Napo Opposes HMPPS Plans to Remove Access to the Workload Measurement Tool
Napo has strongly opposed HMPPS plans to withdraw practitioner access to the Workload Measurement Tool, warning the move undermines staff safety, workload management and employer accountability. This week HMPPS have advised staff of its plans to withdraw practitioner access to the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT), in advance of its removal in several months.Napo has not agreed to these changes
We have been made aware of several untrue and incorrect statements having been made by regional senior managers to the effect that Napo, and other trade unions, have agreed to this. We have not and will not agree to these plans. It is now for any individual who has made these statements – whether out of ignorance or malice – to urgently account to staff why they have done so, retract their comments and apologise to their colleagues.
In earlier discussions that took place with the trade unions, Napo representatives have clearly and repeatedly explained to HMPPS figures the hugely negative impact their plans would have on the staff involved, and more widely in the workforce.
During these exchanges HMPPS have admitted for the first time that for a significant period the WMT underestimates the workload of the staff involved. They have failed to publicly acknowledge this in their communications on the future of the WMT, making only vague, and frankly misleading, comments on its accuracy.
These plans completely disregard previous agreements made between the employer and the trade unions on staff safety and care. HMPPS appear clueless as to how they now intend to meet their legal duty of care to monitor and manage individual workloads, for ‘sentence management’ staff and all other employees. They cannot adequately explain how they plan to provide workload reductions for staff requiring these, for instance as reasonable adjustments or as facility time for trade union representatives.
Despite claiming to value the importance of staff and their wellbeing, HMPPS have completely failed to ensure that an adequate mechanism to monitor and manage the workload of staff. HMPPS claim to have been aware that the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) under-reports on the workload of staff but has not communicated that to its employees. They tell us that they have known that this will become worse due to changes planned under the employer’s heavily criticised and under-delivering Our Future Probation Service (OFPS) programme have not yet made sufficient plans to have a replacement in place.
Napo have, for months, been calling on HMPPS to agree to the joint ownership of the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT), including on any future version of this tool, and for its application to as many other workers outside of ‘sentence management’ as possible at the earliest opportunity.
We believe this is the only way for staff to have any confidence on this issue, given HMPPS’s consistent inability to adequately protect us in this regard, and be open and honest with us. Napo will now include demands for positive change, and a completely different approach by the employer, in relation to workload measurement and management.
We will be responding to a letter sent by the employer yesterday after they had decided to enact these changes, regarding industrial action in response to their failure to resolve our longstanding workloads dispute.
Napo HQ
I don’t know any other public sector workers who are treated with such contempt
ReplyDeleteThis is part of the gradual deprofessionalisation of Probation. However without well supported unions, professional associations, and institutes we struggle to look enough like a profession to resist this. It isn’t someone else’s problem it is one shared by everyone who calls Probation their profession. Those who have attacked Napo and the Probation Institute as vehemently as they have done should be ashamed.
ReplyDeleteI could be in that group but am no way ashamed.
DeleteIt is Napo incompetence and the pathetic grayling institute that has led us here.
Foolishly Napo placed the inus on staff last month to agree a pay deal and reorganisation to accompany it.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but it was also stated in this blog buying a black bag in a fire sale is fraught with danger. When the employers negotiated the fall of our terms through scandalous pay delay and the Napo desperate acceptance to reorganisation what the hell did Napo think the employers were meaning. Or going to do. The employer knew it was to do this trick shortly and frankly it was predicted Napo ignored it and you all waived in the deal and this agreement will stand for the employer.
We can bounce the ball over health safety workloads and monitoring but the employer won't care . They will see officers at their desks for 39 hours per week and breaks will be one a valuable need. The factory
Will have targets Nd some staff will falter. That is a trigger to see who can be let go as AI helps reduce costs in staffing.
Napo will only now do what it does best feign a big noise talk about bad employer faith over a wmt that neither side used properly and besides it was already broken by the previous AG's who is an idiot and Mr Lawrence equally as thick for the role he holds it is a real joke on us.
Wmt used to be the workloads and employee care agreement . Wpec this original document protected staff way beyond workloads and help in workload reduction based on the actual capacity and indeed difference in staffing abilities to ensure all staff could have real manageable protection. Once that was re negotiated to wmt the film flam never saw many staff receive reduction or protection. As long as Mr Lawrence leads Napo this is another faux hill he will pretend to climb for members but as clear as day he will find a way to capitulate and members will have to wear it . That 2 percent pay deal he helped push through don't look so attractive in this new light does it?
Napo needs a real new leader as probation has lost everything under this fool and if we haven't learned anything yet after the pay deal last then we deserve what's next.
Unfortunately 15:32 you seem to epitomise part of the problem. Those who work in Probation need to join their unions and use democratic processes to get the leadership they want. Napo’s GS is an employee of the union. If he is not fulfilling his contract he can be subject to process and dismissed. His employer is the NEC that consists of elected officers are his employers. At AGM members can propose a vote of no confidence in the GS. He has anticipated this for years but no one has done it. Regarding the PI its association with Graylings project was misrepresented at the time. It was initially a project supported by the Probation Chiefs and Napo that received £50k that was similar in nature to the Home Offices support for Napo that started as a professional association. They could have given more and helped set up something like the BMA but Grayling was afraid of it having clout so starved it of funds. Roll forward to the present day its leadership, trustees and fellows are first rate and it produces a respectable free publication. Taking some high minded moral stand towards it on the basis it once received a relatively small amount of start up money from the MoJ claiming it was in some way irredeemably contaminated is ludicrous. I can tell you that those who berated the late Professor Paul Senior for his courageous defence of the institute should be ashamed. Let’s draw a line and support the institute as our own. Let’s insist it has powers to independently hold the employers to account whilst we join and reinvigorate the unions to help them make use of their unique position as our representatives. Cut the whingeing and report action and engagement leading to positive change.
DeleteSo how 'inaccurate ' is the WMT. I hover between 90 -110% but if feels like I always have 6 jobs on the go and another three dozen just waiting for when I finish those 6!
ReplyDeleteYou could be right but I am aware from an ex Napo champion that the health and safety legislation still exists and we go back to the begining in a dispute and action for a new agreement.
ReplyDeleteLaughable are you an idiot the fact the employer has suggested as much with a timeline says it all. They will have already consulted their legals to determine what is within their gift. The weakness has been shown by the incompetence of the membership for failing to take full action when it would have done real reputational damage. The worst thing of all of course is the dunce who is Napo general secretary. My goodness he is wanting by miles I agree with comments on his credibility but am as scornful of a pathetic frightened membership.
DeleteI'm in general agreement with 14:11.
ReplyDeleteThere's been a focus far too long on how many eggs are being produced, but the goose thats laying them has been neglected, and left to become so sick, it might now be terminal. Probation has lost its identity, it's status and as such most of its bargaining powers.
Despite the entry levels being dumbed down and those entering being paid to train and qualify, theres still huge problems with recruitment and retention.
The truth is, probation is now in such a state, the employer can do almost anything they want without fear of resistance.
Maybe the next thing to go will be the name 'probation' itself and replaced by some other term like "community justice officer" which would sort of be like a 'community support officer' to the police force. Easier to recruit people, and retention can be exchanged for churn.
The following two articles may be of interest. One is a channel 4 fact check sheet on the WMT produced Sept 2024 at the time many prisoners were being released early.
The second is from On Probation blog 2014. I thought it might be interesting to read again Tom Rendon's resignation letter and the reasons he gave for leaving his post in NAPO.
http://probationmatters.blogspot.com/2014/05/napo-situation-normal.html?m=1
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-probation-service-has-been-working-over-capacity-every-month-since-january-2023
'Getafix
I am led to understand that the first attack on the name ‘Probation’, was intended as part of the split……the implication that the name carries is redolent with a different time, a time when the individuality of the officer counted for something, when risks were taken and you were supported by your SPO…….that alas has been more or less consigned to history……step forward HMPps correctional agency……no need to worry about an individuals circumstances or background, they do wrong, they get punished……is the direction of travel, it’s a simple metric which means that the aim of deproffesionalising the service will have been achieved, in fact the only reason it hasn’t is that they worked out that they need to have someone to blame when someone is let out after 40% and goes on to commit a horrendous crime……the system is never wrong……it’s us…….
DeleteGetafix looks back well . I met tom rendon myself on a good few occasions and while likeable he just not up to it. He was not going to be able to deliver a proper hard line union response to the tr agenda. While trying to maintain a progressive probation portfolio and that is why he was useless just like a flip flop. The deeper truth is that Ian Lawrence was alleged to have had a very aggressive exchange with Tim rendon in a lift journey . The few floors exchange was enough to see tom rendon both poo his pants and confide the abuse he received from Mr Lawrence made him so unable to manage out the reprehensible . Tom was a victim of that named officers group who were in part humiliated as dishonest later on and useless as trade unionists for what they failed to challenge. Absolutely crap bunch no wonder Napo is in more dire straights given the latest wmt fiasco.
DeleteHow else can we see how our colleagues in other offices compare with us? How else can we see how SPO s lean heavily on the competent at the expense of the less so? How else can we check that we are not being shafted………..what do you mean we agreed to it under the reorganisation banner?
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure that management understand just what an impact this could potentially have on office morale, which is not exactly high right now….
BBC Radio 4 Unlocked: Britain’s Prison Crisis
ReplyDeleteMore than 80,000 people are held in prisons across England and Wales - but those keeping the system running are under growing strain. In Unlocked: Britain’s Prison Crisis, Bara’atu Ibrahim investigates how recruitment pressures, staff shortages and a loss of experience shape daily life inside our jails. She reveals a system increasingly reliant on staff recruited from West Africa - some of whom aren't sure whether they will be allowed to stay in the UK because of a change in visa qualification
Through first-hand testimony from serving and former prison officers plus insights from unions and senior figures, Bara’atu reveals a wider picture of a service struggling to maintain safety and stability, asking not just who is keeping prison doors open - but at what cost? As staffing gaps widen and pressures intensify, what does it mean for officers, prisoners and the public when a system continues to function, but only just?
BBC Monday Ist June 4.00pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002x9wb
'Currently' is a reactive documentary and current affairs programme on BBC Radio 4. It explores the real stories and events happening behind the headlines, unearthing untold stories in the UK and internationally.
DeleteThey are getting rid of WFM so that we can’t compare our workloads to colleagues or evidence we are over 100% so that they can keep allocating cases . They think that if we don’t see our % we won’t feel stressed and overwhelmed. We should be able to have a wfm tool to monitor / track our case load and evidence our workload rather than have our feelings of stress as the measurement tool .
ReplyDeleteIf HMPPS genuinely cared about workload, staff would not have been working above capacity for years. If HMPPS genuinely cared about wellbeing, stress-related sickness would not be endemic. If HMPPS genuinely cared about reasonable adjustments, staff would not still be fighting battles to have them implemented, monitored and maintained.
ReplyDeleteThe uncomfortable truth is that workload measurement has never really been about protecting staff. It has been about providing the organisation with evidence that it was monitoring workloads. Now even that appears to be too much.
HMPPS admits the WMT underestimates workload. It knows workloads are increasing. It knows experienced staff are leaving. It knows morale is collapsing. Yet instead of fixing the tool or introducing something better, the answer appears to be to remove practitioners’ access to the data altogether.
Why?
Because excessive workload is easier to deny when staff cannot point to objective evidence.
The reality of probation today is that many practitioners are carrying workloads that would have been considered unsafe years ago. We are expected to absorb every new initiative, every new process, every staffing shortage and every organisational failure. The answer is always the same: do more with less.
Removing access to workload data will not reduce workload. It will not reduce stress. It will not improve public protection. It will not retain experienced staff. It will not make probation safer.
What it will do is remove one of the few remaining ways practitioners can demonstrate that they are overloaded before something goes wrong.
And perhaps that is the point.
Because if staff cannot evidence unsafe workloads, senior leaders can continue claiming everything is under control right up until the next inspection, the next tragedy, the next Serious Further Offence, or the next wave of experienced staff walking out of the door.
Probation has become an organisation where evidence is welcomed when it supports the narrative and inconvenient when it exposes the truth.
Clueless and uncaring HMPPS?
ReplyDeleteYesterday's Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/31/ex-prisoners-died-within-two-weeks-release-england-wales
'Getafix
In the weeks running up to his release from prison, Robert Barraclough began feeling anxious about becoming homeless. He told staff that he feared having to sleep in a tent in the cold, and began to self-harm.
DeleteHe had been serving a 19-month sentence for assault and criminal damage at HMP Nottingham, and initially told prison officers he was looking forward to seeing his family and working at his friend’s scaffolding business on release.
But as his release date came closer, and he had no guarantees of a place to live, his mental health deteriorated. He told his support worker he did not want to live outside prison as he “had nothing” and planned to end his life.
He was rejected for a place at a number of probation “approved premises” and, although offered a bed at YMCA Mansfield, when his release date came on 21 October 2022, a space was not available for another week.
At 10.30am on the day of his release, Barraclough’s support worker tried to contact probation to let them know a hotel room could be secured for him until the YMCA bed was available, but no one at Mansfield probation office answered the phone.
The following day, Barraclough was found dead at a house in Mansfield after taking prescription medication and smoking crack cocaine. He was 47 years old.
He is one of a growing number of people who have died within two weeks of being released from prison in England and Wales into homelessness.
Guardian analysis has found that the number of people dying within a fortnight after release from prison is at the highest since records began in 2021, and one in five of these people were homeless.
Experts said the housing crisis and a lack of funding for mental health and substance abuse services, as well as an overstretched probation and prison system, was pushing more prisoners into homelessness on their release.
The circumstances of prisoner deaths after release, detailed in prisons and probation ombudsman reports, show how a combination of substance misuse, mental health problems and homelessness allows individuals to fall through the cracks.
Like Darren Docherty, 48, who had a history of mental ill health and self-harm, and took his own life six days after release from HMP Stoke Heath in August 2023 where he had been serving a sentence for robbery.
DeleteOn his release from prison, he applied for emergency accommodation from Stoke-on-Trent city council, but no beds were available and he ended up homeless and sleeping in a tent.
When he spoke to his GP on 9 August, five days after his release, he said worries about having nowhere to live were affecting his mental health.
That same day, his probation officer passed on Docherty’s risk information, including his poor mental state, to the council in an effort to secure him emergency accommodation at a hotel, but again nothing was available.
As his probation officer was due to go on holiday, the next appointment with Docherty was not scheduled until 23 August. His body was found in woodland the following day, on 10 August.
Mark Johnston, 49, died of a drug overdose five days after being released from HMP Swansea in April 2024 with nowhere to live.
He had been recalled to custody while serving an 18-week prison sentence for theft, and told his prison resettlement officer he would be released homeless and that he had taken drugs to cope with his mother’s recent cancer diagnosis.
The ombudsman report into his death said “workload pressures” had delayed the resettlement team from seeing Johnston while he was in prison, and confusion around responsibilities meant there was a significant delay in referring him for emergency support.
Andy Keen-Downs, the chief executive of the Prison Advice and Care Trust (Pact), said the increase in prison population and a worsening mental health crisis had created a “perfect storm” that was helping cause increasing post-prison homelessness and deaths.
“There is a chronic lack of sustained support for people post-release. Prisons and probation have been one of the worst-cut public services over the last 20 years, and staff have very little time to provide the necessary support,” he said.
“That, plus a massive gap in mental health care services, means we’re inevitably going to see homelessness and deaths.”
Of the people released into homelessness, he said, many would end up back in prison, others would would be long-term street homeless, and others would die. “Sometimes that will simply be because living on the streets for long enough will kill you, but often it’s combined with drugs and alcohol,” he said.
Pact works to help prisoners rebuild and maintain relationships with their family and friends, something which is proven to reduce homelessness, reoffending rates and deaths. “We need to be working with people, not just in their last 12 weeks of a prison sentence, but right from the start,” said Keen-Downs.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/31/deaths-within-two-weeks-of-prison-release-hit-record-high-in-england-and-wales
DeleteThe number of people who die within two weeks of being released from prison in England and Wales has reached a record high, a Guardian investigation has found.
DeleteSeventy-seven people died within 14 days of being released from prison in 2025, 28% higher than the 60 deaths recorded the previous year and the highest since records began in 2021.
Experts said a primary driver of the crisis was a rise in prisoners being released into homelessness, with too many falling through “trap doors to crisis” owing to a lack of available housing.
Analysis of Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) reports published to date found that one in four people who died were released homeless. Separate Ministry of Justice data showed that almost 13,000 people left prison homeless or as rough sleepers in the year to April 2025, a 39% rise from the previous year.
Housing is a significant problem and despite best efforts probation officers cannot override local housing policy or have access to housing outside of AP and Cas. Sometime I feel like I’m more of a housing officer the amount of time I spend on it . More funding is needed and accommodation needs to be for than 4 mths to help stability on release
ReplyDelete