Sunday Reflections

I gave a talk last week to U3A. I've given loads of talks about probation over the years, never scripted, but rather shaped by my current mood, the prevailing situation and an assessment of how and why it's all gone wrong. I obviously have a pop at all the main political party's for their respective part in the demise of a once well-respected public service and profession, along with the part played by Tory rags like the Daily Mail. They were a particularly sparky bunch last Wednesday with two 'biting back'. "Why are you being so negative?" and "We can't afford to spend on all that old stuff". There's absolutely nothing positive to say about the situation and there's loadsamoney to spend downstream on yet more bloody places to lock everyone up.

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If you listened to Charlie Taylor giving the Longford lecture you will notice his utterly damning verdict on HMPPS and MoJ ability to organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewey, so is it any surprise what's happened to probation under their command and control? Examples of how probation is now part of the problem abound on here regularly:-

Ten years ago, frontline, I had a youngish man due for release. I went to see him in advance, he was very nervous, he had all the "right" motivations, get a job, stay clean, stay out of trouble. But he had nowhere to go to, no accommodation on release. I chatted, we got to know each other. Time marched on. I referred to housing, I asked around, nada. I lost sleep over this one. For weeks. It seemed so horrible and frightening for him, and it was my duty to advise and assist. In the end a colleague - time served PSO - put me on to a local landlord he knew and we got it sorted. The accommodation was so dodgy I persuaded the housing authority to regard him as homeless. I persuaded my lad to stick with it. Two things from this. A. It was a relationship. I cared about him, deeply. B. The solution was local, boots on the ground. Nothing nothing about the way Probation is now enables any of this..

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“an all-White, all-female panel” … as are most of our management and senior management teams!

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• Trainees (PQiP): The incoming pipeline is heavily skewed, with 79% being female.
• Frontline Staff (Non-Managerial): Women represent 75.8% of the workforce.
• Middle Management: Women represent 74.3% of the workforce.
• Senior Leadership: Women represent 67.8% of the workforce.
• The Baseline Ethnicity: Roughly 80.8% of the entire service identifies as white.

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So the upshot of this is that probation is probably the least diverse it has ever been while parroting on about diversity till the cows come home……….practice what you preach senior leaders……

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Then I notice this today on Twitter:-

"Dame Antonia Romeo, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service - the most powerful unelected official in Britain - has been given her targets for the year. Not a single one of them has a number in them, let alone one that goes up; but they do nonetheless make for interesting reading. The targets were published at 5:23pm on Bonfire Night, with the public looking up at the sky, and with the mainstream press practising the same studious indifference to Britain's real centre of governing power as they always have. 

They call for the Cabinet Secretary to "visibly lead the Civil Service with clarity, energy and passion". She is to "champion a culture of curiosity" and "build trust in the state". And - the biggest of all the tells - she is to protect "the interests of former governments and Ministers". It's a set of targets too soft even for a junior account manager at a small recruitment firm. And this is the most noble and important public service position in the country we're talking about. The Cab Sec should be held to the highest, steepest standards, and an almost impossible standard of quality and competence obliged of them. Not even Prime Ministers enjoy the same means to serve their country as the Cabinet Secretary does. 

But this may be in Romeo's interests. Let's look at the positions she held before. For four years she ran the Ministry of Justice. In 2021, her first year there, it was given £5.2 billion to build 20,000 prison places. By September 2024 it had built 6,518. The cost is now put at up to £10.1 billion, and the finish line has been moved to 2031. When the cell places ran out, 26,456 prisoners were let out early in under seven months, every one of them on her watch. She then went to the Home Office, and from there to the top job. She now chairs the committee that decides who runs every department of state, and none of it has ever been put to you. A perfect trajectory of upward failure. And that's the arrangement. Ministers come and go and carry the blame. The officials who watched sleepily while the institution degraded and fell apart go up a floor with a pay bump, a pension increase, and a knight- or damehood earmarked for them.

Progress would abolish the post of Cabinet Secretary on our first day in office. Its powers go to a Chief of Staff of ministerial rank, picked by the Prime Minister, known to the public, answerable to Parliament, and sackable at an hour's notice if they should fall under the standard of performance the public demands. Any government project that runs 20% over budget or a year late puts the official responsible in front of a select committee and costs them their bonus, and if the failure is theirs, they face disciplinary proceedings. (And, to address the issue on this one's side, we would build 100,000 new prison places and end early release, so that no sentence a judge hands down is ever again cut short by a shortage of cells). Clarity, energy and passion are fine things to bring to a job. Under Progress, whoever runs the machine will bring a number as well, and answer for it if they should miss it."

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So, who the fuck are 'Progress'? AI again:-

Progress for Britain (officially registered as Progress) has no formal organizational links with Reform UK and positions itself as a distinct rival party. While there are minor overlaps in media platforms used by its founder, the two organisations operate completely separately. 

Key Details on Progress for Britain

Independent Registration: According to the Electoral Commission, Progress (registration ID PP18166) was authorised as an independent political party in Great Britain on 28 October 2025. Its registered officers are Maxi Gorynski (Leader and Nominating Officer) and Sebastian Steele (Treasurer). 

Stance on Reform UK: Progress for Britain markets itself as a movement "beyond left and right" aimed at the "politically homeless". When publicly introducing the party on X (formerly Twitter) on 15 April 2026, Treasurer Sebastian Steele explicitly dismissed Reform UK as a viable option, stating: "We can all see the Greens and Reform aren't serious choices. Progress is the answer."

Media Overlap: Party founder Maxi Gorynski has appeared on GB News and contributed articles to publications such as Spiked and The Reformer Scotland—a Scottish publication that also features contributors from Reform UK. However, this reflects overlapping media commentary rather than a political or organisational affiliation. 

(Note: Progress for Britain is also completely separate from Progress, the long-running centre-left pressure group and think tank affiliated with the Labour Party.) 

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So, what's this outfits policy on criminal justice?

Crime & Justice. Zero tolerance, maximum deterrence. Open justice and public accountability for every court in the land. Unified judicial services to clear the backlog. Institutional corruption investigated and prosecuted. The rape gangs pursued without political interference. Police returned to the streets and freed from paperwork. One law for all – no parallel legal systems, no cultural exemptions. Victims’ rights that mean something. Knife crime, drug markets, cybercrime, and terrorism met with the full force of a state that has decided to take crime seriously.

Oh dear. Not much sign of an enlightened approach here then.