“They also serve who only stand and wait” has been popping up in my head all week, as I wait, as one does in an airport lounge with a delayed flight, trapped in a bad cafe having gone through security, as one trial after another doesn't proceed or we get re-selected.
Its tedious, time-wasting, irritating. Bureaucratic. It's also impressive to see the care – and frankly, money- that is given to due process. The investment in ensuring that the process is followed and the word “fair” used so often to explain to us why this is so painstaking.
I can’t help but be struck by how the investment in due process and fairness evaporates the second a defendant is found guilty. Once the citizen is found guilty and sentenced, they are then, it seems to me, thrown to the wolves of stripped out public services, politics, profiteers. Justice stops at that moment.
Pearly Gates
That it is being delayed until a new government comes in at which point it will state that the organisational changes do not fit with the new policy and it will quietly be left to wither…….while all those ‘brave visionaries’ of the design team get ready to receive their gongs…………
ReplyDelete