“Investment”
“Transformation”
“Technology”
“Opportunity”
Meanwhile HM Inspectorate of Probation has just reported that less than half of cases are meeting the standard to keep people safe. Less than half. Apparently that’s what “rebuilding the service” looks like now.
- Two thirds staffing.
- SPO shortages.
- AP beds full.
- Pre-release planning collapsing.
- Reset disrupting risk work.
- Early releases dumped on already stretched teams.
The language is the giveaway. “Difficult choices will need to be made.” Translation:
- cut contact,
- script supervision,
- move people through faster and hope nothing blows up.
It’s not reform. It’s rationing. They’re not strengthening probation. They’re shrinking it and calling it innovation. And the real insult? This is all being sold as a success story, while the people actually doing the job are told to clap for 4% and be grateful. If this is what £700 million buys, I’d love to see what underfunding looks like!
- You can’t run public protection on PowerPoint slides and pilots.
- You can’t replace experience with “digital solutions.”
- And you can’t collapse standards to under 50% and still pretend the system is fine.
Anon
--oo00oo--
"While sufficient work to keep people safe was not evident in enough of the cases we inspected, following the region’s inspection in 2024, we also saw strategic progress in strengthening public protection work, improved staff accountability and engagement, and a commitment to building a culture that supported learning and psychological safety."
Riddle me this, Jones: how the fuckity fuck fuck can "sufficient work to keep people safe was not evident" be construed as "strategic progress in strengthening public protection work, improved staff accountability and engagement, and a commitment to building a culture that supported learning and psychological safety."
It's word salad; it's meaningless drivel... it's a sequence of non sequiturs throughout. But t'was always thus in HMI probation reports, with areas/OMU's scoring teen% yet leadership rated as strong. Gotta protect that pension pot (and the gong they promised if you behave).
Anon
--oo00oo--
It’s the classic inspection paradox, isn’t it. “Work to keep people safe not sufficient in most cases”…but somehow also…“strategic progress, strengthened protection, psychological safety, positive culture.”
If this were any other profession, failing in over half of cases would be called what it is:failure. In probation it gets translated into management poetry. Because admitting the obvious, that the service is under-resourced and unsafe, would mean confronting the people who control the budget. So instead we get paragraphs of soft language and “green shoots”. It’s not analysis. It’s cushioning.
When less than half of cases meet the required standard, that isn’t “progress”. That’s a red warning light. But red doesn’t look good in a ministerial briefing, so we get beige.
Anon
--oo00oo--
"It’s not analysis." Fucking too right... Jones' lukewarm fudge would have been dismissed out of hand by a judge.
I know I'm reaching back in time here, bear with me... if such equivocal nonsense had ever been submitted to a court in a full PSR (remember them, peeps?) the judge/magistrate would have had a dickie fit. On one occasion the Crown Court liaison PO told me "the judge asked me to tell you to make your bloody mind up. He's adjourned the case for a week to allow you time to have a good, hard think & re-submit something of value." Those were the days when a report would be read in advance by the sentencing judge and the CCLO quizzed about any discrepancies or outlandish proposals.
I dread to think what passes as a report these days.
Anon
Fear not, the Sentencing Act has swooped in to save probation … tougher community sentences, shiny AI and tech, £700m on tagging, 1,000 new wide-eyed trainees primed for “extraordinary” work and a mighty 4% pay increase. Workloads explode, staff flee, prisons offload chaos onto probation… but hush now, “we don’t do this job for the money”; the golden era is upon us, our leaders say so.
ReplyDeleteamen to that.
DeleteApparently if you say “investment” enough times, reality changes.
DeleteFunny how the money always appears for tech, contracts and pilots overnight — but never for the boring stuff that actually keeps people safe: experienced staff, manageable workloads, decent pay.
Probation doesn’t need gadgets.
It needs people.
And people don’t stay for gratitude.
Reset halts any rehabilitation work probation might have been doing. Where is rehabilitation in all this? !
ReplyDeleteThey want management of liberty rehabilitation is desirable but not essential or affordable.
DeleteWe’ve quietly gone from “advise, assist and befriend” to “process, record and close.”
DeleteNot from many colleagues it was not a quiet issue however too many Napo colleagues wanted appeasement closed discussion. Unfortunately what we got was sold out by the general secretary bullshitter.
DeleteBallot online time to stick up for ourselves
ReplyDeleteAt this point it’s basic self-preservation.
DeleteThey’ve shown very clearly what happens when we don’t push back:
More work.
Less time.
Lower standards.
Worse pay.
And then a thank-you email.
Nothing changes unless staff collectively say “enough”.
Voted no
DeleteVoted No and encouraging people who are not members to rejoin and oust the General Secretary. Let’s make Napo great again.
DeleteOn the question around pay, can someone please help me understand (as anything with numbers melts my brain...).
ReplyDeleteThey are touting the June uplift as part of the pay settlement, but am I right in thinking that that was actually linked to CBF and they are in fact padding the numbers?
Yes that's correct. If you are not at the top of your pay band then you go up regardless of any total % increase, as long as you have completed CBF. The new pay calculator states I will have a total of 8% increase which is completely false.
DeleteSo it's technically correct, but 4% of that came from the CBF pay progression we were entitled to anyway so they're fluffing the numbers.
DeleteCompletely false, just as the CBF is in itself an instrument to maintain control….
ReplyDeleteThey are fiddling the numbers by including already pre agreed pay progression (dependent on CBF) rises in the offer which I find insulting and infuriating. It’s a shit deal and I know everyone’s circumstances are different but vote no if you want any chance of change .
ReplyDeleteBreach and recall everyone no one who reads this blog is in the union or votes
ReplyDeleteA lot of commentary is from Napo members retired staff and friends of probation how could you say it's not this or that.
DeleteI’m Napo. I voted no.
DeleteMaybe don’t confuse criticism with not caring.
I’m unionised and I voted no.
DeleteSo that theory falls apart pretty quickly.
Sometimes people aren’t disengaged.
They’re just not buying what’s being sold.
NAPO here, voted no.
DeleteI’m unionised and I voted NO,
DeleteI voted no.
ReplyDelete4% is crap!
I voted no
ReplyDeleteI voted no.
ReplyDeleteNapo member and I voted NO
ReplyDeleteThanks for those posts and indicative votes it shows a membership illustrating we are active and being counted.
DeleteFirstly, I vote no!
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I agree with the Public Accounts Committee, a well-run probation service is a must-have. That much is obvious. What isn’t obvious is how anyone thinks a service on its knees can be stabilised with a measly 4% pay offer. If we’re serious about building something that actually works, then 20% is a starting point, not some wild, irresponsible demand. You don’t rescue a collapsing system with loose change, glossy adverts and motivational quotes.
No one is surprised that HMPPS’s latest shiny programme, Our Future Probation Service, is unlikely to be sufficient. A rebrand is not reform. It’s the same system, the same pressures, the same culture of JFDI and abuse just wrapped in nicer language. And the delusions of AI and increased tagging as a solution? That’s technological wishful thinking dressed up as policy.
Probation services in England and Wales can be brought back from the brink, the PAC report alludes to this, but only if leaders are willing to confront the culture and problems that’s helped drive it there. A culture built on the abuse of goodwill, routine gaslighting of staff, relentless emotional strain, and the normalisation of trauma is not a foundation. You can’t physically, financially and emotionally drain a workforce, while under resourcing the service itself, and then act shocked when the system fails.
Thirdly, can we stop with the emotional manipulation? Stop the false advertising calling frontline staff and work “extraordinary”. Stop brainwashing staff into thinking “we don’t do this job for the money”.
I do come to work to be paid. I’m not a “hero” and my work is not “extraordinary”. That’s not cynical, that’s reality. If the Chief Probation Officer and the layers of Regional Directors, Heads of Operations and Heads of PDUs truly come to work purely for the love of the job, they’re welcome to wear a cape and donate their salaries to the people on the frontline actually holding the risk, the caseloads, and the consequences when things go wrong.
Lastly, frontline practitioners already know the solutions to the probation crisis. The committees have heard us. The inspectors have heard us. The inquiries have heard us. The evidence exists. The voices are there. The only thing missing is the will of the leaders to act.
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/211693/probation-services-pushed-to-the-brink-of-collapse-in-england-and-wales-risk-endangering-public/#:~:text=A%20new%20report%20from%20the,public%20and%20reduce%20reoffending%20rates
/ Probation Officer
Our Future Probation Service (OFPS ) in HMPPS HQ is a very expensive sinkhole of Probation resources and deserve a lot more scrutiny on this blog. They are making impactful decisions about our future with very little transparency. Let’s help put them and their leaders in the spotlight.
Delete