White or Blue?

As much as I'm glad occasional bits of Probation are deemed good, the fact of the matter is that certain parts of the service are, when compared to case management, a cushy number. Until front line case management is properly resourced, and dare I say it paid a premium, then officers will continue to leave the service either to less stressful roles in APs, VLOs Prisons, other units, even to be SPOs etc and inspections, will continue to see us demotivated, overworked and struggling to do the basics at times.

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Pay won't improve the quality of the work. Interest, dedication, understanding, mutual obligations. Respect comes from the role not a pay rate and as we no longer provide the sort of interest level and guidance we once did, the job has no professional standing. It is a bain of my career seeing us tagging, signposting, yet neutered from real difference making practice. I no longer care. The pay is just what pays the mortgage.

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I disagree, better pay does help inprove quality, mainly by improving recruitment, retention, and morale — but it won’t solve quality issues on its own. The biggest gains come when higher pay is combined with better resourcing, manageable caseloads, and strong leadership.

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Of course, better pay means recruitment, retention, and morale. With more staff, more motivated staff, better quality of staff, better quality of work. Tired of this “it’s not just a job, we don’t do it for the money” RUBBISH. It IS just a job and we wouldn’t do it for free.

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Very true more money would be nice but the job these days and our fallen position in the justice system won't warrant a pay hike it's regarded as a low value role. Monitoring till an order runs its course, simple anyone does do it nowadays. The task is how we fight back to our status and what help we need to get there. By delivering a reduction in criminal behaviour attributable to qualitative interventions which require engagement and resetting offender activity crime free. We will never do that or demonstrate it. Get used to what we have become.

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Double the pay. Double the number of staff. Half the caseloads. All that achieves is twice the number of staff being paid twice as much for half the work and still doing the same old shite that attracts the same old inadequate inspection assessments. It's just a job? How can being charged with public protection and claiming the right to take someone's liberty away ever be described as "just a job?" The thing too with "just a job" means you're selling your labour, not your skillset. If it's "Just a job" then get used to a set hourly rate with lower and lower pay increases whilst the national minimum wage raises at a faster rate until probation itself becomes a national minimum wage job. Actually I asked a question a week or two ago, "do people see probation as white collar or blue collar employment?'. If probation work is "just a job", a simple exchange of labour for renumeration, why would probation workers expect to be paid more then the national minimum wage? Just a thought!

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If I had my caseload cut to 25 then I could actually do the work I wanted to with them and develop a proper relationship with my cases instead of sometimes seeing them as an impediment. I usually find most of your comments informative but this one is pretty poor. Plus we're already doing twice the work for half the pay if as the MOJ research states, another 10000 officers are needed on current caseloads.

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I saw that question posed and it had a reflective impact. I wanted to say white but know what it has become. It's still white but I know it's really blue. It still upsets me to have answered this conundrum. It is just a job now after and sadly [above] may have it right because it how I feel. I want a better job more than money, so it is not about pay for me. Yes more than 10 years in pquip and wondering what was the point.

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Quite a debate to be had on the issues raised here. In the first instance, we, the supposed professionals didn’t make the job what it’s become. That is down to the glorious leaders who, as I said last week, haven’t identified where we are being led to, how long it will take, what we will experience on the way, and how we will know when we arrive. I’m sure they have an agenda, they just haven’t shared it yet. Secondly, if it is, ‘just a job,’ perhaps we should be campaigning to forego salary status and be paid by the hour. I think that once they are forced to quantify the amount of free labour they currently extract, they might be keen to come back with an offer of decent remuneration. As things stand, the leaders are asking themselves and you, ‘why should we pay for something we are currently getting for nothing.’ Unfortunately, until our own people decide whether it’s, ‘just a job,’ or a prized and valued vocation, we will get nowhere. Whoever said you can’t have it all ways had obviously never studied the probation workforce.

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It is quite a debate although an interesting point on the risk of pay decline. It is about vocation as well but the alarm should be ringing in our ears. I like the idea of stopping the extra for free so how do we get our lacklustre union to formulate this proposal a blended approach.