Both of these comments underline something uncomfortable but unavoidable. What we’re describing here isn’t just burnout or disappointment, it’s prolonged exposure to organisational conditions that steadily strip people of agency, confidence and health. When staff talk about self-preservation, it’s because the system has normalised harm and then reframed leaving as personal weakness rather than a rational response.
The second comment is important because it shows how this damage travels downwards and sideways. SPOs and middle managers are left holding responsibility without support, absorbing HR functions, managing sickness, wellbeing and risk in an environment shaped by TR’s withdrawal of infrastructure. That doesn’t create reflective leadership, it creates containment and firefighting. People end up managing decline rather than developing staff or practice.Taken together, these experiences point to the same conclusion: this isn’t about a lack of commitment or professionalism at any level. It’s about an organisation that has been redesigned to operate without adequate support, realistic capacity or genuine care for those expected to hold it together. In that context, leaving early isn’t abandonment of probation values, it’s often the last way people protect what’s left of them.
If this service is serious about retention, wellbeing and quality, it has to stop individualising harm and start owning the conditions that make self-preservation necessary in the first place.
*******
15 years in as a PO and could have written that myself. I felt it to my core reading that. I am at a crossroads. I have given so much of myself and so many unpaid hours over the years to do my best at work but feel like our purpose and meaning of our work is being eroded. Everything feels so much more transactional and box ticking. It feels like a culture of learned helplessness has been created since TR which is toxic. It feels like the message is as long as we skim over the cracks and make it look on paper like work is being done it’s like that’s good enough…. I’m not driven or motivated like that. I come to work to give my very best and as a result I am feeling increasingly disillusioned.
15 years in as a PO and could have written that myself. I felt it to my core reading that. I am at a crossroads. I have given so much of myself and so many unpaid hours over the years to do my best at work but feel like our purpose and meaning of our work is being eroded. Everything feels so much more transactional and box ticking. It feels like a culture of learned helplessness has been created since TR which is toxic. It feels like the message is as long as we skim over the cracks and make it look on paper like work is being done it’s like that’s good enough…. I’m not driven or motivated like that. I come to work to give my very best and as a result I am feeling increasingly disillusioned.
********
As an SPO, I recognise every part of this thread. The idea that middle managers are “leading” anything right now is largely a fiction. Many are firefighting, absorbing HR work, managing sickness, risk and performance with inadequate tools, and doing so under constant pressure to keep the machine moving. That doesn’t create reflective leadership, it creates containment.
What worries me most is the number of experienced staff describing resignation rather than anger. That’s the point at which people stop believing change is possible. When probation reaches a stage where committed practitioners either numb themselves or plan their exit, the damage is already done. No amount of rebranding, recruitment or process tweaking will fix that unless the organisation is willing to confront the conditions it has created and stop relying on individual sacrifice to mask systemic failure.
********
What’s being described here isn’t a morale problem, a bad year, or a failure of resilience. It’s managed decline. People are staying far longer than is healthy out of loyalty, guilt and professional identity, not because the organisation deserves it. Others are leaving quietly because they’ve reached the point where self-preservation is the only rational option left.
The most alarming thing in these comments isn’t the anger, it’s the resignation. That’s what develops when staff learn, over time, that raising concerns goes nowhere, formal processes protect hierarchy rather than truth, and commitment is rewarded with more pressure instead of support. At that point, people don’t fight the system; they disengage from it.
If probation leaders, managers or union representatives are reading this, the challenge is simple: stop explaining why things are hard and start responding to what is actually being said here. This isn’t noise, negativity or whingeing. It’s a detailed account of why experienced practitioners are switching off or walking away. If there is no credible, collective response to this, not another consultation, review or statement, then the silence will be taken for what it is: confirmation that decline is not an accident, but a choice.
********
Reading this as someone still working in the probation service, I can only say how deeply it lands. What you’ve written articulates what many of us feel but struggle to say out loud — partly because there never seems to be a safe or meaningful space to do so.Those of us who are still here haven’t stayed because things are fine. We’ve stayed because of the same loyalty you describe: to the work, to the people we supervise, and to the colleagues sitting beside us who are carrying the same impossible loads. Caring is still what gets us through the day — and, paradoxically, what is wearing us down.
As an SPO, I recognise every part of this thread. The idea that middle managers are “leading” anything right now is largely a fiction. Many are firefighting, absorbing HR work, managing sickness, risk and performance with inadequate tools, and doing so under constant pressure to keep the machine moving. That doesn’t create reflective leadership, it creates containment.
What worries me most is the number of experienced staff describing resignation rather than anger. That’s the point at which people stop believing change is possible. When probation reaches a stage where committed practitioners either numb themselves or plan their exit, the damage is already done. No amount of rebranding, recruitment or process tweaking will fix that unless the organisation is willing to confront the conditions it has created and stop relying on individual sacrifice to mask systemic failure.
********
What’s being described here isn’t a morale problem, a bad year, or a failure of resilience. It’s managed decline. People are staying far longer than is healthy out of loyalty, guilt and professional identity, not because the organisation deserves it. Others are leaving quietly because they’ve reached the point where self-preservation is the only rational option left.
The most alarming thing in these comments isn’t the anger, it’s the resignation. That’s what develops when staff learn, over time, that raising concerns goes nowhere, formal processes protect hierarchy rather than truth, and commitment is rewarded with more pressure instead of support. At that point, people don’t fight the system; they disengage from it.
If probation leaders, managers or union representatives are reading this, the challenge is simple: stop explaining why things are hard and start responding to what is actually being said here. This isn’t noise, negativity or whingeing. It’s a detailed account of why experienced practitioners are switching off or walking away. If there is no credible, collective response to this, not another consultation, review or statement, then the silence will be taken for what it is: confirmation that decline is not an accident, but a choice.
********
Reading this as someone still working in the probation service, I can only say how deeply it lands. What you’ve written articulates what many of us feel but struggle to say out loud — partly because there never seems to be a safe or meaningful space to do so.Those of us who are still here haven’t stayed because things are fine. We’ve stayed because of the same loyalty you describe: to the work, to the people we supervise, and to the colleagues sitting beside us who are carrying the same impossible loads. Caring is still what gets us through the day — and, paradoxically, what is wearing us down.
The feeling of having no real choice is already familiar, even for those who haven’t yet left. Many of us recognise that slow narrowing of options: adapting, absorbing, keeping going, telling ourselves we can hold on a bit longer. We speak up where we can, often carefully, often repeatedly, and too often into a void. The language of wellbeing and support exists, but the reality is relentless pressure, shrinking professional space, and a growing gap between what probation claims to be and what it has become.
It matters that we acknowledge managers in this too, because from where l stand, they are as trapped as anyone. Many are trying to shield staff, meet impossible demands, and keep services afloat within systems they did not create and cannot fix. The strain runs right through the organisation, and it shows.
What is hardest is knowing that people are already weighing up exit not as a career move, but as self-preservation. That staying may eventually come at too high a cost — to health, family, and identity. I don’t see clear solutions either. From inside, it often feels as though the choices are limited to enduring harm or stepping away.
So please know this: your decision is understood. Your honesty matters. And to everyone still here — practitioners, managers, administrators — doing their best in a probation service that feels increasingly dysfunctional and, at times, abusive towards its own staff: you are seen. You are not failing. If you reach the point where leaving becomes the only option, that is not weakness. It is survival.
********
I didn’t choose this probation service. I chose a profession built on judgement, experience and human responsibility. What exists now is a hollowed-out system that extracts everything from staff while stripping them of voice, influence and protection.
Those of us who remain after decades aren’t here because we believe in the leadership or the direction of travel. We’re here because lives have been built around a career that no longer resembles what we entered - mortgages, children, geography, and the reality that walking away isn’t simple when your profession has been dismantled around you.
Risk has intensified, accountability has hardened, scrutiny has become punitive, yet professional autonomy has vanished. Experience is mined, not respected. Loyalty is demanded, not returned. Decisions are imposed by people who will never carry the consequences of them.
With hindsight, knowing what probation has been turned into, I would not choose this career again. This isn’t resilience or commitment. It’s containment. We are not a workforce being supported, we are numbers being managed until we break or disappear.
I didn’t choose this probation service. I chose a profession built on judgement, experience and human responsibility. What exists now is a hollowed-out system that extracts everything from staff while stripping them of voice, influence and protection.
Those of us who remain after decades aren’t here because we believe in the leadership or the direction of travel. We’re here because lives have been built around a career that no longer resembles what we entered - mortgages, children, geography, and the reality that walking away isn’t simple when your profession has been dismantled around you.
Risk has intensified, accountability has hardened, scrutiny has become punitive, yet professional autonomy has vanished. Experience is mined, not respected. Loyalty is demanded, not returned. Decisions are imposed by people who will never carry the consequences of them.
With hindsight, knowing what probation has been turned into, I would not choose this career again. This isn’t resilience or commitment. It’s containment. We are not a workforce being supported, we are numbers being managed until we break or disappear.
********
"Risk has intensified" - primarily because the risk industry needed it to. And labelling theory works.
"Risk has intensified" - primarily because the risk industry needed it to. And labelling theory works.
********
That’s exactly it. Risk didn’t just increase, it was manufactured, expanded and monetised. Once risk became a product, it required constant inflation to justify tools, frameworks, audits, roles and oversight structures. Labelling theory does the rest: define people as permanently risky, then design systems that can never declare success. Practitioners are left carrying liability for risks that have been structurally exaggerated and procedurally impossible to manage. This isn’t public protection, it’s risk theatre, and staff are the expendable props.
That’s exactly it. Risk didn’t just increase, it was manufactured, expanded and monetised. Once risk became a product, it required constant inflation to justify tools, frameworks, audits, roles and oversight structures. Labelling theory does the rest: define people as permanently risky, then design systems that can never declare success. Practitioners are left carrying liability for risks that have been structurally exaggerated and procedurally impossible to manage. This isn’t public protection, it’s risk theatre, and staff are the expendable props.
********
This legislation expands community sentences, suspended sentences and post-custodial supervision while saying virtually nothing about workforce capacity, professional skill, or risk ownership. In other words, the courts are being given more options and probation is being handed more responsibility, liability and scrutiny without any guarantee of time, staffing or professional autonomy to deliver it safely.
This isn’t reform; it’s displacement. Prison pressure is being pushed downstream into probation, where risk is already concentrated, caseloads are already unsafe, and accountability is already punitive. Every new requirement, condition or recall power lands on an officer who will be blamed if it fails but has no say in how it was designed.
If Parliament passes sentencing reform without legislating for caseload caps, professional standards and proper resourcing, then it isn’t strengthening community justice, it’s knowingly loading more risk onto a service that has been hollowed out for over a decade. And when it goes wrong, we already know who will carry the consequences.
This legislation expands community sentences, suspended sentences and post-custodial supervision while saying virtually nothing about workforce capacity, professional skill, or risk ownership. In other words, the courts are being given more options and probation is being handed more responsibility, liability and scrutiny without any guarantee of time, staffing or professional autonomy to deliver it safely.
This isn’t reform; it’s displacement. Prison pressure is being pushed downstream into probation, where risk is already concentrated, caseloads are already unsafe, and accountability is already punitive. Every new requirement, condition or recall power lands on an officer who will be blamed if it fails but has no say in how it was designed.
If Parliament passes sentencing reform without legislating for caseload caps, professional standards and proper resourcing, then it isn’t strengthening community justice, it’s knowingly loading more risk onto a service that has been hollowed out for over a decade. And when it goes wrong, we already know who will carry the consequences.
********
I attended a briefing this week about E-POP where those pops who are low or medium risk (with no active safeguarding or MAPPA) will complete online tick box reporting rather than face to face appts to alleviate appointments and improve capacity…. Another step away from developing actual relationships with those you supervise. I can see the value for those with standalone requirements but for the majority, especially those who have been subject to probation for years this will feel like the service is trying to shut the door on meaningful contact. SFOs are mainly perpetrated by medium ROSH offenders if I recall rightly so what’s the evidence base for this??? Risk is fluid - how can know if risk is escalating from someone ticking a few boxes which they decide!?
I attended a briefing this week about E-POP where those pops who are low or medium risk (with no active safeguarding or MAPPA) will complete online tick box reporting rather than face to face appts to alleviate appointments and improve capacity…. Another step away from developing actual relationships with those you supervise. I can see the value for those with standalone requirements but for the majority, especially those who have been subject to probation for years this will feel like the service is trying to shut the door on meaningful contact. SFOs are mainly perpetrated by medium ROSH offenders if I recall rightly so what’s the evidence base for this??? Risk is fluid - how can know if risk is escalating from someone ticking a few boxes which they decide!?
********
When I started in probation in the 1980s we called the people we worked with clients of the service. It was respectful and no one questioned it was the appropriate thing to do. I shudder now everytime I hear pop although nothing wrong with person on probation. This happened on Sonia Flynn’s watch and the present CPO Kim Thornden Edward’s lacks the understanding and wherewithal to realise it is wrong to allow this to go on and do something. As for the RPDs a disreputable bunch of uselessness you could ever hope to encounter. I have even heard trade unionists use the acronym that I think is a shocking example of collusion with a demeaning and dehumanising practice. Stop referring to the people we work with as pops and simply call them people. That is after all what they are.
When I started in probation in the 1980s we called the people we worked with clients of the service. It was respectful and no one questioned it was the appropriate thing to do. I shudder now everytime I hear pop although nothing wrong with person on probation. This happened on Sonia Flynn’s watch and the present CPO Kim Thornden Edward’s lacks the understanding and wherewithal to realise it is wrong to allow this to go on and do something. As for the RPDs a disreputable bunch of uselessness you could ever hope to encounter. I have even heard trade unionists use the acronym that I think is a shocking example of collusion with a demeaning and dehumanising practice. Stop referring to the people we work with as pops and simply call them people. That is after all what they are.
********
The claim that this is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for probation doesn’t stand up when set against what was said to the Public Accounts Committee. The evidence given makes clear that senior officials have known for years about unsafe workloads, retention failure and a workforce model that no longer works. This is not a sudden moment of insight or ambition, it is overdue acknowledgement of problems that have been repeatedly raised and repeatedly ignored.What Parliament was told confirms what staff already know: probation has been running on deficit staffing, stretched capacity and goodwill for far too long. Dressing this up as transformation doesn’t change the reality. Recruitment promises, digital tools and legislative tweaks are being offered instead of the fundamentals the Committee was effectively probing for - workload caps, retention, professional confidence and stability.
If this really were a once-in-a-generation moment, the response to Parliament would include binding limits on caseloads, meaningful pay restoration and a clear commitment to rebuilding probation as a profession. Instead, we are hearing familiar language about efficiency, innovation and “doing more differently”, while the structural risks Parliament questioned remain unresolved. That isn’t renewal. It’s managed decline, repackaged and the people giving evidence won’t be the ones carrying the consequences on the frontline.
The claim that this is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for probation doesn’t stand up when set against what was said to the Public Accounts Committee. The evidence given makes clear that senior officials have known for years about unsafe workloads, retention failure and a workforce model that no longer works. This is not a sudden moment of insight or ambition, it is overdue acknowledgement of problems that have been repeatedly raised and repeatedly ignored.What Parliament was told confirms what staff already know: probation has been running on deficit staffing, stretched capacity and goodwill for far too long. Dressing this up as transformation doesn’t change the reality. Recruitment promises, digital tools and legislative tweaks are being offered instead of the fundamentals the Committee was effectively probing for - workload caps, retention, professional confidence and stability.
If this really were a once-in-a-generation moment, the response to Parliament would include binding limits on caseloads, meaningful pay restoration and a clear commitment to rebuilding probation as a profession. Instead, we are hearing familiar language about efficiency, innovation and “doing more differently”, while the structural risks Parliament questioned remain unresolved. That isn’t renewal. It’s managed decline, repackaged and the people giving evidence won’t be the ones carrying the consequences on the frontline.
It’s been said repeatedly, in countless reports, inquiries, articles and practitioner testimonies. We’re not adding new insight anymore, instead we’re reiterating what has already been explained, evidenced and validated. The issue is not conceptual complexity or a lack of vision; it’s an absence of political courage, organisational will, and basic follow-through. At this stage, rather than endlessly reframing the same conclusions, we should be asking why those with responsibility refuse to act upon them. We shouldn’t have to write new explanations, we should be able to say: you were told already. If unions, Napo, Unison and GMB Scoop were not so complicit this’d already be happening.
ReplyDeleteThe path forward is not obscure and never has been. Pay people properly. Cap caseloads. Reject cosmetic reforms and insist on evidence-based changes backed by resources, professional development and shaping a coherent rehabilitative identity for probation. This is the foundation of effective probation work and always has been. Failure to do these things is not a debate about models, it’s a decision to tolerate dysfunction.
“The future of probation lies in evidence-based reform, practitioner development, and adequate resourcing. Practitioners and managers must be empowered to lead and challenge from within, cultivating a workforce of champions who articulate the service’s purpose with clarity and confidence. Probation must resist the urge to overpromise on crime control and risk management. Therefore, reframing public safety as a natural consequence of effective rehabilitation rather than an isolated goal.”
https://www.probation-institute.org/news/shaping-probations-identity
“Political courage may be required to advance this understanding of probation. It is unfashionable to assert that probation has a duty to care for people under its supervision, or that the wider community has responsibilities towards people with criminal convictions as well as claims against them. It is therefore all the more important that probation and other social work services should stand as authoritative representations of how a good society should relate to those of its members who are struggling. No doubt these professions often fall short of the idealistic standards set out in this paper. Nevertheless, these are the values to which they should commit themselves and which they would be more likely to achieve if their historical connections were revived and reaffirmed.”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02645505241241588
Abstract
DeleteIn England and Wales probation was regarded as social work for most of the twentieth century, but some thirty years ago the government rejected this conception. In the context of continuing deliberations about the purpose and character of probation, it is timely to revisit its relationship to social work. It is argued that a principal reason for the politically motivated repudiation of social work was its associations with care, but this rested on confusion about care and a comparable misunderstanding of the concept of control. Appreciation of social context is argued to be fundamental to the work of probation. Social capital is no less important than human capital in achieving desistance. The skills and values of social work continue to inform probation because they match up to the demands of the job. Reaffirming connections between the professions would enhance the policy and practices of both.
Introduction
Many countries regard the activities of probation agencies as social work undertaken in the criminal justice system. This used to be the case in England and Wales, but this understanding was overturned when social work was rejected as a way of characterising probation's work. The Probation Service, set back and damaged by the project of Transforming Rehabilitation (Burke and Collett, 2015; Deering and Feilzer, 2019), has now embarked on a process of unification as a national service. Since the organisation of any agency should be fitted to its purposes, a review of the character, meaning and point of probation is timely. In a recent contribution to this debate, the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee (2023) remarking that ‘Caseloads are unmanageable and job satisfaction is low.’ (page 4), referred to an occupational ‘identity crisis’ (page 70). In this paper it will be argued that, while the matter of whether probation ‘is’ social work sounds like a stale debate, reopening discussion can illuminate much about what probation is or ought to be and in particular the values that should find expression in its practices.
Easily the best two papers on probation I’ve read in as many years. The first, from a serving SPO took some nerve. I heard it presented on an all-staff call that said what everyone’s thinking but I do not think it was what HQ expected. I can only imagine how that sat with the leadership. The second, from one of probation’s elder statesmen, spells out what many were waiting to hear yet was treated with the same weary indifference. And so with this and everything else said here, HMPPS does what it always does, spin, sidestep and carry on, as if none of it matters. Yesterday’s reality discarded in favour of tomorrow’s propaganda on ai, 1000 new trainees, the Sentencing review and whatever else.
DeleteI caught that presentation too. He completely nailed it — exposed the direction probation’s drifting in and sketched a better course. Even slipped in that PI article at the end! Didn’t see him on staff calls again after that, funnily enough.
DeleteI was taught by Rob Canton back in the day… that was when probation actually listened to its experts. Now it feels mundane and robotic.
DeleteI think the blog is excellent at describing the problem. What we need to do is to get better at exploring realistic and practical solutions. The fact is that the leadership of probation in headquarters is distributed and different directors pursue their own agendas. The CPO is no more powerful than other directors involved in Probation and is just rolled out occasionally to say nothing and change nought but no one really knows what she does 9-5. Let’s get her diary published. This means that accountability does not rest with anyone and only ministers can direct policy direction. Ministers as we know get a highly redacted version of what is going on so we need to find a way to get them clued in. So efforts to suggest change really need to be primarily directed at ministers rather than slagging off the unions etc. Currently the RPDs have too much autonomy. They all have their own ideas but are subject to divide and rule. Chaos is deliberately maintained. They do not have standardised procedures nationally and positive reform will take a long time. We must stop attacking the unions and focus our energies on ministers then HMPPS HQ and the individual directors and their responsibilities. Then encourage the unions to meet with them about specific themes and let us know the outcomes. For instance pay. Let us name those responsible and call out ministerial steers. Embarrass individual directors about their appalling performance and we will soon see some movement because they will not like it. Use FOI and subject access requests. This is their greatest fear. . Publicly outing them is the way. For instance we could highlight that the Chief Inspector of Probation has regular battles with certain directors who ignore inspection recommendations. Let’s support the chief inspector. Let’s make those disputes public and highlight the issues and those responsible. Whistleblowing is an essential democratic right. This will also help the unions and others like the PI to put pressure with greater precision as they are dealing with a range of bureaucrats that would rather not be named. Let the directors know we are coming for them and that they are accountable for the problems faced and that they have nowhere to hide. They must individually explain their decisions.
ReplyDelete"The second comment is important because it shows how this damage travels downwards and sideways."
ReplyDelete"I attended a briefing this week about E-POP where those pops who are low or medium risk (with no active safeguarding or MAPPA) will complete online tick box reporting rather than face to face appts to alleviate appointments and improve capacity…."
I do a lot of voluntary work with homeless people. The majority of those I meet are on some sort of probation order, and the majority of those are actively wanted for recall.
Nearly all have addiction problems, and their recall has been triggered by failing to attend appointments. Some forget their appointments because everyday is just the same, some can't be bothered to attend because it's just an inconvenience without any benefit to be gained, and some don't attend because they know they will only fail their drug test anyway.
These are a group of people that commit low level (although not insignificant) offences, who are caught on the treadmill and being subjected to post sentence supervision is only a costly process to damage damaged people further.
I find the idea that some on probation will only be expected to complete electronic tic box exercises as utterly stupid, and quite frankly just plain nasty.
Either someone requires supervision when they're released or they dont. Ticking a few boxes online once a month suggests to me that supervision is not really required, and instead of wasting resources, just don't funnel them down the probation chute in the first place.
Probation has become destructive for many people regardless of which side of the desk they sit on.
If there is no real benefit to subject someone to probation then they shouldn't be there. Its a waste of money. Its a waste of resources. Its a waste of life.
The current focus is all about how to get more people out of prison system. There should be just as much focus on how to get people out of the probation system.
'Getafix
Let’s stop pretending this is a problem of understanding. The Ministry of Justice, HMPPS, senior civil servants and successive ministers have been told, repeatedly and unambiguously, what is wrong with probation and what is required to fix it. They have been told by HMIP, by parliamentary committees, by academic research, by unions, and most consistently by practitioners themselves. The evidence is not missing. The warnings are not unclear. The solutions are not novel.
ReplyDeleteWhat is missing is action because those with power have chosen not to act.
The MoJ and HMPPS have chosen not to cap caseloads. They have chosen not to restore professional autonomy. They have chosen not to fund probation staff in line with the risk, responsibility and harm they are expected to manage. They have chosen managerial control, performative reform and technological distraction over workforce stability and public safety. Ministers sign off the direction; senior leaders operationalise it; both then feign surprise when the system continues to fail.
Asking practitioners to keep restating the same truths is not engagement, it is avoidance. It forces those already carrying the damage to keep justifying their own harm while decision-makers hide behind “complexity”, “future reform” and “lessons learned”. At this stage, repeating the evidence is an act of generosity probation staff should no longer be expected to provide.
When harm is this longstanding, this evidenced and this foreseeable, inaction is no longer passive. It is an active decision by the MoJ and HMPPS to tolerate failure, grind down staff, and accept diminished public protection as an acceptable price of doing business. Own that choice and stop pretending this is anything other than deliberate.
I agree but you have to name names and hold the individuals responsible to account there aren’t that many holding the strings so any solution needs to be targeted at individual responsible officers/directors. Unions know who are the decision makers are and they should insist on meeting them directly rather than the dancing double dealing underlings. Decision makers will not care unless they are individually held to account and forced to given written assurances - something they wish to avoid. This terrifies them. Anything else is just huffing and puffing to blow the house down without any effect. Today Napo members were told that the unions are very cross with the employers. No shit Sherlock. Tell us who has made the decision regarding pay and why and if it is another decision makers fault then tell us who they are until we get to the faceless bod who says ‘no’ It is pointless to do negotiations behind closed doors as they are clearly not getting anywhere. If you cannot get a deal then let someone else have a go. Instruct some TU lawyers to attend and litigate them . Time to try something else.
Deletehttps://insidetime.org/newsround/serious-offences-by-people-on-licence-have-risen-sharply/
ReplyDeleteThe renewed interest in probation’s social work roots is not about nostalgia or professional identity debates. It is about whether this service still understands that people are not risks to be processed but human beings whose behaviour changes through sustained, skilled relationships. That was always the point of probation, long before it became dominated by metrics, tools and remote compliance.
ReplyDeleteThe current enthusiasm for healthcare provision in probation offices needs to be treated carefully. Health input is necessary and overdue, but it cannot be used to mask the erosion of probation practice itself. If supervision is reduced to digital reporting, scripted contact or transactional check-ins, then healthcare simply becomes an adjacent service bolted onto a hollowed out core. Mental health support cannot compensate for the removal of professional judgement, continuity and meaningful engagement.
Risk is not static and it is rarely declared. It emerges through patterns, deterioration and moments that only become visible when there is regular, face-to-face contact and trust. Tick boxes do not register escalation. Algorithms do not notice despair. Remote systems do not replace human presence.
Reconnecting probation to its social work foundations is not about resisting modernisation. It is about acknowledging a basic truth this system keeps ignoring: supervision without relationship is surveillance, not rehabilitation.
If probation abandons its relational core, no amount of health pilots, technology or reform language will prevent the harm that follows.
ReplyDelete“At this stage, rather than endlessly reframing the same conclusions, we should be asking why those with responsibility refuse to act upon them. We shouldn’t have to write new explanations, we should be able to say: you were told already. If unions, Napo, Unison and GMB Scoop were not so complicit this’d already be happening.”
It seems to me that this sentence taken from the above neatly summarises the current position.
I have just looked on the NAPO website. Their last comment on the wage claim was 28.11.25. They have nothing to say on any other matter either. I don’t think it is too much to expect our representatives to justify their lack of activity and explain to the membership who pay them handsomely exactly what the strategy going forward will be. Instead the silence is deafening.
In less than a fortnight, the pay claim will be celebrating its first birthday and the proud parents appear to be absent from the party.
Are you a NAPO member? If so check your emails as they are being sent out regularly including today
Deletehttps://youtu.be/N6qTkXfBjA8?si=F2AbFBU60UZ2Hwed
ReplyDelete'E-POP' is being framed as capacity management, but in practice it represents a withdrawal of supervision from people deemed administratively inconvenient rather than unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteAnyone with frontline experience knows that risk is not static and rarely declared. Many serious further offences originate with individuals assessed as medium risk whose disengagement, relapse or deterioration only becomes visible through consistent human contact. Online reporting captures compliance, not change. It cannot register escalation, distress or instability.
If someone does not require meaningful supervision, they should not be on probation at all. And if they do, replacing face to face engagement with tick box reporting is not innovation, it is abdication. That approach may reduce appointment pressure on paper, but it increases recall, churn and harm in reality.
At this point the most damaging fiction is that probation is failing despite everyone’s best efforts. It is failing because the system has been redesigned to tolerate harm as normal operating conditions. Unsafe caseloads, hollow supervision and staff attrition are not unintended consequences, they are accepted outcomes. When failure becomes predictable and nothing changes, it stops being failure and starts being policy.
ReplyDeleteTo the Minister of Justice and those signing off probation policy:
ReplyDeleteYou have received repeated HMIP warnings, parliamentary scrutiny, academic evidence and frontline testimony describing the same structural failures year after year. You know caseloads are unsafe. You know staff are leaving in large numbers. You know supervision quality is deteriorating.
Given that knowledge, what specific decision have you taken to not cap caseloads, not restore professional autonomy, and not properly fund probation staff and on what basis have you decided that the resulting harm to staff, service users and public safety is acceptable?
To anyone adversely affected by the deterioration in probation service provision regardless of which side of the computer you sit - practitioner, supervisee, victim, victim's family, prisoner:
ReplyDeleteBased upon the observations, comments & evidence already provided on this blog & elswhere, isn't it time someone took probation/hmpps/moj to court for the harm caused by wilful neglect?
It seems abundantly & explicitly clear from the available evidence that there has been intentional structural decline from 2010 onwards, that organisational failure has become normalised, that 20% performance levels across the board (as measured by HMIProbation) are deemed to be acceptable, given that no so-called 'leaders' have ever been held to account for their unconscionable failings. Indeed the principal achitects & highest levels of leadership have simply been allowed to 'carry on regardless' &/or receive stratospheric plaudits, bonuses & promotions.
For far too long so many unappetising decisions & intolerable behaviours have been choked back, re-swallowed & gagged upon.
Its time for someone to hold these shitweasels to account in a court of law, to expose their lies, their deceptions, their plundering of the public purse for no good reason.
The idea of legal action isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds, but it’s also not as straightforward as many would hope. Courts don’t deal in moral outrage or systemic decline as such; they deal in breaches of specific legal duties. That’s the trap this system has been built to survive. You can preside over prolonged organisational harm, collapsing standards and predictable damage to staff and the public, and still remain legally insulated if it’s framed as policy choice rather than unlawful failure.
DeleteThat said, there are pressure points. Judicial review can challenge specific decisions where evidence has been ignored or consultation has been a sham. Health and safety law is potentially more powerful than people realise, because employers have a duty to protect staff from foreseeable harm, including stress and violence, and much of that harm has been documented, warned about and then disregarded. Employment claims around constructive dismissal, disability discrimination and failure to make reasonable adjustments already show the pattern, even if they individualise the damage.
What won’t work is a single sweeping case about “wilful neglect” of probation as a whole. The courts will say it’s political, not justiciable, and defer to ministers. That isn’t an accident. The system has been redesigned to be legally survivable while professionally destructive. Decline can be intentional without being unlawful. Harm can be foreseeable without triggering accountability.
So the real issue isn’t feasibility, it’s appetite. Any meaningful legal challenge would have to be tightly focused, collective, properly resourced and prepared to escalate. It would need unions or external backers willing to stop managing decline and start forcing disclosure, embarrassment and constraint.
Courts won’t save probation. But used strategically, they can make neglect more expensive, more visible and harder to deny. The question is whether anyone with power is prepared to stop absorbing the damage quietly and accept the risk of confrontation.
Sentiment is good but this talk has to face the harsh reality of intention. Claims have to satisfy many legal challenges causation wilful and reckless. Proving anything like this has its burden of proof. The reality and the ability are two different things. I wouldn't talk it down based on the incidents reported here . However Napo took a judicial process after some campaigning on this blog. The pressure to do something saw Napo take up a Jim brown inspired defence against TR. Not surprisingly but disappointedly Ian Lawrence botched it up. Not having the stamina or will to fund a proper case he took primary concerns forward then relented after being threatened with costs. Cowardice possibly or a bad presentation from the chairs we do not know. Napo asking for the ruling to back off be kept a closed matter. After this collapse Grayling was both related and more confident. I am just saying any legal that involves Napo and funding forget it they have neither the right talent pool or desire and they certainly won't spend funds on protecting those who pay their salaries.
DeleteA New Year push to recruit staff and Justice secretary David Lammy says opportunities will satisfy public demand for jobs with “purpose”, offering more than “just a pay packet”
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I'm doing this job for a purpose and not just for a shit pay packet and daily emails about performance targets
Well, still no 2025 pay deal. Just spotted this for next year - wonder if we are included but not mentioned - prison service are included!
Deletehttps://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-202526-public-sector-pay-award-process#:~:text=In%20writing%20to,Review%20Body%20(STRB)
Lammy: “People across the country are looking for more than just a pay packet – they want purpose,”
Deletehttps://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/moj-launches-new-year-push-to-fill-prison-and-probation-roles
"MoJ launches New Year push to fill prison and probation roles... Justice secretary David Lammy says opportunities will satisfy public demand for jobs with “purpose”, offering more than “just a pay packet”...
Its Extraordinary Jobs campaign, which will begin airing on TV and radio later this month, aims to show the reality of life working in prison and probation roles – including daily challenges, teamwork, and the opportunity to help others.
Starting salaries for roles in probation are £26,475, while prison-officer pay starts from £33,746 .
As part of its Extraordinary Jobs campaign launch, the MoJ highlighted former currency trader Simon Knell, who swapped high-value money roles to join the Prison Service eight years ago.
National Audit Office report published in October said the service had previously underestimated the number of probation officers that would be required to provide sentence-management tasks by around 5,400 staff.
the number of FTEs working in public sector prisons decreased by 1,161, but the reduction was offset by an increase in Probation Service personnel and staff working in other roles."
the average UK salary is trending around
Delete£39,000 - £42,000 for full-time median earnings
Probation - The top of scale pay for a fully qualified Probation Officer (Band 4) in the UK generally reaches around £37,174
investment banking roles in London average £70k-£130k+
insurance industry - £30,000 for entry-level roles to £60,000+ for experienced professionals; senior London-based roles potentially reaching £100,000-£200,000+ with bonuses
salaried GPs earn roughly £76,000 to £115,000
Hospital Doctors - £39,000 (Foundation doctors), Specialty Trainees' salaries increase with training, from approximately £50,000 to £74,000 (ST6-8) plus allowances
average UK nurse salary ~£37,000 and £42,000
starting salaries around £33,000; experienced teachers earning £50,000+
UK Civil Service pay (median) £33,980
Senior Civil Servants (median) £89,000
MP's basic annual salary £93,904 - this doesn't include additional salaries for ministerial roles, Whips, or Committee Chairs, nor allowances for expenses like offices, staff, and accommodation.
For example, Members' yearly bespoke stationery budget statements:
Adam Dance, Yeovil - almost £11,000 in 2024/25
Sir Alec Shelbrooke - £738
Sir Alan Campbell - £155
Yvette Cooper - ~£9,500
Wes Streeting - £1,500
Tristan Osborne - just shy of £11,000
Tess Munt - £10,999.09
Shabana Mahmood - £nearly £11,000
Methinks there's an £11,000 cap on this allowance.
https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/stationery-spend-hoc-publications/2024-2025-to-be-published.pdf
This recruitment rhetoric is cynical. “Purpose not just pay” is being deployed to lower expectations before people even walk through the door. It reframes underpayment, excessive responsibility and unmanaged risk as virtues rather than failures.
DeleteIf probation were truly valued, purpose would sit alongside fair pay, safe caseloads and professional respect. Instead it is being used to excuse their absence.
This is not recruitment. It is conditioning.
In writing to the independent Pay Award Bodies, the Government has today formally launched the 25/26 pay process... The Government has now sent remit letters to the below independent Pay Review Bodies, which is the standard method for launching the 2025/26 pay award process:
Delete* Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body (AFPRB)
* National Crime Agency Remuneration Review Body (NCARRB)
* NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB)
* Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB)
* Prison Service Pay Review Body (PSPRB)
* Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB)
* Review Body on Senior Salaries (SSRB)
* School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB)
@08:12 - "wonder if we are included but not mentioned"
Simple one word answer: No.
ReplyDeleteIm struck by 08.41 comments yesterday ‘it’s an absence of political courage’, NAPO asked its members (August 25) and its friends to write to their MP about pay and safety concerns. Initially, receiving a stock ministerial response, I challenged its content and after 4 attempts received an email before xmas saying ‘I have contacted the Department and Minister and forwarded your concerns and will get back with a response’ Which, I will share here and with Napo. I would invite you all to write to your MP and together seek to influence some ‘political courage’ Which, I believe Lloyd Hatton demonstrated during the Public Accounts Committee Meeting with the HMPSS.
Using my twitter platform I’ve connected with 11 Labour MP’s Including, a former shadow Justice Minister and current Parliamentary Under Secretary of Justice. I’m not suggesting they actually read my tweet messages or timeline which updates them about this blog and I also share NAPO tweet threads , but they do all following and can chose whether or not to engage. Should you come across any MP who might be remotely interested please invite them to follow iangould5 and let me know.
That first comment is a highly accurate perspective. 08:41 captures exactly where we’re at. Will ministers and the like take note?
DeleteWrite to your MP
Deletehttps://www.napo.org.uk/news/write-your-mp
As long as people keep showing up to work they won't care. Staff need to cause disruption or they will be happy to let things carry on.. I've been working for probation for over 14 years and only attended one protest when the service was being split into NPS and CRC. Only 2 others attended with me and the rest were happy to keep their backsides firmly plonked on their office chairs whilst calling us brave and saying they were proud of us! Pathetic! Then these same people will wet themselves over a £30 M&S voucher for hitting some dumb, pointless target! The people at the top think probation officers are losers and unfortunately the staff do nothing quash this perception!
ReplyDeleteGiven the pay situation for years I should have attended dozens of protests in regards to this by now. Maybe intelligent, pro-active staff should form their own new union and take action!
aye, remember it well as they passed the three of us standing in the rain: "I just can't afford to strike; we've recently moved house, we booked a holiday last month, we're paying a premium for the upgrade to [his] car and the lease on mine runs out next month... but we're all behind you."
DeleteAbout half an hour later the (newly promoted) team manager (SPO) comes out with tea & coffee (in takeaway cups) & biscuits: "You must understand that I'm not in a position to strike, but I'm thinking of you, we're all thinking of you. Just put the cups in the bin 'round the back when you're done."
Solidarity, eh?
Not being in a position to strike doesn’t always mean indifference or lack of courage. For many probation staff it means financial precarity in its simplest form: single incomes, caring responsibilities, mortgages, rising travel costs, and no financial buffer. Missing even one day’s pay is not symbolic, it is consequential.
DeleteAdd to that the reality that probation work doesn’t pause. Risk doesn’t stop, harm doesn’t wait, and whatever isn’t done today lands back on the same staff tomorrow, usually with scrutiny attached. People know that withdrawal of labour is rarely absorbed by the organisation; it is redistributed onto individuals afterwards.
That isn’t weakness. It is the product of a system that has made collective action feel personally dangerous and financially unviable. When unions cannot guarantee protection, when leadership relies on goodwill and professional guilt, and when pay has been eroded for years, people make rational choices to survive.
The issue isn’t that staff won’t disrupt. It’s that probation has been engineered so that disruption carries all the risk for workers and none for those in charge. Goodwill has become the safety net for systemic failure, and staff are paying for it with their health, finances and futures.
***Latest news***
ReplyDelete"Ministers must honour commitments to review probation, says UNISON"
Posted on 23 October 2025 - hahahahaha
https://insidetime.org/newsround/118743/
ReplyDeleteThe civil service has hired 166 people with criminal records under an employment programme reserved exclusively for people with convictions.
A separate civil service recruitment scheme for people on probation, the Probation Employment Pathway, is managed by the Ministry of Justice and is not included within the figures published by the Cabinet Office.
Inside Time requested data in February 2025 under the Freedom of Information Act, which requires Government departments to provide requested information within 20 days.
In March we received a brief reply, declining to provide the figures on the grounds that “the information you requested is not held by the Cabinet Office”. We appealed. In December, 10 months after we submitted our original request, the Head of Freedom of Information at the Cabinet Office overturned the original response and provided the figures we had asked for.
166 people. Is that it?!
DeleteMore than enough many won't survive the assisted route and those that do will meet the same glass ceiling others long before have reported on .
DeleteAaaand the bad behaviour continues:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c79r8px43zpo
"Marc Jones, the PCC for Lincolnshire, accepted he should not have sent text messages disclosing details of a confidential recruitment process [relating to] the recruitment process for a new chief constable in 2020... [there was] no action in relation to a separate allegation that Jones had been "involved in a relationship with an employee of Lincolnshire Police who was then appointed to a senior position within the office for the PCC on a salary almost double that of the previous post holder"... "
Its a sad, voyeuristic world we live in:
Delete"More than 90 members of hospital staff accessed the records of Nottingham attacks victims following their deaths, the BBC has learned.
In December, an investigation opened into allegations Ministry of Justice (MoJ) staff illegally accessed computer files related to the Nottingham attacks.
Prison staff could be facing criminal charges after they allegedly illegally accessed records involving the Nottingham killings in 2023.
The South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) is currently investigating allegations under the Computer Misuse Act that members of staff from both HMPPS and HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) unlawfully accessed case file material and images related to the Nottingham attacks."
Not that so much after a relationship and appointment at the PCC underhand corruption.
DeleteGoodwill is propping this service up and has been for years. People working unpaid hours, bending rules, absorbing extra cases, covering gaps and firefighting is exactly what allows the system to stagger on while pretending it functions. If everyone worked strictly to contract, the scale of failure would be impossible to hide.
ReplyDeleteBut the reason that doesn’t happen isn’t laziness or lack of principle. It’s fear. People know that the moment work slips, the scrutiny lands on individuals, not the system. Performance flags names, not structures. SFOs don’t trigger accountability at the top, they trigger investigations at the bottom. Capability and disciplinary processes are real and personal risks, and everyone knows it.
So yes, people keep showing up, keep patching things over and keep giving more than they should. Not because they don’t see what’s happening, but because the organisation has made refusal dangerous and collective action feel unsafe.
Until staff are genuinely protected from blame and retaliation, calls to “just stop the goodwill” will remain morally right but practically terrifying. That isn’t a failure of character among practitioners. It’s a system designed to rely on their fear.
I’m a probation practitioner and I’m worn down in a way that this organisation refuses to acknowledge. Years of poor pay progression, constant restructuring and endless “reform” have stripped this role of the values it was built on. I joined a profession grounded in judgement, experience and human responsibility. What senior leadership has turned it into is a compliance driven system where relationships are devalued and risk is managed to satisfy assurance frameworks rather than protect people.
ReplyDeleteWhat cuts deepest is the absence of protection from above. Senior leaders talk about valuing staff while designing systems that expose practitioners to escalating risk, scrutiny and blame. Decisions are made by people who will never sit with someone in crisis, never manage a volatile caseload, and never carry the consequences when something goes wrong. Those consequences fall on practitioners, every time.
Operational managers are no longer empowered to shield staff or challenge upwards in any meaningful way. Some lack the depth of experience needed to push back, others are constrained by fear of recrimination in a culture where challenge is quietly punished. The effect is the same. Pressure flows downward, accountability hardens, and practitioners are left holding responsibility without authority.
We are expected to absorb unsafe workloads, implement constant change and maintain public protection regardless of whether the conditions make that possible. When things hold together, leadership claims success. When they don’t, practitioners are blamed. Pay, recognition and professional autonomy bear no relation to the seriousness of the work we are required to do.
I didn’t choose this probation service. I chose a profession. What remains now feels less like vocation and more like endurance in a system that senior leadership continues to hollow out while insisting it is “supporting the workforce”.
Whilst our pay remains poor and any sign of a rise delayed, there has been a further attack on probation stuff in Nottingham office by a person on probation. Probation is becoming a ridiculous unsafe place to work. Surely there should have been a national publication to all staff, instead it has only been related to local offices and APs. We all need to strike. What are useless NAPO and Unison doing??
ReplyDeleteDon't worry they are doing a pilot of safety measures. If the worse happens you have good ole PAM assist!
DeleteNapo are excellent at being useless. Unison have always borrowed other pay deals and Napo tag along. Putting the unions aside this is far bigger than anyone realises along the same lines as destroying the coal industry by thatcher . The unpicking of the public services. The strategy on how to do this was written in 1976 and the set about the programme into the 80s. I suspect the plan for probation is similar and nothing will stop it like the miners.
DeleteThe Nottingham incident is not a local issue and it is not an exception. It is the predictable outcome of a system in which staff safety has been downgraded and risk has been normalised. The decision not to issue a national communication is not oversight, it is avoidance.
DeleteAs an SPO, I am expected to reassure staff, manage risk and maintain service delivery, yet the protections required to do that are not being provided from the centre. Safety is discussed in abstract terms while frontline staff continue to face real and escalating threat. Pilots, guidance and wellbeing offers do not mitigate violence.
What we are seeing is a consistent leadership pattern: responsibility is pushed down, exposure is absorbed locally, and accountability does not travel upwards. Serious incidents are treated as operational noise rather than system warnings.
Probation is becoming an unsafe place to work because senior leadership has decided to tolerate that reality. This is not a failure of practice. It is a failure of leadership.
From the frontline, it feels like we’re expected to absorb everything the system refuses to carry. Risk increases, workloads expand, public protection expectations harden, yet the space to practise professionally keeps shrinking. We are told to be resilient, flexible and values-led while working in conditions that actively undermine judgement, safety and morale.
DeleteWhat senior leaders call “pressure” is what practitioners experience as constant exposure to blame, scrutiny and fear of getting it wrong in a system designed to fail quietly. We are not resisting change; we are carrying the consequences of decisions made far above us by people who will never sit with the risk, the trauma or the aftermath.
At this point, it does not feel like probation is being led. It feels like it is being endured by those who still show up, while those with power stay safely removed from the impact of what they authorise.
This sounds similar to the situation in the NHS.
ReplyDeleteFirst page the 28 are a systematic destroy analysis I don't know about NHS but here is their everlasting opening.It is well written and stands up today.
DeleteFINAL REPORT OF THE POLICY GROUP ON THE NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES
PART 1 Running Nationalised Industries
A. MOTIVATION
1. There are fundamental differences between the private and the public sector. In the private sector there is the fear of bankruptcy and redundancy "the stick"; there is also the hope of reward in the form of higher dividends, salaries or wages, as the results of success the "carrot".
2. These "sticks" and "carrots" are weaker in the national industries. The sanction of bankruptcy does not, and cannot ap although that of redundancy can and does. The incentive of working for higher reward applies in relation to piece-work or payment-by-result schemes in no cases does it apply to manage let alone to the providers of investment capital. People are rarely dismissed for inefficiency.
3. There is a need to provide sticks, and carrots, in the p sector. They are bound to be infinitely less effective than the in the private sector because of the very nature of the public sector and its immunity from bankruptcy. But some sanction is and some reward is necessary when there is a serious failure necessary when performance is good.
4. One element of our policy for the public sector should b to provide greater rewards for success and penalties for failure but as far as is practical for all particularly for managers concerned.
5.
More and more the nationalised industries are run for th benefit of those who work in them. The pressures are for more jobs for the boys, and more money for each boy. The need to satisfy the customer is less and less apparent: mainly because they tend to be monopolistic concerns.
6. Another element of our policy should be to break up the monopolies, and to make each unit of public industry survive, and prosper, by means of providing a better service to the pub than its competitor. There are sections later in this paper describing how we should do this.
What we have not seen is a meaningful system of rewards for success or accountability for failure at senior levels. Instead, risk, pressure and sanction have been pushed relentlessly downwards onto practitioners, while those who design and oversee the system remain insulated from consequence.
DeleteProbation hasn’t been run “for the benefit of those who work in it” for a very long time. Pay has lagged, workloads have exploded, professional judgement has been stripped back, and people are leaving damaged rather than enriched. If this was meant to introduce carrots and sticks, then the sticks have landed almost exclusively on frontline staff, and the carrots have been quietly reserved for senior management, consultants and external contracts.
Breaking probation into competing units did not improve service to the public. It fragmented accountability, diluted expertise and created a culture where survival mattered more than rehabilitation. What followed was not efficiency or responsiveness, but managed decline dressed up as reform.
If this analysis still “stands up today”, then it stands as evidence of an ideology that treats public service as a problem to be disciplined rather than a profession to be supported. Probation is not failing because staff lack fear or incentive. It is failing because those with power have engineered a system where responsibility is detached from consequence and care is treated as weakness.
I printed the one page a prelude any arguments will be torn apart within the 26 pages of that old report and it has been so well planned everything they do has it's methodology from this paper if editor wants I'll do a section by section post .
DeleteAnother section below it's as contemporary today as it was in 76. I didn't write but it's relatable and it is their continued labour party strategy . Originally written for the Tories. I'll publish the whole document in installments so long as editor approves them
DeleteB. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
1. Unit costs are vital information in relation to measuring efficiency. Any attempt to improve efficiency must start from considering unit costs. In the nationalised industries the output is measurable and unit costs can be obtained.
2. The strange thing is that this information about unit costs is not made available publicly, although it is probably available to managers in the nationalised industries. This information would be of the greatest value in monitoring efficiency. Parliamentary Questions asking for information about the unit costs of nationalise industries and the comparable costs in other industrialised countries are answered by Ministers by saying that the information is not available. It is clear from answers that the civil service either does not know or will not release such information.
3. The truth is that the Government's attitude to the public sector is not commercially orientated. The cost of producing steel, or electricity, or coal, or air travel is determined by a mixture of the political pressures and the union pressures. The income that may be obtained depends upon what the customers will pay, and the political pressures at work. The resulting return on capital varies between zero in the Steel Industry, to a 120% return on capital in the duty free shops at London Airport, but it is usually much less than the cost to the State of providing the capital.
4. The cost and the income are not related in the bureaucratic mind. It follows that the loss is a residual representing the political price that must be paid. Striving after efficiency has thus tended to be fruitless because both the financial inputs and the financial outputs are the result of political determination. Publishing unit costs would at least highlight the extent of the inefficiency.
5. The nationalised industries should be required to keep and to publish detailed unit costs, in the interests of public account-ability.
-3-
Deletein heavy public sector losses, rather than in an attempt being made by the public sector enterprise to improve its performance. The usual reaction is to seek ways of disguising the loss, and/or of disadvantaging the private sector competitor, or better still obliterating it. For instance the National Bus Company sought to dress up its 1975 loss of £19m as a profit of £1m in its accounts the Giro behaved similarly. The B.T.D.B.'s answer to Felixstowe's success was to try to buy it out; the BSC's reaction to competition in special steels was to put up the price of crude steel to its competitors discriminatingly. None of them sought to increase efficiency in order to meet the competition.
2. The sanction of competition for the public sector therefore, although in theory desirable, is not really effective so long as no penalty attends upon losing in that competition. Losses have always been made up in the past. Special pleading as to how they arose has always been accepted. No disciplinary action has ever resulted.
3. There is another respect in which such competition is unfair. Private companies have to raise capital in the market at commercial rates, whereas the Nationalised Industries can borrow from the Exchequer easily and relatively cheaply.
4. It follows that competition between private and public sector companies should be avoided until there is designed for the public sector a financial discipline which really works, and there is equality in the cost of capital raising.
D. FINANCIAL CONTROL
1. It is clear that the next Tory Government will have to manage a sizeable public sector, even if in the long run it can be reduced. The proposals later on in this paper might result in a much larger number of units (albeit a smaller total volume) in the public sector. Further proposals are therefore put forward for managing those concerns with which our government will find itself burdened.
2. The princifal instrument of control should be to set each concern a financial obligation to achieve. This obligation should be expressed as a required rate of return on capital employed. The amount of capital employed in each undertaking is, of course, arbitrary. Many industries have had capital written off, and none has updated the value of its assets to cope with inflation. Government should therefore set arbitrary capital employed figures for each concern, upon which each would be required to pay the prescribed rate of return. (The "capital employed could be increased (or
1. The public sector is very seldom found in successful direct competition with private producers. There are exceptions buses. some ports, special steels, Giro, parts of the National Freight Corporation and a few others. Such competition nearly always results
Delete-3-
in heavy public sector losses, rather than in an attempt being made by the public sector enterprise to improve its performance. The usual reaction is to seek ways of disguising the loss, and/or of disadvantaging the private sector competitor, or better still obliterating it. For instance the National Bus Company sought to dress up its 1975 loss of £19m as a profit of £1m in its accounts the Giro behaved similarly. The B.T.D.B.'s answer to Felixstowe's success was to try to buy it out; the BSC's reaction to competition in special steels was to put up the price of crude steel to its competitors discriminatingly. None of them sought to increase efficiency in order to meet the competition.
2. The sanction of competition for the public sector therefore, although in theory desirable, is not really effective so long as no penalty attends upon losing in that competition. Losses have always been made up in the past. Special pleading as to how they arose has always been accepted. No disciplinary action has ever resulted.
3. There is another respect in which such competition is unfair. Private companies have to raise capital in the market at commercial rates, whereas the Nationalised Industries can borrow from the Exchequer easily and relatively cheaply.
4. It follows that competition between private and public sector companies should be avoided until there is designed for the public sector a financial discipline which really works, and there is equality in the cost of capital raising.
D. FINANCIAL CONTROL
1. It is clear that the next Tory Government will have to manage a sizeable public sector, even if in the long run it can be reduced. The proposals later on in this paper might result in a much larger number of units (albeit a smaller total volume) in the public sector. Further proposals are therefore put forward for managing those concerns with which our government will find itself burdened.
2. The princifal instrument of control should be to set each concern a financial obligation to achieve. This obligation should be expressed as a required rate of return on capital employed. The amount of capital employed in each undertaking is, of course, arbitrary. Many industries have had capital written off, and none has updated the value of its assets to cope with inflation. Government should therefore set arbitrary capital employed figures for each concern, upon which each would be required to pay the prescribed rate of return. (The "capital employed could be increased (or
decreased) annually in the light of any changes in the value of its existing assets. The rate of return should be the same for all industries.)
Delete3. New advances of capital for the industries should be made at a price a little above the cost of capital to the Exchequer, at the time they are drawn, in order, as nearly as possible, to lend to the industries at the same interest rate at which the private sector borrows.
4. This control mechanism is analagous to cash limits. It could but it be used to squeeze public industry a little over the years must not be used to squeeze too hard or it would break down.
5.
It would be important to establish that the required rate of return was totally inflexible. It must eventually be taken for gran that in order to meet the obligation plants must be closed and peopl must be sacked. It would therefore be trebly important for the obligation to be worked out realistically first in relation to the likely rate of inflation, secondly, in relation to the likely relati movement of wages between different groups, and thirdly in relation to the possibility of improving productivity.
6. If the nationalised industries were eventually to be broken up into smaller units, the return on capital obligation could be applied to each unit, just as a holding company with a number of subsidiaries does.
7. The importance of such a policy should be stressed. If the required rate of return on capital was not achieved, either manageme must demonstrate that it was taking effective action to rectify the omission, or it must be replaced. Effective action might mean that men would be laid off, or uneconomic plants would be closed down, on whole businesses sold off or liquidated. The National Freight Corporation, B.S.C., the Giro, Govan shipbuilders would be on the list, among many others, for drastic treatment if this policy were followed.
8. It should be asked whether we have the political willpower foc such a policy. If there were to be weakness in one case doubtless a politically embarrassing one the whole policy would be lost. There is no other way to restore financial responsibility in the public sector of industry. Something like this has to be done if th country's economy is to be brought under control. Nevertheless there is no point in undertaking it if we are not prepared to go through with it.
Waiting For The Out s1.eps 1-6, BBC tv
ReplyDelete1. It is Dan’s first day teaching philosophy in a men’s prison. The lesson soon unravels as he realises he has underestimated his audience – and the weight of his own past. Fixating on small details, Dan loses control of the class, risks his chance of becoming a father and breaks an important promise to Jess. When a familiar face resurfaces, Dan is forced to confront someone he thought he had left behind.
2. Dan finds himself drawn into Samson’s story – a prisoner consumed by grief over the life he took. As Samson struggles with guilt, Dan’s own compulsions resurface. A rare night out is cut short when the brothers are plunged into a tense search through Lee’s old haunts. Amid the chaos, Dan discovers a way to give Samson closure, but it’s clear his own past is closing in.
3. Haunted by memories of his absent father, Dan pushes his mother for answers she won’t give. When Keith presents a lead, Dan spirals into obsession, straining family ties as he unravels at a dinner party
4. Dan’s life begins to move forward as he finds real happiness with Natasha and her son Tristan – until Frank reveals the whereabouts of his father. Curiosity gets the better of him, and Dan chooses to risk everything, hurting those closest to him. Is Dan just as destructive as the man he tried so hard to forget?
5. As Dan’s anxieties spiral, the only thing grounding him is a live feed from his stove – until it cuts out. Painful memories of his father return, while a tense encounter with Keith derails the class. As Dan’s crisis deepens, his actions threaten his entire future, and a confrontation with his past leaves Dan more alone than ever – caught between who he was and who he fears he is destined to be
6. Dan escapes to Berlin and catches a rare glimpse of freedom from the noise inside his head. With his future hanging by a thread, Dan returns home determined to change and make amends. That is, until he meets a man who knew his father and old questions resurface... Faced with a chance to reconnect, Dan is forced to make a decision – will he break the cycle, or is he doomed to repeat the past?
David Maddox, Independent
ReplyDeleteSat, 10 January 2026 at 11:24 am GMT
Labour MPs believe that Keir Starmer’s next U-turn will be on the plan to scrap jury trials as one rebel has warned he is “absolutely confident” it will be defeated.
Kingston upon Hull MP Karl Turner said MPs would be “going stark raving mad” if the Tories had proposed the much-criticised plans and called for a meeting with the prime minister.
“We are absolutely seething with the government, with the prime minister and with David Lammy and I've said to the prime minister I want to see him face to face on this single issue and I expect him to instruct Lammy to stop and think again,” told Times Radio.
And we pay the best part of £200k a year for this?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/article/ministers-have-made-bold-choices-we-need-to-turn-these-into-reality-moj-perm-sec-jo-farrar-on-the-year-ahead
Q: What was your highlight of 2025?
A: Without a doubt returning to the Ministry of Justice as permanent secretary.
Q: What was the hardest part of being a leader in 2025?
A: The huge change agenda
Q: What are the main challenges facing your department in the coming year?
A: Making sure that some big policy changes make a difference and result in more places in prisons, more probation officers and a lower court backlog.
The tr carousel of bullshit, lies & deception has never stopped spinning and the music continues to play... this is lammy's version of the grayling/romeo HMP Peterboro' experiment, i.e. there's no relevant data available for what is proposed, but he pretends there is
ReplyDeletehttps://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/16917/html/
Dr Shastri-Hurst: Lord Chancellor, I would like to come back to the issue of the evidence base for curtailing jury trials. Are you able to confirm whether the Government currently hold empirical data demonstrating that restricting the right to trial by jury will materially reduce the backlog?
Mr Lammy: Yes, of course we do.
Q90 Dr Shastri-Hurst: If that data exists, will you not only publish it but ensure that it includes all the assumptions associated with it, all the modelling and all the sensitivity analysis?
Mr Lammy: As you know, Ministers have a range of data available to them. That data is being updated and validated. Sir Brian relied on some of that data, which will inform our data. As I have said, we will publish the impact assessments alongside the Bill.
Dr Shastri-Hurst: At the risk of repeating the question, you have said that you will publish the impact assessment, but will you include within that all the assumptions, all the modelling and all the sensitivity analysis?
Mr Lammy: I will of course include the assumptions that sit behind where we have got to...
Dr Shastri-Hurst: I have noticed that you are reluctant to use the word “all”. Will you produce all the analysis?
Mr Lammy: I will do what I deem appropriate for the purposes of this Bill passing and to ensure parliamentary scrutiny... Of course, that will be available to the Committee.
Dr Shastri-Hurst: You will be aware that both the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association have concerns about this specific proposal.
Mr Lammy: Of course I am aware.
Q91 Dr Shastri-Hurst: They have requested the data. Is there a reason that that data has not been shared with them at this stage, given that they are such critical stakeholders?
Mr Lammy: We will continue to work with the Bar Council in the usual way, as you would expect.
_______________________________________________________
Q95 Dr Shastri-Hurst: Sir Brian’s report actually envisaged trials taking place with a judge and magistrates, not judges sitting alone. How do the Government reconcile that distinction with the current proposals being put forward?
Mr Lammy: I think Sir Brian recognised that we might come to a different judgment... and, on reflecting on other systems, particularly the system in Canada, I therefore settled on the single judge.
Q96 Dr Shastri-Hurst: Does that not mean that the evidence base that Sir Brian reached was based on his hypothesis of a judge and magistrates, not on a judge sitting alone, and that extrapolating from it would produce a false result?
Mr Lammy: That is why the hon. Member rightly expects the modelling and the impact assessment in relation to the Bill that we have brought forward, and that will be available to the Committee.
Dr Shastri-Hurst: That opens the question that the modelling has not been done to date, and therefore this is a proposal that is—
Mr Lammy: It does not. It opens the question, as I said, that the Government are doing that modelling... I will seek to do what I can in relation to this Committee before then, if I can. That is the undertaking I have given.
Dr Shastri-Hurst: But it is the case that the modelling is not complete at this stage, and therefore it is based on assumptions that—
Mr Lammy: The modelling is ongoing.
Q97 Dr Shastri-Hurst: Do you accept that, even if Sir Brian’s analysis is correct and it leads to a 20% reduction in trial length, that would apply to only a fraction—about 3%—of trials in total?
Mr Lammy: Yes.
"The two things that probation officers say to me are about pay—we will have to settle their pay into next year when we come back in the new year—and workload."
ReplyDelete"I am reluctant to break down the £700 million figure at this stage... I met the inspector to discuss what he is finding, and there are green shoots emerging."
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/16917/html/
Q.153 Chair: I don’t think any of my colleagues are looking to ask additional questions, so I will abuse my position and ask one or two final questions, if I may.
Going back to probation, it is having to do a lot of heavy lifting, for instance in alternatives to custody and early release. The significant sum of £700 million has been mentioned, but can you say how that sum divides between additional probation officers on the one hand and additional tagging, which you were asked about earlier, on the other hand? What confidence do you have, given the very underwhelming inspectorate reports into probation services recently—no fault of the officers, but clearly there is both low morale and underachievement in the service—in how that service, in its current state, will cope with all the additional pressures that your policies are putting on it?
Mr Lammy: Well, that is why the money is so important. It goes back to the points that I made before. The two things that probation officers say to me are about pay—we will have to settle their pay into next year when we come back in the new year—and workload. That is where technology is hugely important, and where investing in further staff and meeting the recruitment targets that we have set is hugely important.
But it is also where our vision, which we set out in Our Future Probation Service, is hugely important. We made that commitment to reducing workloads by 25% by 2027, which is essential, because 2027 is very important once the Sentencing Bill is implemented.
There is also Probation Reset, which is our commitment, very importantly, to ensure that our probation officers are spending more time with the most serious and dangerous offenders, and that we are getting the balance right across the cohort of people who require probation in our communities and working with them to achieve that.
So there is a lot to do, but we all know that when we looked across the criminal justice system, the lowest base of all was probation, because of the botched, unbelievably bad changes that were made by Chris Grayling, which were damaging to a Rolls-Royce service. We have to get it back to being a Rolls-Royce service once again. It has wonderful people, hugely committed, who need a lot of support.
I am reluctant to break down the £700 million figure at this stage. Some of it will be used for recruitment, of course; some of it will be used for Our Future Probation Service and for Probation Reset. I am reluctant to give a breakdown, because this has to be a flexible system, working with probation officers on the ground. I met the inspector to discuss what he is finding, and there are green shoots emerging.
This committee did a lot of heavy lifting
ReplyDeletehttps://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/16917/html/
Q105 Vikki Slade: I said this morning that 18 months ago we were at six-month sentencing for magistrates but, by the time we get to the end of next year, they could be looking at cases with a two-year sentence. That is a very big difference for somebody without legal training and who is effectively a member of the community...
Mr Lammy: The Magistrates’ Association is supporting these reforms and are up to it, but they are not doing that in a way that suggests that they do not require training and investment to go in. Just as magistrates were trained to move from six months to one year, over this next period we have some time—because it will take until the end of the year to get Royal Assent followed by implementation in 2027—to train up our magistrates to take on those new responsibilities.
_______________________________________________________
Q106 Sarah Russell: Lord Chancellor, you have spoken strongly about the importance of centring victims in this discussion, which I entirely agree with. At the moment, the average wait from reporting a rape to the end of a criminal trial is six years. What figure do you think would be acceptable for that period?
Mr Lammy: I would hope that no woman would be waiting much longer than two years to get justice.
_______________________________________________________
Q130 Sir Ashley Fox: Lord Chancellor, I would like to ask you about prisoners released in error. On 2 December, you announced that 12 prisoners had been released in error since your statement on 11 November, with two prisoners still at large. Is that still accurate?
Mr Lammy: I first gave figures on 11 November at my oral statement... I met Dame Lynne Owens just yesterday. She is looking closely at the data issue... It is important that I allow her to do that work, so there will not be further data releases until she comes forward with her report in the early part of next year... There were 800 releases in error under the last Government.
Q132 Sir Ashley Fox: In which year was that?
Mr Lammy: It was very serious. The figure was spiking from 2021. As I have said to you—
Sir Ashley Fox: Two-hundred and sixty-two is an all-time high.
but lammy continues to argue the unwinnable argument
________________________________________________________
Couldn't resist it posting more of it... the Monty Python argument sketch comes to mind:
Deletelammy: ... There were 800 releases in error under the last Government.
Q132 Sir Ashley Fox: In which year was that?
Mr Lammy: It was very serious. The figure was spiking from 2021. As I have said to you—
Sir Ashley Fox: Two-hundred and sixty-two is an all-time high.
Mr Lammy: As I have said to you, there were four different release schemes in the last stage of the last Government, which added to complexity... these errors have happened under both Governments... we need to see that number coming down to historic levels... I believe this to be an issue that is occurring because of complexity, because of paper and because junior people...
Q133 Sir Ashley Fox: Lord Chancellor, you referred to the last Government being responsible for 800 prisoner releases. I assume you are talking of the cumulative figure over 14 years. In 2021, the year you referred to, 54 prisoners were released in error.
Mr Lammy: Within the figures that you have just suggested, there was a spike from just over 50 to 121 under the last Government.
Sir Ashley Fox: But that happened in 2023-24.
Mr Lammy: You accept that there was a spike under the last Government.
Q134 Sir Ashley Fox: You said last month that you had introduced the strongest release checks that have ever been in place for prisoners... Why have there been subsequent mistaken releases since then? Where does responsibility for those mistaken releases lie?
Mr Lammy: I have said that you can never, ever, as a Secretary of State, rule out human error.
Q135 Sir Ashley Fox: When Kebatu was released in error, the Ministry of Justice published his photograph, his name and his offence... Why do not you do that for all releases in error?
Mr Lammy: That must be an operational decision for the police.
Q136 Sir Ashley Fox: You say that it is an operational decision for the police, but in the case of Kebatu I understand that your Department did not even tell the police for seven days that he was on the run.
Mr Lammy: I have said to you that that must be an operational decision for the police.
"because of paper" - quick, increase the AI & tech budget!
Delete"because of junior people" - lammy continues to layer blame on anyone he regards as 'less than'.
"I have said that you can never, ever, as a Secretary of State, rule out human error." - but never his error.
He is a master of 'othering', of a disturbing level of arrogance, trying to dominate conversations with charming phrases: "As I have already told you", etc.
apologies if this has already made it on these pages
ReplyDeletehttps://committees.parliament.uk/publications/50209/documents/271003/default/
Ending the cycle of reoffending – part one: rehabilitation in prisons
Seventh Report of Session 2024–26 HC 469
Old news now. It didn’t mention much about probation. In fact there were no submissions from probation, except for some drivel from Timpson. A few weeks ago Andrew Bridges spoke notably to the inquiry and mentioned probation. Probably relevant to Part 2.
Delete“Andrew Bridges: It is always easy to argue for having more staff. I am conscious of that. I am a bit wary of indulging in wishful thinking, to be honest. I realise that it is your brief to ask. What are we asking probation officers to do? Bear in mind that, at best, they have 40 to 45 minutes a
week per case. I think, in reality, it is probably a bit less. That is not only to see people individually and spend a bit of time with them, but actually do all the work that results from that case. You keep talking, rightly, about liaising with other agencies, how good the communication is, whether you can do the referral, liaise back and inquire of the police, and
this, that and the other. You have to do all that in that time. In principle, that is what you would look for. Youth justice services usually have about 10 per practitioner. They are doing very well, and that is great. These are
considerations that one has to bear in mind looking at it rationally. What are we asking people to do with what is available to them?”
https://committees.parliament.uk/event/25798/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/
https://hmiprobation.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/inspectorate-highlights-from-2025/
ReplyDelete"The publication of our national inspection in April found major shortfalls in national arrangements to support service delivery and keep people safe and, over the year we concluded inspections in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, the East Midlands and Wales regions of the Probation Service where again, public protection was an area of weakness across all PDUs and regions inspected.
The consistent insufficiencies found in public protection practice prompted a pause in our adult inspection programme, and we began a six-month dynamic inspection of public protection, with fieldwork beginning in the South Central region in late October. The first report is due to be published in the New Year, and each report will be followed by follow-up activity with strategic leaders and managers to identify what can be done to support and guide improvement.
In October, we decided to permanently end development on our Inspect Plus inspection tool, but work is underway with MoJ digital to explore alternative long-term solutions for recording inspection activity, and we look forward to sharing more about this project in 2026."
Thanks to the commenter who posted evidence of yet another political séance where leaders pretend to commune with a service they barely understand. It is so predictable, especially this response.
ReplyDeletehttps://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/16917/html/
“Q.153 Chair: Going back to probation, it is having to do a lot of heavy lifting, for instance in alternatives to custody and early release. The significant sum of £700 million has been mentioned, but can you say how that sum divides between additional probation officers on the one hand and additional tagging, which you were asked about earlier, on the other hand?
David Lammy: The two things that probation officers say to me are about pay—we will have to settle their pay into next year when we come back in the new year—and workload. I am reluctant to break down the £700 million figure at this stage.”
Lammy’s comment is indistinguishable from the lines pumped out by senior managers. Platitudes, delay and manufactured ambiguity. The tactic is obvious: stall, avoid detail and quietly block the pay rise. No mystery. Just institutional refusal dressed as process.
The real scandal isn’t what they say; it’s how little they need to say. The unions and the so-called “professional associations” and “voices of probation” offer nothing beyond caution. No escalation, no objection, no appetite to tell staff to withdraw goodwill or disengage from AI, tagging and security pilots that serve everyone except the workforce. Staff are effectively donating labour to their own exploitation.
Probation must stop subsidising its abusers. Pilots, surveys, well-being, staff networks, reward and recognition schemes, awards, staff calls, overtime, anything voluntary that props up the illusion of a humane employer should be dropped. Remove the free enthusiasm and the façade collapses.
But this will not happen. It never does. Three unions, three contradictory messages and none with the credibility to drive collective action. Fragmentation replaces solidarity and ministers and management know it.
And when the RPDs, CPO, Lammy and whoever else pop up as they do, there will still be a queue ready to sell their soul for a photo opportunity because that is all our “leaders” want too: a picture, a title and the pretence of progress while nothing changes. That is why the system endures. Frontline staff cannot say “NO,” cannot say “NOT TODAY.” The damaged machine keeps turning, not out of strength, but because enough people still polish the rust and call it serviceable.
Read every comment above, back to the first at 08:41, then every post back to Guest Blog 107. The pattern never breaks and nothing changes. The pay deal will come but it will be pathetic, and not a penny of that £700 million will reach the front line beyond IT contracts and consultancy invoices. We still do not have basic security in place.
Yet managers and leaders will still appear with buzzwords from the sentencing review, telling us we are “heroes,” insisting that “change is coming,” and promising that the upheaval will be exciting for us, because they have nothing left to sell except slogans, hope and denial.
So the system limps on, hollowed-out, propped by denial, nostalgia and people who mistake endurance for purpose. Instead it decays quietly, year after year, while the workforce absorbs the damage and carries the blame. The end never comes with drama or reform or rebellion, only the slow, unremarkable and never-ending exhaustion of a service that once mattered.
from 2019:
ReplyDeletehttps://leftlion.co.uk/features/2019/07/day-in-the-life-probation-officer/
£200k a year for this level of insight should alarm anyone who cares about public service. Reading that interview, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that senior leadership experience probation almost entirely as an abstract policy problem, not a lived operational reality. “More probation officers” is treated as a headline outcome, not a question of retention, capability, safety or professional depth. Recruitment is presented as success in itself, as if simply adding headcount fixes a service hollowed out by workload, churn, inexperience and unmanaged risk.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s striking is the complete absence of accountability or specificity. No clarity on how many experienced staff are being retained, no breakdown of where the money is actually going, no acknowledgement that constant recruitment into a degraded system simply accelerates burnout and error. This is leadership by press release: vague ambition, recycled language and a refusal to engage with consequences.
If this is what “turning bold choices into reality” looks like, then the reality is that probation is being staffed to look functional, not to be safe, effective or sustainable. Frontline practitioners carry the risk. Senior leaders collect the salaries. That is the model being defended here.
Only in probation could they ask frontline staff on mid-£30ks to low-£40ks to carry the risk, safeguard the public, navigate the chaos and somehow deliver rehabilitation with imaginary resources and then cheerfully drop £70k on somebody to produce a report observing, with astonishing insight, that the whole thing is a shambles. If even half that investment had gone into paying POs and SPOs properly, we wouldn’t have spent the last decade bleeding staff, degrading practice and destroying professional credibility.
ReplyDeleteSalary
The national salary range is £58,511 - £65,329, London salary range is £63,343 - £70,725
https://jobs.justice.gov.uk/careers/JobDetail/13045-HM-Inspector-Adult/13045
There is no longer a knowledge gap. The Ministry of Justice, HMPPS and ministers have been repeatedly and unambiguously informed of the state of probation, the causes of decline and the measures required to stabilise and improve it. This has been documented through inspection findings, parliamentary evidence, academic research and sustained practitioner testimony over many years. The analysis is consistent. The conclusions are settled.
ReplyDeleteWhat is absent is not insight but execution. Decisions not to cap caseloads, not to restore professional autonomy, not to fund pay and staffing in line with risk and responsibility, and not to be transparent about resource allocation are active choices. Delaying detail, deferring pay and substituting technology for capacity do not constitute reform; they function as risk displacement.
The service is now operating beyond its design limits. Workforce goodwill is being used to mask structural insufficiency, while accountability remains diffuse and upward challenge carries little consequence. The continued emphasis on pilots, narratives and future commitments does not alter current delivery conditions or inspection outcomes.
At this stage, continued requests for engagement or patience are redundant. The system has been warned. The evidence has been accepted. The failure to act is no longer inadvertent. It is policy in practice.
Probation is being managed for endurance, not recovery. The question facing decision-makers is not whether this approach is sustainable, but how much further degradation they are prepared to tolerate before accepting responsibility for the consequences.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/deputy-pm-david-lammy-travels-to-washington-to-kick-off-uk-role-in-americas-250th-celebrations
ReplyDeleteUK engagement in America 250 year kicks off with time capsule exchange
Deputy PM to visit his counterpart in the White House to discuss UK-US special relationship, economic growth and long-term peace in Ukraine
DPM to witness court reforms in Toronto that introduced judge-only trials helping speed up justice for victims
Following the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to Washington DC he will travel to Toronto to gather vital information on how judge-alone trials operate in Ontario and what lessons could be learnt for court reform in England and Wales. He will discuss how the system works with senior members of the judiciary and the Attorney General of Ontario, Doug Downey.
16 Dec 2025, lammy *before* his trip to Canada:
Delete"and, on reflecting on other systems, particularly the system in Canada, I therefore settled on the single judge."
7 Jan 2026, lammy's plans for his trip to Canada:
he will travel to Toronto to gather vital information on how judge-alone trials operate in Ontario and what lessons could be learnt for court reform in England and Wales."
Not only is he justice minister & deputy prime minister, he is also a time traveller!
Not sure we can learn much from the US dictatorship that imprisoned more people and a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities than any other country. They are hostile to our version of probation - not enough guns and uniforms. Their system is entirely broken. Better off visiting Europe. Far cheaper and they are actually closing prisons
Delete"Their system is entirely broken"
DeleteAre you implying it was once ok ?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-new-magistrates-wanted-in-2026-as-government-launches-national-recruitment-campaign
ReplyDeleteThe Ministry of Justice has launched a new call for people across England and Wales to volunteer and help deliver swifter justice for victims.
All magistrates are given robust training and an experienced mentor in their first year to develop their skills and legal knowledge.
They are also supported with specialist legal advisors to allow them to deal with a range of cases. The top qualities that the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary look for in potential candidates are good communication skills, a sense of fairness and the ability to see an argument from different sides. Candidates are being sought to fill positions across all jurisdictions including criminal work, youth cases, as well as certain civil and family proceedings.
I missed this one:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.gov.uk/government/news/festive-booze-ban-for-record-number-of-offenders-on-tags
"Statistics published today (30 December) show 4,800 offenders either released from prison or serving a community sentence will wear an alcohol tag over Christmas and New Year.
The tags work 24/7 and quickly detect if an offender has been drinking by analysing their sweat, meaning festive favourites such as mulled wine and prosecco will be strictly off the menu."
"*** If an offender dares to have a drink an alert is sent to their probation officer who can take action to punish them, such as an order to return to court or even prison ***"
The immature language is straight out of, well, you know where:
Delete"If they DARE to do something, anything, i have granted our officers total immunity & they will PUNISH them like no-one has ever been punished before. We have the greatest punishments, strong punishments, punishments no-one has ever thought of before i came up with it."
Trumpism" defined as
DeleteCategorical fantacist believes in self. Anything is possible if I think it. Trumpism seeks to control dominate require acquire and takes anything regardless of millennial convention. Trumpism is blind to insight care compassion humanism. Trumpism alternative name is DALEK. Ergo we will destroy you. Peculiarity seeks peace prizes whilst disguising innate tyrant .
am i right in thinking the uk govt use chatgpt to transcribe conversations & documents that could be legally important, e.g. in a breach situation?
ReplyDeleteWhoa, so here's an extract from an insta account where someone asked chatgpt to spell "committee":
* How many T’s are in the word COMMITTEE?
ChatGPT confidently told me: “Three T’s.”
So I asked where they are.
ChatGPT: “Two in the middle, one at the end.”
Me: “There’s no T at the end.”
ChatGPT: “You’re right. All three are in the middle.”
Me: “So it’s spelled C-O-M-M-I-T-T-T-E-E?”
ChatGPT: “No, it’s C-O-M-M-I-T-T-E-E. Three T’s total.”
It spelled the word correctly with two T’s while insisting there are three.
Then I asked about the E’s. ChatGPT said three E’s. There are two.
This is the AI we’re using to code, write, and make decisions.
It can’t count letters in a simple word, but we trust it with complex tasks.
And as for grok, that'll probably just undress those whose images are published for unpaid work groups.
I don't seek to correct you so apologies your point illustrates you don't trust ai nor do I I know you mean THEY trust this sort of rubbish.
Delete
ReplyDeleteTelegraph reporters Mon, 12 January 2026 at 7:41 pm
Natasha Thorpe, 32, was rushed to hospital with critical injuries after she was targeted by Ryan Gee, 35, during an appointment at the probation office in Preston, Lancashire.
Gee had armed himself with two large knives and a BB air gun, which he brought in a rucksack to his meeting with Ms Thorpe and a male accommodation support officer on July 22 last year.
The defendant appeared “angry from the outset” as they spoke in a private interview room and complained that nobody was helping him, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
He told them “you’ve done f--- all for me for two years” before he removed the weapons from his bag.
Ms Thorpe and other staff members managed to get behind a secure door which Gee tried and failed to open.
The panic alarm was raised and armed police officers arrived eight minutes later to find Gee in the reception area with the gun pointed at the head of Ms Catterall with a knife in his other hand.
The defendant was urged to drop the weapons but replied “shoot me, just shoot me” before he was incapacitated with a Taser.
Ms Thorpe was treated at the scene by paramedics and air ambulance doctors before she was taken to the Royal Preston Hospital with significant blood loss.
Following life-saving emergency treatment she remained in intensive care for two weeks before she spent a further fortnight on the major trauma ward.
Gee had extensive involvement with the probation service following a conviction in April 2023 for causing a child under 13 to watch a sexual act and also escaping from custody which led to an 18-month jail sentence suspended for two years with rehabilitation and unpaid work requirements.
Spells in jail followed as he failed to comply with the requirements and committed offences of exposure and criminal damage during the suspended term.
Prosecutor Mark Rhind KC told the court: “It is now clear that Ryan Gee unreasonably and wrongly came to blame the probation services for his failures to comply with sentences, the resulting sentences of imprisonment and accommodation issues he faced upon his release from custody.
“He began to plan revenge upon probation service officers who he blamed for his situation.”
Gee was sleeping in a tent in Burnley, Lancashire, but accommodation had been found for him, although he launched his attack before the two officers had a chance to inform him of the new arrangements.
Reading her victim personal statement from the witness box, Ms Thorpe, a probation officer for eight years, said she took pride in “keeping others safe” but no longer felt safe in her job.
She said: “That day I believed I was going to die.
Rachel Cooper, defending, said: “Mr Gee expresses considerable regret and remorse to his victims while also understanding that may ring very hollow to them.”
She said a “very complex psychological background” had emerged of the defendant who was said to have endured emotional and sexual abuse in his childhood.
A pre-sentence psychiatric report found complex manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, ADHD and probably an emotionally unstable personality disorder, the court was told.
Judge Stuart Driver KC concluded it was a premeditated attack and jailed Gee for life.
He told the defendant: “You planned to kill at least one person and you nearly succeeded in doing so.
“In pursuit of that plan you used extreme violence which almost caused the death of an entirely innocent young woman who is the mother of two young children.
“You also caused other innocent public servants to endure a terrifying ordeal.”
Gee was sentenced to serve a minimum term of 16 years before he can be considered for release by the Parole Board.
He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to attempted murder, threatening a person with an offensive weapon, false imprisonment, possession of an imitation firearm and two bladed articles.
https://www.napo.org.uk/news/pilot-safety-schemes-across-probation (undated as always)
Delete"Further to the demands that we made to senior Probation management before the turn of the year, that urgent action needs to be taken to demonstrate that staff concerns about their safety at work are being taken seriously, Napo and our sister unions are now engaged in weekly discussions about a number of pilot schemes that are to be trialled in seven locations.
We have insisted that important information such as equality impact assessments and comprehensive details of the schemes be consulted upon before the commencement of the trials in April."
Hey, relax dudes, you've only 3 more months to wait for seven locations to pilot a trial safety scheme. And just in case you thought that was hmpps dragging their feet...
"We [napo] have also made it clear that timely and adequate consultation takes place locally with the unions before the trials are commenced."
So, given the timeliness of the pay awards, it might just be April 2028.
And THAT is exactly how much anyone gives a shit about probation frontline staff.
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/made-schizophrenic-son-homeless-learn-10747077.amp
ReplyDeleteBack to guest blog 107. Still no security in place, nor resources, no pay and recognition.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thesun.co.uk/news/37890989/knifeman-probation-office-blades-gun-stab-worker/?utm_source=sharebar_app&utm_medium=sharebar_app&utm_campaign=sharebar_app_article
Reading this makes me angry, not shocked. This was foreseeable. My thoughts are with the colleagues involved, who went to work to do their job and were put in harm’s way by decisions made far above them. Probation has always worked with risk, but senior leaders have made it dangerous by design. Caseloads are so extreme that meaningful contact is impossible, yet when violence happens it is the practitioner who carries the blame. Parliament has already heard that youth justice practitioners need caseloads of around ten to work safely. Adult probation officers are expected to manage four or five times that with less than an hour a week per person. That is not professional judgement, it is reckless exposure.
DeleteExperienced staff are thinning out, taking instinct and relational knowledge with them, while risk is managed through tick boxes and false reassurance. Those who approve these models would never sit in the rooms we sit in. They impose the danger but never share it.
This was predicted. It was ignored. And the responsibility sits squarely with HMPPS and the Ministry of Justice.
Wholeheartedly agree with you. Im a community NHS mental health worker and we're constantly put in harms way as well and for much of the same reasons as probation staff. I was recently working with a service user who also happened to be on probation following prison release for violent offending, and no one who assessed him in the mental health service made any attempt to contact probation to find out more or do any sort of joined up working. This was likely due to no time to because of high workloads, which management do little to nothing to address. When said patient was discharged, it was done suddenly and without anything in place. Forget safety, as long as boxes are ticked. If said patient offended, management would of blamed staff for apparently not being "boundried" enough, completely forgetting that violent offenders arent known for their respect of boundries.
DeleteI've even witnessed management trying to get staff to scab during the NHS strikes of a few years ago.
Maybe probation and NHS staff need to unite.
From the outside this is sold as modernisation and innovation. From the inside it feels like distance, dilution and denial. More systems, more tags, more pilots, more tick boxes and less actual supervision, less judgement, less relationship. The work is being hollowed out while the risk is quietly redistributed downwards.
ReplyDeleteWe’re told technology will free up time, yet workloads rise. We’re told tagging and remote reporting improve compliance, yet responsibility still lands with practitioners when something goes wrong. We’re told pay and workload are priorities, yet answers are delayed, figures withheld and detail avoided.
It doesn’t feel like progress from where we sit. It feels like the work, the risk and the blame are pushed further down the line, while the people making the decisions stay safely insulated from the consequences. We’re expected to carry it, absorb it and make it work and then answer for it when it inevitably doesn’t.
I have family and friends who work for other civil service departments and they absolutely do not get treated in the way that probation staff do.
ReplyDeleteThis behaviour appears to be particular to the MoJ and underlings in the local areas.
There are lots of vacancies across the civil service and a sideways move might allay the fears and concerns of those who are financially tied to probation.
Brace yourself for more corporate gaslighting and word salad
DeleteI’m 15 years in and still clinging on, always hoping that things will get better but deep down I know the heart and core of probation has been ripped out and is lost.
ReplyDeleteI’m sick of working extra hours to make sure I’ve done all that I can should an SFO happen and to provide the best I can for my own integrity and peace of mind, but I know the higher HMPPS powers above don’t really care…. As long as those boxes are ticked for “performance”. It is just not sustainable and the culture is toxic as the service relies on extra effort, hours and goodwill to keep it going. The HQ powers at the top just give lip service over and over again.
The release of the Preston stabbing by Police today was a harrowing and disturbing watch. He walked in like any other individual that comes in for an appointment. He didn’t look animated, his initial body language gave no clues he had that intent. It’s terrifying. What’s worse is that no action plan or immediate changes were made following Preston on a national level and then the stabbing in Oxford happened. I think anyone that works in probation would have been triggered by that video and anyone directly and closely involved with Oxford would easy have suffered again from seeing that video today. It’s just awful. Again, we have been left in the dark about the specifics about what happened in Preston only to read the news articles about it. It’s simply not good enough. Neither Preston or Oxford are in the office pilots for enhanced security - why not? How can staff be expected to go back into that same environment after such traumatic events? Just a bit of new carpet and everyone will be fine….
Action speaks louder than words.
Yes these instances are (or have been) so rare in the community but I’m now strongly planning my route out as I do not feel the service aligns to my core values anymore and I’m not prepared to work for an organisation that repeatedly shows no care or real compassion to staff. The service is broken - how many HMIP reports do you need to be done to illustrate that? Why can’t HMPPS just say yes we are in an absolute mess.
There are so many amazing hard working knowledgeable practitioners in the service who are totally disillusioned and there is great practice happening everyday but it is hidden by the shit show of tick boxes, skimming the surface of actual people’s lives and papering over the cracks.
I used to feel proud working for the Probation Service. Not anymore.
Don’t forget when you are lying with a knife sticking out of your chest ,you can get a colleague to kick a phone over to you to phone Pam assist.
DeleteThank you for saying this so clearly. Many of us recognise ourselves in every paragraph - the extra hours, the constant background fear of an SFO, the exhaustion of knowing the organisation values performance optics over people.
DeleteThe hardest part is that the pride we once had has been steadily eroded, not by the work itself, but by how little care is shown for those doing it. You’re not alone in questioning whether this service still reflects your values and it matters that these truths are being said out loud.
Totally agree with you - it does feel that staff are not cared about despite assertions about staff well being.
DeleteMy eyes roll every time I see or hear words like wellbeing, self care, mindfulness, inclusive etc. It's not that those things are negative in and of themselves, but we know that in a work context under capitalism, theyre often used to deflect any responsibility from organizations, instead placing it on individuals, as well as acting to make institutions look good, or 'woke' as some might say.
DeleteWe work with people but need to remember that we too are people.
ReplyDeleteThis isn’t the same probation service that many of us signed up for, regardless of what the unions say and whichever government are in charge. None of us are forced to stay.
If we choose to stay working for the service we should support each other, if you are at the point where there is nothing but anger…it might be time to leave. Negativity breeds negativity
We are people, which is exactly why anger is not a personal failing here, it is a rational response to prolonged organisational harm. What many are expressing is not corrosive negativity but accumulated evidence of a system that has been stripped of safety, autonomy, fairness and honesty.
DeleteSaying “none of us are forced to stay” ignores reality. Mortgages, families, geography, pensions and a profession that has been dismantled around us do not make exit simple or neutral. People remain not because things are acceptable, but because walking away is often the last option, not the first.
Calling this negativity also misreads what is happening. Staff are not attacking probation, they are defending what it was meant to be. Silence and positivity have not protected the service. They have allowed its decline to continue unchallenged.
Anger here is not toxic, it is diagnostic. It tells us something is badly wrong. If people stop speaking this honestly, nothing improves.
That's a good point. I recently had a colleague say that she thought striking workers were hateful, and I've heard lower band staff question why other un or less skilled staff strike, more or less not seeing them or themselves as worthy. How can we raise consciousness and deal with these bootlickers ?
DeleteIf you are a NAPO member please use your vote. It's up to you how you vote but please use it and return any ballot paper. Any UNION relies on this basic act as well as general union support and involvement.
ReplyDelete" What we’re describing here isn’t just burnout or disappointment, it’s prolonged exposure to organisational conditions that steadily strip people of agency, confidence and health. When staff talk about self-preservation, it’s because the system has normalised harm and then reframed leaving as personal weakness rather than a rational response"
ReplyDeleteThat sounds very much, and by very much, I mean the same, as the situation in the NHS.