We're just a dumping ground for the prison service. The beleaguered cap doffers. The national guidelines only favour the prison especially for releases. No push back allowed from community probation. How dare we have concerns from the houses of staff shaggers of offenders (weekly convictions), spice deliveries and the illicit EE shops of illegal mobile phones. So much so that we were not rated by the MOJ, despite the gaslighting, £50 vouchers (rarely) and placating about how valued we are. We literally have to beg for a pay rise, but the prisons don't. That kind of tells you where the political agenda is. Oh, but community probation, you get on with reducing the prison population with zero investment, such as proper ETE intervention.
We're just the poor stepchild of the MOJ. "An extraordinary job done by someone like you" but paid lip service to our supposed relevance. We're all now registered POs, but have less and less autonomy and respect and you wonder why people are disgruntled? Value comes from your own zeal and motivation but it also comes from being paid properly in a dignified manner that doesn't look protracted and undignified. They really don't care about us, other than to dump their warehoused offenders for the real work to commence. But we barely have any investment in the community to be effective. This is all by design. Circus, monkeys, fatigue.
Stop making criminal justice policy by placating people who are too dim to know what a minimum tariff is. Social media is awash with stupid people, jerking knees and foaming at the mouth with a distastefully informed racism and xenophobia wherever they see someone convicted of a crime. It's why prisons have primacy.
Anon
This nails something many of us feel but rarely see stated so plainly: probation has become the system’s shock absorber. When prisons are full, we absorb the pressure. When policy backfires, we absorb the risk. When ministers need a headline, we absorb the consequences. And we’re expected to do it quietly, cheaply, and gratefully.
ReplyDeleteThe imbalance is structural. National guidance, release decisions, recall thresholds, they overwhelmingly privilege prison priorities, while community concerns are framed as obstruction or risk aversion. Push back is tolerated only when it aligns with reducing the prison population, never when it involves protecting staff or making work viable. That tells you everything about where power sits.
And yes, the pay saga exposes it brutally. We don’t negotiate, we plead. We wait. We’re managed through delay, praise, vouchers, and rhetoric about “extraordinary work”, while prisons are treated as politically essential infrastructure. That isn’t an accident. It reflects a political culture that understands custody, optics and punishment but not rehabilitation, prevention or community safety.
What makes this corrosive is that probation is still expected to deliver the hardest work: managing risk in the community, stabilising chaos, holding people who are unwanted everywhere else without the investment, authority or autonomy to do it properly. Then we’re blamed when outcomes aren’t perfect.
You’re right: this isn’t drift. It’s design. Exhaustion substitutes for investment. Moral pressure replaces pay. Fatigue becomes a management tool. And the public discourse, driven by punitive noise rather than understanding, gives ministers cover to keep prisons centre stage while probation does the invisible labour.
People aren’t disgruntled because they don’t care. They’re disgruntled because they care in a system that no longer values that care. And no amount of “extraordinary job” messaging can paper over that reality.
“We don’t do it for the money. We’re doing an extraordinary job.”
ReplyDeleteThat line is what probation leaders and justice ministers use when they want people to shut up and carry on. It’s not inspiring. It’s a way of excusing bad pay and dressing it up as values. It turns being underpaid into something staff are supposed to feel grateful for.
Nobody at the top lives by this rule. Ministers don’t work for vocation. Senior leaders don’t accept purpose instead of salary. Consultants don’t invoice in goodwill. Only probation staff are told that caring about the job should make low pay acceptable. It’s manipulation and exploitation.
Probation is called complex, risky and vital right up until pay is mentioned. Then suddenly there’s “no money” and “hard choices.” That claim falls apart instantly when you look at the numbers. The service has managed a £100 million underspend, while the wider system has found £700 million for electronic tagging. So stop pretending this is about affordability as the money exists. Their choice is not to spend it on staff.
And then there’s the £20 “reward and recognition” vouchers. Giving trained professionals £20 and calling it appreciation is an embarrassment. It’s scraps which says: we know you’re overloaded, stressed, and carrying risk, but this is all we’re willing to offer. No serious organisation treats skilled staff this way and still expects respect.
This will continue because no one really stops it. Probation’s unions and professional bodies talk about values, but when it comes to pay and status, they achieve very little. If you cannot force better pay than 4% on already low salaries, challenge ministers, or hold leaders to account, then they’re not representing workers, but we know this already.
So the cycle goes on. Ministers dodge responsibility. Leaders hide behind slogans. Unions soften the anger. Staff are told to remember why they joined. People burn out, leave, or switch off.
If this really is an extraordinary job, then Pay people properly.
The issue of commensurate pay has been around for a long time which tells me that Senior leaders have not negotiated with Ministers in anything other than their own nest feathering….we are the dumping ground for societies ills and convenient scapegoats when things go wrong. We have a weak union and a compliant workforce, a toxic mix which means that progress is glacial in monetary terms, the answer is in who will change this dire situation. We no longer have CPOs who fight for their staff but a raft of followers of the managerialism principles which bends the knee to the centre. Tying us to the Civil Service was one way to curtail things but even in that we are third class citizens and don’t even have the benefits of being full members and exist in an undefined hinterland. Meanwhile we toil away around the clock convinced that what we do is not for the service but for the individuals we try and help….they know this and exploit it ruthlessly…..I have seen work to rules, challenges to the status quo, etc however, none of which have been successful. We have financial commitments which makes it harder to walk away, SPOs are now (in the main) protecting their positions and meanwhile we are placated with platitudes………as a replacement for a salary which does not acknowledge the level of risks that we deal with on a daily basis……..Superman,where are you !
ReplyDeleteThat comment hits an uncomfortable truth, but the key issue isn’t just weak negotiation or individual failings at the top, it’s the structure that rewards compliance and punishes challenge.
DeleteSenior leaders don’t fail to fight by accident. The system selects for those who will absorb pressure from the centre and pass it down, not push it back up. Once probation was folded into HMPPS and the Civil Service pay machinery, the role of CPO shifted from advocate to administrator. Career survival now depends on alignment, not resistance. That’s why platitudes replace leverage.
You’re also right about exploitation. The service relies on two things it knows it can count on: staff’s sense of moral duty and their financial immobility. People stay because they care about the individuals they work with and because mortgages, families and pension traps make exit costly. That combination is ruthlessly efficient. It allows risk, workload and responsibility to rise while pay stagnates, because walking away is harder than carrying on.
Work to rule and challenge fail not because they are wrong, but because they are isolated and episodic. Without sustained collective pressure, the centre can simply wait it out. Delay is the strategy. Fatigue is the weapon.
This isn’t about needing a superhero. It’s about acknowledging that the current model is working exactly as designed: contain cost, manage optics, exhaust resistance, and rely on goodwill to fill the gaps. Until that is named honestly, nothing changes.
HMPPS All Staff Call on Pay this morning. What was all that about. A succession of wizards and orcs propagandising and gaslighting like I've never ever seen from the employer before. But at least the nodding poodle was no longer grinning inanely today.
ReplyDelete🤣 great analysis! Joking aside, staff absolutely recognise spin when they hear it. If the offer really spoke for itself, it wouldn’t need theatrics, framing tricks or warnings about what might happen if we say no. Do they really think we can’t see what they’re doing.
DeleteWhat genuinely worries me is exhaustion. After months of delay and pressure, some people may accept simply because they need the money and want this over. That’s understandable, but it’s exactly what this process relies on.
This feels like a pivotal moment. If this is accepted, it doesn’t just settle this year, it sets the terms for the next round and normalises delay, spin and below-inflation offers dressed up as generosity. I really hope staff aren’t taken in by the performance and that it instead galvanises an already angry workforce to show the employer they can’t keep treating us like this.
What all staff call? Nobody in my office were made aware of an all staff call.
DeleteComms went out very close to the call?
DeleteHaving just listened to the all-staff call with Kim Thornden-Edwards and Ian Barrow, it’s hard not to conclude that staff were being subtly but deliberately steered towards accepting this offer. We were told repeatedly how “generous” it is, how it goes “beyond the remit”, and crucially that rejecting it could result in a worse outcome. Even with the caveat that this was “unlikely”, the message was clear enough: accept this now because you might regret it later.
ReplyDeleteThat is not neutral information sharing. That is pressure.
The call crossed into soft coercion. The language was careful, but the intent was obvious. For an exhausted workforce, repeatedly framing acceptance as the safe option while floating the risk of a worse deal is not balance, it is influence. It also strays into territory that should belong to unions, not senior leaders.
The honest framing would have been simple. Rejecting the offer does not automatically mean a worse one. It means the dispute escalates to the next lawful stage. What happens then depends on union strength, turnout and collective pressure. That is how collective bargaining works.
But saying that does not help land a 4% offer.
Instead, staff were encouraged to see rejection as a gamble rather than a legitimate negotiating position. For those at the top of bands with no CBF progression, this remains a delayed, below-inflation rise, dressed up by re-counting progression money already paid to inflate the headline figure.
If this offer genuinely stood on its merits, it would not need fear, fatigue or hypothetical worse outcomes to sell it.
Sorry only read the first bit let me say to thornden Edwards who lacks real experience in thes matters and is clearly a mouthpiece and spouts crap. Also Napo might learn something here for the clown. An offer of 4% is their opening and is not conditional to a reduced offer. The unions reject any offer as too low not under threat it can be withdrawn and a lower offer comes in. Had Edwards had half a brain they should have stated 3% and settled at 4. That said mass rejection take action teach this idiot woman a lesson in how diplomacy under threat fails immidiatly . You can guess what I think of her ignorance nasty.
DeleteAlso having just completed reading your excellent post I completely agree sorry my irritation took us to where Thorndon has no scope . Leader are selected because they have no conscious awareness of coercion abuse or manipulation. I bet her husband is doing the housework and following daily orders .
DeleteI know we are all very angry and feel used however lats not bring sexism into the debate. We ALL need to stick together to fight the cause!
ReplyDeleteApologies I won't argue that corner my frustration. I didn't need to post at all if your 1149 it was excellent assesment said it better than my penny of irritation. What I think is being sensible is ms Edwards what have you had played a bad opening to all staff. We should redirect the narrative on how desperate they clearly are to get 4% across the line fast. We can all wait longer for a back pay issue because it's a small back pay rate. However if Napo brain up and I mean we have to write it down for him the GS is not able. We should be arguing 1 take action including action of strike. Reject the pay offer and ask for a better by closing on this date in the near future to avoid unions seeking a costly ballot. No improved we ballot advising members to reject the offer and plan for real national strikes that freeze court work parole early release anything major that causes clear aggressive disruption. Any practitioner in the roles will know we can draft a series of real actions that will damage the justice process at the point of need. Hostels receptions and casework all figure on the containment of high sex offender management. We go for every tender area regardless based on the abusive Edwards cohesion threat carrot nonsense. What really needs is a new Napo lead who knows how to fight for the members. I recall JB campaigned himself and made Napo do the judicial review. We should try and Napo to manage a real dispute and force Lawrence to do his job or stand aside so we can deliver some real effective industrial action that works and we get a real pay improvement. By the way if Napo read this doing a job like GS perhaps he might learn to look after members to earn some respect than expect the same pay when he does sweet fa. Chance to shine try it pup.
Delete
DeleteI understand the frustration behind this, and there is a serious point buried in it that shouldn’t get lost. What today’s call exposed is not confidence in the offer, but urgency to land it quickly. That alone tells you this is not the ceiling.
The backpay argument cuts both ways. Because the headline uplift is so low, the backpay is relatively modest. That weakens the pressure to rush acceptance and strengthens the case for holding the line and escalating properly.
Rejection does not end the process. It moves it into the next lawful stage. At that point the employer faces a choice: improve the offer or absorb disruption. That is how collective bargaining works when it is taken seriously.
If unions want credibility with members, they need to be clear, disciplined and strategic. Set a deadline. Demand movement. Prepare members honestly for escalation rather than managing expectations downwards. Industrial leverage only works if it is credible and organised, not hinted at or apologised for.
This moment is not about personalities. It’s about whether probation is prepared to accept another below-inflation settlement after a year of delay, or whether it finally tests how much this service is actually worth to those who rely on it functioning.
I won't add to that brilliance of a post . Members of they understood the bigger value of rejecting the offer adopting a strike position the management are in trouble. This time more than ever we need to be counted in than out. I think 7% is the position on this round and in response to the abusive delay and the awful last 2byear deal that has been forced into 3 years while we have ploughed on. Love your post above says it exactly right.
DeleteI share the anger about the pay offer and the way the all-staff call was handled, but the personal and sexist comments don’t help us and they undermine the argument. Criticise the role, the decisions, the messaging and the behaviour by all means but dragging gender or personal lives into it weakens an otherwise legitimate case and divides people who need to be aligned right now.
ReplyDeleteThe problem here isn’t who Kim Thornden-Edwards is, it’s what was said and how it was framed. The soft coercion, the suggestion that rejection risks something worse, and the attempt to steer staff emotionally towards acceptance are the issue. That deserves challenge on its merits.
We’re at a point where unity matters more than venting. Anger is justified. Sexism isn’t. Keep the focus where it belongs if we actually want to change anything.
I made the apology let's not overdo the obvious the post above has it succinct and we need to show ms Edwards the door for her gross misplay of members mood. Perhaps she will learn something.
DeleteIf you felt got at, that genuinely wasn’t my intention and I’m sorry for how it may have landed. My post went up before the apology was added, so there was no attempt to prolong or overdo the point.
DeleteWhat matters far more than that brief overlap is the substance, which hasn’t changed. The all-staff call misjudged the workforce mood and crossed from information into persuasion. That deserves scrutiny regardless of timing or apologies.
We don’t help ourselves by getting pulled into side arguments. The real issue is how a below-inflation offer was framed to an exhausted workforce, and why that approach provoked the reaction it did. That’s where the focus needs to stay.
Thank you of course it's overlap but I complete agree with you no harm felt at all I exercised the descriptive a bit to far although still moderate given some of the conversations I picked up on at lunchtime. People are furious let down I'm and we are not alone and it may have galvanised a strong reaction. You absolutely right though focus on what we need not my waffle that was off beam
DeleteCompletely agree. The tone in offices is far stronger than anything written here, and that’s important context. What people are expressing isn’t theatrics, it’s the release of a lot of pent-up frustration after a long period of delay, spin and feeling unheard.
DeleteIf anything, the strength of those lunchtime conversations shows how misjudged the call was. This isn’t a workforce that needs persuading or calming, it’s one that needs to be taken seriously. The anger didn’t come from one comment or one phrase, it’s been building for years.
Hopefully that energy now gets focused on what actually matters: rejecting a poor offer, holding the line collectively, and forcing a proper reset on how probation staff are treated.
In this case KTE, is advocating on behalf of a government pay policy which pays her grade very well thank you, but the rest of us line up for any crumbs that drop from the top table !
ReplyDeletehttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68f75db3f038caddfad11a44/HMPPS_Org_Chart_October_2025.pdf
ReplyDeleteBiography
Kim Thornden-Edwards is the Chief Probation Officer for England and Wales and a senior leader at Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. Probation employs around 20,000 staff working, in 11 regions and Wales, and includes the National Security Division which manages the highest risk offenders including those who have committed terrorist offences.
Kim joined the Civil Service in June 2021 to work within the Probation Workforce Programme, taking on the role of Programme Director in November of the same year. The programme is part of a major change initiative, aimed at improving the capacity and capability of the probation workforce.
Before this, Kim was the Managing Director of Interserve Justice, a private sector provider delivering a range of government contracts for Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC) and prison industries.
Kim qualified as a Probation Officer in Kent in 1996 and has spent her career in and around probation and criminal justice. She has held senior operational positions, including Head of Operations in Greater Manchester CRC and Chief Executive of Hampshire CRC.
Chief Probation Officer
leading the Probation Service in England and Wales, an organisation that supervises offenders in the community on court orders, on licence from prison and subject to Post-Sentence Supervision
driving excellent practice across the Probation Service, with a particular emphasis on risk management and public protection.
ensuring the Probation Service reduces reoffending by delivering the best possible sentence management and interventions.
Probation pay? Pah! This is what the govt prefers to spend its money on... lining the hand-stitched pockets of its preferred bidders & their millionaire chums:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgvn4rr03vo
"Firms connected to Dr Faisal Maassarani became landlords of Serco hotels in 2022 when asylum applications were almost at a 20-year high.
But soon after a hotel in Seel Street in Liverpool owned by one of the firms was found to be unsuitable, people in one of their Liverpool housing complexes were told they had to move out over "urgent" fire safety issues, unaware that 116 asylum seekers had seemingly been lined up to replace them almost immediately.
Maassarani's involvement with one of the firms was hidden behind a complex structure of companies and trusts registered in the Isle of Man
Between 2021 and 2022, a company he had founded, Schloss Roxburghe Holdings, acquired about £5m of freeholds on buildings that were originally owned by property developer Elliot Lawless before his companies went into administration.
In August 2022, when some of Maassarani's business associates bought the Waverley Hotel in Whitehaven in Cumbria, Serco moved asylum seekers into it within a week.
In November, one of Maassarani's companies then spent £3.5m buying the King's Gap hotel in Hoylake, which had been running as asylum seeker accommodation since 2020.
The Wirral hotel remains asylum seeker accommodation, but the Cumbria hotel was closed in December 2023, owing more than £170,000 to unpaid staff and His Majesty's Revenue and Customs.
Maassarani set up SRH in 2018 in the Isle of Man. Its directors were all professionals from other Isle of Man or British Virgin Islands-based firms... The GP said the revelation of his involvement in the company was not in the public interest, that he derived no financial income from it
The Home Office – which the BBC understands has to approve all accommodation looking to be used by Serco - has declined to comment on its providers' commercial relationships.
Prison POMs have responsibility of low & medium risk cases. After their pay rise last August, they're all on a starting salary of approx £44k.
ReplyDeleteSo picture this regular scene, a prisoner is too complex for a Prison POM, they're then escalated to a Probation POM, with more experience, and qualifications, but on (a lot) less money.
HMPPS needs to be alligned. OMU Governors are often on more money than PDU Heads, despite having equal responsibility to an OMiC SPO.
There is a reason why OMiC staff are bleeding over to the prison side of HMPPS - and until the top brass learn their lesson, long may it continue.
Or we stop pretending this can be fixed inside HMPPS at all. As long as probation sits inside a prison-led structure, pay, policy and priority will always tilt towards custody. That isn’t bias, it’s organisational gravity.
DeleteProbation needs its own leadership, budget and bargaining power. Separate accountability. Separate pay logic. Separate political visibility. Without that, alignment will always mean probation bending around prison needs, not the other way round.
If separation sounds radical, it’s only because people have normalised a model that clearly isn’t working.
Sorry but not all prison POMs are on £44k - it is only operational POMs as they get 20% unsocial hours allowance and a lot of them are on 39 hours. “Civilian” prison band 4 POMs are on approx £33k. This also creates division in OMUs as they are doing the same job as prison colleagues for a lot less - however they don’t have to work weekends evenings or bank holidays.
DeleteLosers
ReplyDeleteHas anyone seen the TV advert for probation. Probation staff looking like they have all the time in the world to develop rapport with PoPs. When the reality is being chained to computer.
ReplyDeleteI have been so furious about the tone of the all staff meeting, the blatant gaslighting and veiled threats, the shameful and insulting pay offer, the spin and the lack of care for our security that I don’t know what to do with myself this evening. It’s all going round in my head. I wish we had a strong union.
ReplyDeleteAlso it has occurred to me this evening that I have never suggested, in a RMP, installing a locker in someone’s house to prevent them attacking someone in the future. Clearly the parole board will be blinded by the brilliance of me imposing that on the next licence I complete, as it’s bound to work.
Why waste time attending the meeting at all? The outcome was decided before anyone logged in. One union said don’t accept. The employer called everyone together to say the opposite. That wasn’t consultation — it was instruction. A managed exercise to pressure people into accepting a bad deal because resistance is inconvenient. This is how it always works: dress compliance up as engagement, talk it through until people give in, and rely on workers behaving like good, quiet subordinates.
Delete…and this coercive call is the same every time. It is not dialogue; it is pressure. The unions won’t unite. Ignore GMB Scoop, it shields senior grades while everyone else is squeezed.
DeleteThe script is fixed: 4% is offered. The employer expects unions and staff to roll over, as usual. The unions posture with 10% and an “or else” that means nothing. Then comes 6–12 months of delay to exhaust people and drain resistance. A revised offer appears, maybe 5%, maybe 6%. The unions fold and sell it as a win.
Even if it is only 1% more, or even 6% more, hold out for better. Don’t cave in to them. That is the point of the call: wear people down and manufacture consent. Nothing else.