By management.
By policy-makers.
By inspectors.
By ministers.
And yes, by unions.
When people feel unheard and unprotected for long enough, distrust spreads everywhere. Leadership becomes a symbol for a much bigger loss of faith.
I don’t for one minute dismiss the criticism. Membership has fallen. Confidence has eroded. Some people have had poor experiences with reps. Some feel leadership hasn’t delivered. That frustration is real. But here’s the part that matters now. We have decisions coming up on pay and reform in the immediate term. Not in two years. Not after a hypothetical reset. Now.
If the argument is that the union is structurally compromised, then the obvious question is this.What is the concrete, time-bound alternative that increases leverage before the next pay round? Not a feeling. Not a verdict on personality. A plan.
Joining a different union fragments density further.
Leaving reduces bargaining weight.
Building a fourth union from scratch takes years.
Waiting for collapse is not strategy.
So what is the operational route that creates political or industrial risk in the next 6–12 months? Because power responds to risk. Risk comes from numbers, turnout and coordination. If we believe probation is pivotal to sentencing reform and prison capacity, then leverage only exists if it is organised and visible. Anger alone doesn’t create that. This isn’t about defending anyone’s salary or record. It’s about avoiding paralysis.
If leadership needs replacing, that requires members.If strategy needs rewriting, that requires mandate. If unity is the goal, it requires participation. Otherwise we stay exactly where we are which is divided, exhausted, and easier to manage than we'd like to think. I genuinely want to know what is the alternative that strengthens our hand before the next negotiation, not after it?
*******
1. Work your hours.
2. No overtime.
3. No late night reporting.
4. When re-allocated cases for those on sick or maternity, rack, pack and stack them. Prioritise your caseload and keep yourself sane.
5. Don’t take on SPOC roles.
6. Do everything within timescales.
7. Friday afternoon give your manager a list of the work you could not complete.
8. Remove the goodwill and let’s see how the management deal with that.
9. Everyone go on the sick and take at least six months.
10. Don’t feel guilty the management put you in this position.
3. No late night reporting.
4. When re-allocated cases for those on sick or maternity, rack, pack and stack them. Prioritise your caseload and keep yourself sane.
5. Don’t take on SPOC roles.
6. Do everything within timescales.
7. Friday afternoon give your manager a list of the work you could not complete.
8. Remove the goodwill and let’s see how the management deal with that.
9. Everyone go on the sick and take at least six months.
10. Don’t feel guilty the management put you in this position.
*******
Love your thinking. However if you do this and then go off sick, you get victimised. Colleagues have gone through traumatising Performance Management processes for allegedly not being up to scratch and failing. Colleagues claimed in their defence that it was impossible to achieve all the dictates within contracted hours. Were told they just couldn't cut it. PDU heads and their deputies can be quite vindictive not realising they are not quite that clever despite it been brought to their attention regularly. Some clearly do not even know what ACAS is and what they do - God forbid. Employment Tribunal claims on their way and not done via NAPO either.
Love your thinking. However if you do this and then go off sick, you get victimised. Colleagues have gone through traumatising Performance Management processes for allegedly not being up to scratch and failing. Colleagues claimed in their defence that it was impossible to achieve all the dictates within contracted hours. Were told they just couldn't cut it. PDU heads and their deputies can be quite vindictive not realising they are not quite that clever despite it been brought to their attention regularly. Some clearly do not even know what ACAS is and what they do - God forbid. Employment Tribunal claims on their way and not done via NAPO either.
National Audit Office report late last year confirmed what we have been telling our esteemed employer all along. Mmmm... they underestimated the time things took despite us at the coalface telling them this consistently. They admitted it at the PAC hearings and then again decided to go against their own underestimation again and didn't deliberately correctly adjust the timings. Classic FU to their employees. Talk about deliberate perpetuation of Workplace Harm! Talk about government sanctioned Modern Day Slavery. They have no idea how to manage, don't care about their employees. If this was a private company the lot of them would have been given their P45s and would have walked out with a cardboard box of personal belongings, but no, they still in their positions and receiving performance bonuses. LIDL now pays more per hour for much less responsibility.
*******
I understand the instinct behind some of these suggestions. People are exhausted. They feel unheard. They feel cornered. But there’s a difference between withdrawing goodwill and detonating your own position.
Work to contract? Yes.
Stop unpaid overtime? Yes.
Document what can’t be completed? Absolutely.
That’s not rebellion. That’s professionalism. Mass resignations, coordinated sickness or banking on tribunals as a system reset isn’t strategy. It’s a series of individual risks in a system that has repeatedly shown it will protect itself first.
If this thread shows anything, it’s not laziness or cowardice. It’s something more serious, people don’t trust any layer of authority to protect them anymore. Not management. Not leadership. Not unions. That level of mistrust is dangerous in a public protection service. But fragmentation and individual legal battles won’t fix that mistrust. They confirm it.
If probation is genuinely pivotal to sentencing reform and prison capacity (and it is ) then leverage has to be credible, coordinated and collective. Not reactive. Boundaries are strength. Organisation is strength.Burning out one colleague at a time is not. If senior leaders are reading this, the message isn’t that staff want chaos. It’s that they feel abandoned. And that’s a far bigger warning sign.
Work to contract? Yes.
Stop unpaid overtime? Yes.
Document what can’t be completed? Absolutely.
That’s not rebellion. That’s professionalism. Mass resignations, coordinated sickness or banking on tribunals as a system reset isn’t strategy. It’s a series of individual risks in a system that has repeatedly shown it will protect itself first.
If this thread shows anything, it’s not laziness or cowardice. It’s something more serious, people don’t trust any layer of authority to protect them anymore. Not management. Not leadership. Not unions. That level of mistrust is dangerous in a public protection service. But fragmentation and individual legal battles won’t fix that mistrust. They confirm it.
If probation is genuinely pivotal to sentencing reform and prison capacity (and it is ) then leverage has to be credible, coordinated and collective. Not reactive. Boundaries are strength. Organisation is strength.Burning out one colleague at a time is not. If senior leaders are reading this, the message isn’t that staff want chaos. It’s that they feel abandoned. And that’s a far bigger warning sign.
“PDU heads and their deputies can be quite vindictive..”
ReplyDeleteSurely not?
DeleteA (now ex-) colleague was set to go on planned sick leave (important operation needed) & stayed late on her last day in the office to complete oasys/psr on a complex case. She left the documents open & emailed her manager saying she would appreciate her manager checking it over as it was late when she wrote it & she didn't want to miss anything important.
When she returned from sick leave she found she was subject to disciplinary for not completing an allocated assessment & report and leaving her colleagues exposed to additonal incomplete work.
She went to her emails... no email to her manager. She went to the oasys... her assessment didn't exist, but a new assessment & report by ANOther appeared.
She spoke with her manager only to be told there were no such documents on the system, so she had clearly forgotten to do it and as it was a disciplinary matter it couldn't be discussed.
She went to her union rep & explained what had happened, the rep said if there was no document there was no defence.
She then produced copies of the assessment, report and email she had printed off before going on leave. The rep, she says, "looked aghast" and asked if they could take the copies to an urgent meeting with management. "Of course".
Later that day she received a call from a senior manager saying the matter was not being pursued. She asked for the documents to be returned. "What documents?"
She spoke again with her rep who told her the documents belonged to the service and there was no longer a disciplinary matter to be considered, so the case was closed.
She left the service.
Over twenty years' experience & knowledge was rubbished & lost by a vindictive management team that were hell bent on controlling staff.
And that, ladies & gentlemen & all other genders, is how the modern probation service targets, bullies & gaslights its own staff... and how it covers everything up.
The union rep sounds like a piece of shit. I would never shared that with management until the disciplinary hearing following the same with a legal case and formal grievances as long as your leg. Tossers. Must be Napo please tell.
Delete"you might think that, I couldn't possibly comment." : )
DeleteWithout sustained pressure they will let work pile up and blame industrial action when asked to explain by ministers, THEN senior managers will become vindictive towards their SPOs
ReplyDeleteExactly my experience. A bullish deputy telling me they’re ’just doing their job’ when telling us to allocate cases to people who haven’t completed core training, and allocations way above what is expected for PQiPs because PSOs are moving on to other roles and there’s no capacity within the current team.
DeletePolicy is there for a reason, I will not be doing what my deputy says, but I am really concerned about the backlash I will receive.
Ask for any direction to be via e mail so you have evidence for any future tribunal !!
DeleteLot of tribunal talk on the blog what is misleading is all efforts to resolve have to run so et very improbable these days it costs more than anyone could claim and unions reject most claims. Unless this is yesterday's dreamer who thinks NPS is a cash machine for self funded tacit argument.
DeleteThe only realistic way out of this isn’t individual burnout, tribunals, or splintering into weaker fragments, it’s rebuilding collective leverage fast, even in a climate of fear. When union leadership is weak and pdu heads and deputies use pressure and vindictiveness to suppress dissent, organising has to be low-risk, distributed, and hard to target: mass work-to-contract, no unpaid overtime, consistent recording of unmanageable workloads, and coordinated, lawful boundary-setting done by many at once so no one can be isolated. Protection comes from numbers and documentation, not heroics, shared behaviour, shared evidence, and visible operational strain that creates political and managerial risk. You don’t need a perfect union or a brave few; you need enough people doing the same legitimate thing at the same time that retaliation becomes risky, obvious, and costly. Power doesn’t respond to anger, it responds to density, coordination, and credible disruption. Each office is a voice, put together that’s a siren.
ReplyDeleteLove this blog galvanising these posters to demonstrate the issues . Keep it up the pay abuse is our last straw thank you editor.
ReplyDeleteThere is genuine fear around performance measures. Staff have seen colleagues questioned, pressured or placed under scrutiny after raising workload concerns. In that climate, hesitation is understandable.
ReplyDeleteBut we need to separate two things: individual underperformance and structural overload.
Performance processes are designed to address capability issues. They are not designed to compensate for systemic over-allocation of work (though I know that's how they are used by some!)
If assigned workload exceeds contracted hours, the issue is capacity, not competence.
So how do you protect yourself?
• Work your contracted hours.
• Prioritise statutory and risk-critical tasks first.
• Keep a clear, contemporaneous record of tasks that cannot be completed within available time.
• Provide regular factual summaries to your manager outlining outstanding work.
• When workload exceeds capacity, request written confirmation of prioritisation.
Stay factual.
Stay calm.
Avoid emotion.
Avoid confrontation.
This is not refusal. It is professional transparency.
When one person raises capacity concerns, it can be isolated. When many staff document the same arithmetic, it becomes organisational risk.
Boundaries are not rebellion. They are evidence.
Silence doesn’t protect you. Documentation does.
Exactly right sound advice
DeleteGood advice
DeleteJust to add - we have been told we may face a disciplinary if a prisoner attacks us at work.
ReplyDeleteIf someone is assaulted at work, that is not misconduct. Being attacked is not a disciplinary offence. It should not even be framed as one.
DeleteEmployers have a duty of care to provide a reasonably safe working environment. If someone is assaulted, the starting point should be risk assessment, staffing levels, training, lone working arrangements and management oversight not blame.
If this message is genuinely being given, then the simple response is: can management clarify in writing under what exact circumstances an assault on a member of staff would trigger disciplinary proceedings?
If they cannot answer that clearly, that tells you something.
The fact that staff even believe this is possible says more about the current climate than any inspection report ever could.
How are they possibly to justify that!? That staff "didn't follow procedure" or something similarly bollocks?
DeleteThis is the response to two members of staff being stabbed at work,last year is it? Saves them a few quid in compo,I suppose !
DeleteWhat this thread is showing is cumulative damage.
ReplyDeleteWhen experienced staff describe feeling erased, targeted, or unsafe, that doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from years of pressure, performance metrics, restructures and inconsistent management behaviour.
Whether every story can be proven on a blog is almost secondary. The fact that people believe these things are possible tells you how low trust has fallen.
And that’s the real issue.
A public protection service cannot function in a culture where practitioners are operating defensively, fearing scrutiny for raising workload concerns, or believing they could be disciplined for being assaulted.
That is not resilience. That is organisational fragility.
If allocations breach training requirements, ask for the direction in writing.
If workload exceeds capacity, document it.
If safety feels compromised, request the risk assessment. Not emotionally, not rhetorically but in writing.
Anecdotes create outrage. Evidence creates accountability.
And if senior leaders are reading this, the temperature in this thread should concern you. Not because staff are angry, but because they feel unprotected.
That is the warning sign.
Very obvious blaming staff for being attacked is a tactic to cover their backs and avoid paying out compensation.
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of managers would not last a week on the frontline now. Time to front up and get out there to help your staff.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.business.gov.uk/campaign/employment-changes/employers/trade-union-requirements/
ReplyDeleteSo with the changes coming in April a ballot requires simple majority as opposed to 40% threshold for industrial action
ReplyDeleteMissives from Somewhere that make you feel better:
ReplyDelete"Prime Minister appoints expert Cost of Living Champion
The Prime Minister has directly appointed Lord Richard Walker as the Government’s Cost of Living Champion today.
Lord Richard Walker will work across Government while enhancing partnerships with businesses, regulators, and a broad range of organisations to consider how the whole of Government can go further to deliver on its priority of easing the cost of living for families."
__________________________________________________________
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/outcome-of-unduly-lenient-sentence-referrals
The attourney general's office has been involved in more than one thousand cases where it was claimed sentencing was unduly lenient. The link shows a schedule indicating where cases were/were not 'in scope', what the original sentence was & what change, if any, was made following AGO intervention.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/attorney-generals-office
Why have judges & magistrates when we have the AGO's office?
from wiki
Delete"Richard Malcolm Walker, Baron Walker of Broxton OBE is a British businessman who is the executive chairman of the privately held British Iceland supermarket chain of predominately frozen food retailers. He is the son of the company's founder Malcolm Walker and qualified as a Chartered Surveyor, prior to joining Iceland. In 2023 he expressed an interest in standing for Parliament as a Conservative, but later left the party to join Labour.
In January 2026 he was appointed as a Peer of the House of Lords by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, becoming Lord Walker of Broxton."
"Price of everything, value of nothing" comes to mind.
cobbler running the prisons, grocer setting the economy straight... next it'll be a toolmaker's son running the country!!
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/serious-further-offence-annual-report-2024-to-25-hmpps-action-plan
ReplyDeleteSo what happens if we don't get this 12 per cent pay rise and take industrial action? We should have been taking industrial action years ago it's just inflation has gone insane now PO's are going to be on the breadline soon...
ReplyDeleteYou're right we should have. If the 12% doesn’t land and there’s a ballot for action, the real question isn’t “should we?” It’s “will we actually follow through?”
DeleteIndustrial action is not a slogan. It’s lost pay. It’s pressure. It’s scrutiny. It’s management pushing back. It’s colleagues wobbling. It’s ministers calling it irresponsible.
And it only works if participation is high enough that it creates operational and political risk.
Let’s be blunt. If turnout scrapes past the legal threshold and only a fraction actually act, management rides it out.
If people vote “yes” and then quietly carry on working because they’re nervous, nothing shifts.
If branches fracture, nothing shifts.
If half the workforce expects the other half to carry the risk, nothing shifts.
Probation has talked about industrial action for years. The difference between talk and leverage is numbers and stamina.
Doctors didn’t move government because they were angrier. They moved it because tens of thousands repeatedly acted and absorbed the consequences.
So, the harder question is are we collectively prepared to sustain action long enough to make it hurt?
Because if we’re not, a failed action strengthens the employer.
If we are, it changes the calculus.
This isn’t about bravado. It’s about arithmetic. Leverage is created by participation. Without it, industrial action becomes theatre.
So yes, if we don’t get the pay rise, action is on the table but only if enough of us are prepared to mean it.
Napo won't take you to strike it will only demonstrate the disunity fear anxious workforce. Napo blames members but I blame Napo because members fear is by Napo having not defended us properly . Anyway too many will settle we will be blamed for it.
Delete20 something clones aren’t going to strike believe me Thats what you become totally dumbed down
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately true!
ReplyDeleteWhat’s striking about the last few comments isn’t the anger. It’s the inevitability.
Delete“Napo won’t strike.”
“Members won’t hold their nerve.”
“Younger staff won’t risk it.”
“We’ll settle and be blamed.”
If that’s the starting position, then the outcome is already decided.
That’s paralysis.
You don’t have to defend leadership to challenge defeatism. But if the argument is that we can’t strike, can’t trust the union, can’t rely on members, and can’t influence negotiations, then what exactly is the plan? Because “nothing will happen” isn’t a strategy.
If industrial action feels too high-risk, fine. Then what is the lower-risk collective action people would sustain?
Work to contract?
Refusal of unpaid overtime?
Mass documentation of unsafe workload?
Coordinated letters to MPs?
Public evidence to inspectors?
If the honest answer is “none of the above,” then we’re describing a workforce that believes it has no agency. Thats the point at which any employer knows it doesn’t need to move.
You don’t win leverage by predicting your own collapse. So, here's the question;
If not strike, then what -specifically, collectively, and within the next six months? Without an answer to that, we’re just rehearsing defeat.
The best predictor of future behaviour…………..etc,etc……..
DeleteAnon 08:33
DeleteMaybe I have slightly rose-tinted glasses. I’m not naïve about the history. I know we’ve been here before and watched momentum fizzle out. And I don’t have hard data on membership numbers. I’m not sitting with spreadsheets. What I do know is what I’m hearing in my own office. People who’ve never bothered before are suddenly joining. Not because they love unions. Because they’re angry. Because this time it feels personal.
That might not translate into action. It might. I don’t know.
But I also know this: if we convince ourselves in advance that nothing will change because it hasn’t before, then we remove even the possibility that it could.
Hope isn’t the same as delusion. It’s recognising that conditions shift. Inflation has hit differently. Workloads have escalated. Pay erosion is now visible in a way it wasn’t five years ago.
Maybe I’m clinging to that. But without some belief that behaviour can change under pressure, we may as well stop pretending we believe in change at all and that would be a strange position for probation staff to take.
My anger is the unions have us stranded every never willing to take a properly led defensive case or organise actions demonstrations and workloads legal challenge. They leave us to a hotch potch outcome every time .
DeleteFancy a change https://probation.ie/en/PB/Pages/WP26000002
ReplyDeleteAnd work for a proper probation service. https://www.thejournal.ie/gerry-mcnally-probation-service-interview-6351779-Apr2024/
DeleteAll the little goody twoshoes will carry on doing all the overtime because they still live with Mummy and Daddy and no mortgage or kids to worry about. They can work full-time too with no kids so not getting this 12 percent won't affect them much at all! You're right they are too spineless and conformist to strike.. The most this lot will ever do if they don't like it is leave...
ReplyDeleteThe selection process appointments probably had all that in mind.
DeleteI can hear the anger in comments like this. It’s sharp, and it’s not coming from nowhere. But reducing colleagues to “goody two-shoes” or “spineless clones” won’t build leverage. It just turns frustration sideways onto each other instead of upwards where it belongs.
DeleteI’ve been in this job a long time. I’ve seen waves of outrage, waves of resignation, waves of people quietly leaving. I’ve also seen moments where people surprised themselves. Not everyone who works overtime is naïve. Some are scared. Some are trying to protect their team. Some have been conditioned over years to believe the service will collapse if they don’t pick up the slack.
It was subtle, the steady drumbeat about pressure, targets, risk, reputational damage. The raised eyebrow when work wasn’t “cleared.” The praise for those who “went the extra mile.” The quiet implication that if you didn’t absorb the overflow, something (or someone ) would suffer.
That culture of running on goodwill has been around for years. It didn’t start with one cohort, and it doesn’t belong to one generation. It’s institutional conditioning, not personal weakness.
Plenty of newer colleagues are carrying student debt, high rents, insecure housing. Different pressures, same squeeze. And let’s be honest, overtime culture didn’t start with 20-somethings. It was normalised long before they arrived.
If anything, the generational split argument is a gift to management. It reframes a structural pay issue as a character flaw in colleagues.
The real issue isn’t who lives with their parents or who has a mortgage. It’s whether we continue to subsidise a failing model with unpaid labour.
If we want people to hold the line, shaming them won’t do it. Showing them others will hold it too might.
And yes, experience walked out of the door in waves , first during the glittering genius of TR, that particular masterstroke from Grayling and Gove, then through reunification turbulence, then through successive rounds of “modernisation” under ministers who each assured us they were finally fixing what the last lot broke.
Stability was always promised. It just never seemed to apply to the people actually doing the job.
Anger is understandable. Turning it on each other isn’t.
If anything shifts, it won’t be because we insulted each other into courage. It’ll be because enough people, across ages and circumstances, quietly decide at the same time that the old conditioning no longer works.
And I’ve been around long enough to know that moment sometimes comes without warning.
Of course docile tin pot criminology graduates for universities which used to be swimming pools
ReplyDelete🙄 mocking them doesn’t strengthen our position.
DeleteIf we want collective leverage, we need the people who joined in the last five years as much as those who’ve done twenty.
Writing them off as “docile” before they’ve even had a chance to find their footing just guarantees disengagement.
Anger is fair. Contempt is counterproductive.
I’ve been through previous strikes and the observations detailed here as to who is likely to and who isn’t likely to stand is ( or was) accurate !
ReplyDeleteExperience of past strikes is useful.
ReplyDeleteSneering at colleagues like 11.02 and 13.49 isn’t.
The landscape today is not the landscape of the early 2000s. Back then probation was locally rooted and more professionally cohesive. Caseloads were heavy, but not structurally overloaded to 120–140%. The service hadn’t been split and stitched back together after TR. There was a clearer occupational identity and stronger union density. Now we’re centralised, vacancy rates sit around 20%+, workloads are routinely above capacity, and performance management culture is far tighter. Risk feels different. That changes how people calculate what they can afford to do.
You can acknowledge past turnout patterns without turning it into contempt for colleagues.
If we want people to stand together, derision won’t get us there.
Has anyone seen the Chief Officers Pay myth busting article today, in a vain attempt to spin it that we are and have been generously compensated over the years? For example she's stated that Band 4 (PO's) have had a massive 22% Pay increase since 2010, except that basically means we've had on average a 1.3% increase in pay each year, WOW Kim thanks! As the Chief Probation Officer shouldn't her role be to lead us, fight for us, advocate for us, inspire us, all I see is that she's a mouthpiece for her HMPPS bosses and nothing else...
ReplyDeleteI did, it really angered me! The tone was so awful, as if we’re going to read that and then realise we’ve all been looking at it all wrong. All hail the chief PO for busting those myths and essentially calling us all liars and over-reactors. And you wonder why there’s a retention problem…
Deletecan someone share it?
Deletehttps://theviewmag.org.uk/formal-complaint-has-been-lodged-with-chief-probation-officer-kim-thornden-edwards-and-lord-timpson-misconduct-and-abuse-of-power-by-probation-officer-natasha-price-hmp-eastwood-park/
ReplyDelete"At HMP Eastwood Park, a troubling case has emerged that raises urgent questions about accountability, human rights, and the treatment of vulnerable women in custody. A formal complaint has been lodged against Probation Officer Natasha Price, alleging persistent misconduct, obstruction of healthcare access, and abuse-paralleling behaviour in her supervision of Ms Farah Damji.
Ms Damji, currently battling aggressive stage 3 HER2-positive breast cancer alongside complex PTSD, depression, and anxiety, has faced repeated barriers to essential healthcare and rehabilitation planning."
oh.
I hate to say it but I suspect many other examples like this go unreported as many people on probation either don't know there rights, believe there's no point in complaining or are scared of reprisals if they complain.
DeleteStage 3 cancer you'd think she would look after herself than have time to be complaining .
DeleteShe's in prison and her complaint is that the PO is obstructing her treatment, if true that's despicable
DeleteProbably a bit more to this story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farah_Damji
DeleteFor the record a PO in prison has no power to block healthcare
DeleteI’ve read the Chief Probation Officer’s “myth busters” piece carefully.
ReplyDeleteIt sets out three main corrections and provides percentage tables to show pay growth over time. So let’s respond clearly and factually.
Myth 1: CBF is separate from the pay award
It’s correct that progression (CBF) sits within Civil Service Remit Guidance and forms part of the annual pay framework.
But progression is movement within a pay band. It is not a cost-of-living increase. It does not raise the value of the band itself. It simply moves someone closer to the ceiling that already exists.
Once staff reach the top of their band, progression ends. From that point on, only the headline uplift matters.
So while CBF may technically sit inside the “award”, it does not function as restoration for experienced staff already at band maximum.
That distinction is not a myth. It’s mechanics.
Myth 2: Only 1% between 2018 and 2021
The article states that between 2018 and 2024 average increases were 24.4% at band minimums and 10.8% at band maximums.
Minimums rose faster to support recruitment. Maximums rose more slowly.
That means newer entrants benefited proportionally more than long-serving staff at the top of bands.
During the same period, cumulative inflation — especially post-2020 — significantly reduced real-terms value.
Nominal increases without inflation context do not equal restored purchasing power.
Myth 3: Only 11% since 2010
The table shows band maximum increases since 2010. For Band 4, that’s 17.56% (22.26% including the proposed 2025 uplift).
Spread across roughly 14–15 years, that averages around 1–1.5% per year.
Over that same period, inflation has substantially exceeded that figure.
The question staff are asking is not whether pay bands have moved at all.
It’s whether pay has kept pace with inflation, expanding workload, heightened risk, professional registration requirements and responsibility creep.
Those are different questions.
The 2025–26 offer remains:
• 4% uplift to pay points
• 4% uplift to allowances
• Progression where eligible
No one is disputing the arithmetic.
What staff are disputing is the framing.
Because when real-terms pay erosion is reframed as “misunderstanding”, it feels less like myth-busting and more like minimising.
You can call it clarification.
But when experienced practitioners calculate what their pay buys now compared to ten or fifteen years ago, the gap is not imaginary.
It’s visible.
And no table changes that.
Thanks can I use this info please
DeleteYou’re welcome to reference the analysis. The summary is based on the CPO’s published figures and the publicly stated pay offer. I haven’t reproduced the internal article verbatim so it's not confidential material
DeleteWe are not stupid. We do not need “myth busters” to explain percentages to us.
ReplyDeleteWe can divide 22% by 15 years.
We can compare it to inflation.
We can look at our rent, mortgages, fuel bills, childcare and food costs and do the maths without supervision thanks!
The issue is not misunderstanding.
The issue is erosion.
Calling it a “myth” when staff point out that 1–1.5% a year over a decade and a half is nowhere near real-terms restoration feels profoundly insulting.
It suggests the problem is that we haven’t grasped the figures properly, rather than the figures being inadequate.
Progression is not a pay rise for experienced staff at the top of bands.
It is internal movement within a ceiling that itself has barely moved.
Recruitment minimums rising faster than maximums doesn’t disprove erosion.
It highlights it.
And presenting nominal percentage tables without inflation context is technically correct but economically hollow.
We are being told, essentially:
“Look at the numbers. You’re doing better than you think.”
Eh, No!
We are looking at the numbers.
And we are looking at our bank accounts.
And we are looking at workloads that have intensified year on year.
And we are looking at risk that has escalated.
And we are looking at professional expectations that have increased.
And we are looking at colleagues leaving.
The anger isn’t because we can’t do maths.
It’s because we can!
When a workforce under sustained strain is told their concerns are “misunderstandings,” it doesn’t feel explanatory.
It feels incredibly dismissive!
And that is what has landed so badly.
This isn’t about confusion.
It’s about value.
If leadership wants trust, start by acknowledging real-terms loss without reframing it as myth.
We don’t need correcting. We need recognising.
Theirs a difference.
Probation toxic keep well away at all costs anyone with needs only further disadvantages them
ReplyDeleteIf probation feels toxic to you, that’s hard to read but it’s also something we shouldn’t dismiss. No public service should disadvantage people with needs. That includes the people supervised by it and the people working inside it.
DeleteWhen staff are overloaded, underpaid and fearful, that pressure doesn’t disappear. It seeps into the system. It affects relationships. It affects trust.
That doesn’t mean probation is irredeemable. It means a service designed to support and reduce harm is being stretched in ways that undermine its purpose.
Calling it toxic might feel accurate from where you’re standing. But many practitioners are still trying, often quietly, to do the right thing inside a structure that makes it harder than it should be.
If both staff and those supervised are feeling damaged by the same system, that’s not a reason to walk away. It’s a reason to fix it.
“A blue flu is a type of strike action undertaken by police officers in which a large number simultaneously use sick leave.
Delete“ - only way forward. Forget the unions, arrange a date on here for next month - all take 6 months leave the same time?
I understand the appeal of a “blue flu” idea. People feel desperate.
DeleteBut lets be clear. Sick leave is for genuine illness. If someone is clinically unwell from stress, they absolutely should be off work. No argument.
What it isn’t is an informal industrial tactic.
If large numbers suddenly go off in coordination, management will look at patterns. Occ Health referrals follow. In extreme cases, if absence is believed not to be genuine, it could drift into misconduct territory. That’s not scaremongering, it’s how civil service attendance frameworks are written.
That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t take sick leave when they need it. It just means deliberately blurring illness and strategy carries risk.
If the goal is leverage, safer and stronger options exist, as others have said,
Work to contract.
No unpaid overtime.
Document overload.
Request written prioritisation.
That’s lawful. That’s defensible. And if done collectively, it creates pressure without gambling individual credibility.
Probation has been toxice for 30 years it always had fundamental problems . The type of older po was incredibly subjective and made many errors to caseload who were not allowed to complain .
DeleteAnon 21:08 This is a good example of toxic and offensive remarks from a particular regular contributor/troll that I normally delete. They are referring to me of course, a CQSW - qualified PO and many other erudite and experienced contributors.
DeleteI’m in.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say document overload what do you mean exactly?
DeleteI don’t mean emotional emails or long complaints. I mean recording the arithmetic.
DeleteSo,
• Contracted hours vs actual hours worked.
• Number of cases and risk levels.
• Statutory deadlines due.
• Additional tasks allocated (recalls, breach packs, meetings, SPOC roles, training, etc.).
• What could not be completed within contracted hours and why.
Then send a short, factual summary to your SPO
“I have X cases (Y high/ very high risk). Contracted hours are X hours. This week I completed A, B and C (statutory/risk-critical work). The following remain outstanding due to capacity: 1, 2, 3. Please confirm prioritisation.”
No emotion. No confrontation. Just maths.
If one person says they’re overloaded, it can be framed as performance. If multiple staff document the same arithmetic, it becomes evidence of capacity failure.
Overload isn’t a feeling. It’s numbers.
Thanks that’s really useful
Delete