Staff Responses

James,

Your sudden concern about the impact on our families is difficult to take seriously. For years, staff have been overworked, underpaid, and stretched beyond reasonable limits, and the strain that has placed on our families has gone largely unacknowledged.

It rings hollow to hear about “extraordinary” people and work while sitting on a six-figure salary and defending a 4% pay offer that is, frankly, abysmal and does not come close to reflecting the value of the work being done or the cost of living. If we are truly extraordinary, then an extraordinary pay offer — somewhere in the region of 12–20% — would demonstrate that far more convincingly than repeated messaging ever could.

You continue to point to London weighting and prison supplements, yet the majority of probation staff do not work in London or in prisons. Those examples are not representative of the reality most practitioners face.

The follow-up communications insisting the current offer is generous feel less like engagement and more like pressure. Staff are not asking for rhetoric. We are asking for fairness, respect, and pay that reflects reality.

Had the hundreds of millions currently being poured into tagging, IT and AI contracts none of us want — designed largely to relieve prison overcrowding by shifting the burden onto probation — been used more wisely, probation might once again stand as a sentence in its own right. Practitioners would be able to do the good, traditional probation work that actually supports rehabilitation and protects the public.

So no, I won’t be voting to accept peanuts. There, I’ve had my say.

Anon

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After a while you stop reacting to this stuff. The delays, the careful wording, the reassurance that someone somewhere thinks it’s reasonable. It all blurs into the background noise of the job, like the constant “temporary” pressures that never go away.

Calling the work “extraordinary” is becoming almost ironic. Extraordinary work, ordinary pay, permanent shortages, and a steady stream of communications telling us to be patient just a little longer. There’s always another explanation, another comparison, another reason why this is actually better than it looks.

For many of us, progression isn’t even relevant anymore. We’ve been at the top of the scale for years. Including that in the headline figure just confirms how far removed these conversations are from the reality of experienced staff.

What’s hardest to take isn’t even the number. It’s the sense that this is presented as the best that could possibly be achieved, as though the last decade hasn’t happened, as though people haven’t quietly left in large numbers, as though morale isn’t already on the floor.

You mention families. Most of us have been managing the impact on our families for years — the late finishes, the stress, the constant feeling of carrying too much risk with too little support. That part didn’t start with this pay round, and it won’t end with it either.

At this point, people aren’t angry so much as tired. Tired of being told to wait. Tired of being told this is progress. Tired of hearing how valued we are while watching the service hollow out.

The ballot will say what it says. I don’t expect miracles from it, but at least it’s one of the few moments where staff get to express a view that isn’t filtered, reframed, or summarised on their behalf. Until the next email arrives explaining why whatever happens is also a good outcome.

Anon

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Recent times seem to have brought us an embarassment of riches when it comes to bullying by overload; Trump, Johnson, Netanyahu are but three prime examples of many. In effect they swamp everyone with a tsunami of bullshit, of lies, of misdirections, of extreme positions - and everyone is left reeling, unsure of which to react to, which is the most heinous, which deserves to be taken seriously as a threat. So people become tired, exhausted & almost bored, unable to respond in any meaningful way... and thus something slips through that would otherwise have been derided & defeated.

And thus we have experienced MoJ/NOMS/HMPPS acting in a similar manner over the last decade or so, albeit at the behest of the elected government. They are happy to gaslight, reframe, lie & deceive in order to achieve their targets. They have swamped, overwhelmed & bullied staff until their resistance is virtually gone. Many hundreds of experienced & knowledgeable staff have left, replaced with several 'cohorts' of new, eager lambs who are unaware of the slaughter they are about to experience. The justifiable cynism about Napo has left them without union membership; the joy of this is barely hidden in the sarcasm of mcewen's email: "please consider joining one of our excellent unions and have your voice heard."

Join a union and vote NO. It's time to show Whitehall that probation does have a bark AND a bite to be reckoned with; it isn't merely a pack of whmpering puppies.

Anon

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This is a brilliantly articulated comment. The analogy to the political "tsunami of bullshit" is spot on—it's the perfect description of how organisational leadership, just like the populist politicians you mention, creates a state of permanent crisis and exhaustion. It’s a deliberate tactic: flood the zone, blur the lines, and make everything so noisy that no single scandal or failure can gain enough traction to actually stick.

Your point about the exodus of experienced staff and the arrival of "eager lambs" is the tragic core of it. The institutional memory is gone, and without it, the new cohort doesn't have the historical comparison to know just how far standards have slipped. They just think this chaos is normal.

And that McEwen quote you pulled—"please consider joining one of our excellent unions and have your voice heard"—does reek of a tick-box exercise. It’s the kind of placating gesture that does indeed barely hide the sarcasm. It says "we've done the consultation," not "we value your input."

You're absolutely right. The only counter to being treated like a whimpering pack is to show some teeth. Joining a union and voting No isn't just about this one issue; it’s about proving that the workforce isn't broken yet. It’s about saying that while they may have swamped us, they haven't sunk us.

ANARCHIST PO