Taking Stock

I've been trying to get my head around exactly what's been going on over the last few weeks and to be honest my head has been spinning. Looking back, it began to feel like we were on a roll heading towards the end of November with a series of themes around morality, encouraged by the on-going BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures. I guess it was the dreadful news of a further attack on a PO in Oxfordshire, following on from the summer Preston stabbing. 

For me it crystalised my generally perceived way in which probation must be being viewed by the clientele - we're the enemy, in no way being part of any solution, just an uncaring route to recall, and that must surely put everyone working in this field in danger. Knife arches, body cameras, security guards are clearly not any kind of answer if we're seen as the problem. Why on earth can't intelligent, sensible people in authority see that abandoning our core aim of assisting rehabilitation by endlessly focussing on 'risk' puts us all in danger and does nothing to reduce the prison population?

I think it was the blog post 'What Probation Has Become' at the end of November that cemented the upward trajectory both in site visits and contributions, rising to 1,500 and things have been steadily climbing ever since, despite festive activity providing distractions. Recent contributions have been stunning and I sense returning to some of the heady days of the TR fight when I know the MoJ got quite worried about the traction the blog was getting. But that's the problem now, it doesn't get the same traction for a whole host of reasons. It's quite clear that this site goes completely unnoticed by newer colleagues and especially PQiP students. This is not a particularly hopeful message on the private Facebook PQiP Training page boasting 2,800 members:-

"This group is to support PQUIP’s as such we need to ensure the group remains positive, supportive and helpful at all times. In order to do so posts may not be allowed if they are aimed at organisation change or policy, specific workload issues, specific colleague or caseload issues."

Academics at the three training Universities take no interest in it, but then we know all are contractually bound by the MoJ/HMPPS to say nothing publicly that might question probation policy or practice! It still surprises me though at the lack of 'professional curiosity' because any google search of 'probation' brings up this blog almost as quickly as HMPPS itself and there's some very good stuff on here.

Of course we've sadly lost key supporters, particularly in Parliament and both the PI and Napo voices are simply not strong enough. Although it's pretty clear to many of us what any sustainable solution might be, despite the appalling performance of the top HMPPS/MoJ team at last week's PAC hearing, appart from a couple of notable exceptions, committee members seem pretty clueless to me. I loved the input from one particularly useless member who 'had done some research at the weekend' and was effectively slapped down by the Chair. Like most people, parliamentarians including my MP haven't a clue or interest in probation and we still lack any kind of authoritative voice. But I don't want to sound down-hearted because I still  believe it could all come right - remember the immortal words of Harold Macmillan "events dear boy, events".  

Seeing as we know how keen Lord Timpson is on AI being able to sort much of probation's staffing problems by freeing up a day a week for more cases, I've finally understood why the blog viewing figures rocketed by several millions last year. It seems 'bots' based in Vietnam were trawling all over it, operated by poorly-paid humans, scooping up all the fine words in order to inform 'Large Language Models' that all AI platforms require. So, it seems we've all unwittingly helped enormously with the AI revolution.

I'll end this bit of reflecting with a word of extremely grateful thanks to all the many faithful readers, supportes and contributors who on a daily basis help keep my faith in probation returning to being a noble and worthwhile endeavour and prevent me from feeling it's time to pack it all in. If you are up for the ride, then so am I. So, on that note and back to the fray, this from overnight:-

We’re Normalising Failure

Let’s stop pretending. Those of us inside probation can see what’s happening every day. The reality is we’re normalising a level of failure that would once have triggered emergency action.

Most cases are now managed at the bare minimum. Real rehabilitative work is rationed. Risk management has become thinner, more administrative, and more about covering organisational exposure than actually keeping people safe. And this didn’t start with Covid.

TR didn’t just reorganise probation – it broke its professional spine. It stripped out experience, fragmented delivery, replaced values with contracts, and taught a generation of staff that survival mattered more than craft. Covid just accelerated the damage.

Yes, the pandemic disrupted face-to-face work. But what we’re dealing with now isn’t a temporary hangover. It’s structural: unsafe workloads, chronic vacancies, constant churn of inexperienced staff, and a system that quietly depends on goodwill and moral injury to keep functioning.

Unification was meant to be the reset. It wasn’t. We didn’t get a stable, well-resourced public service. We got a bigger version of the same fragility – with better branding. You can see it in the gaps: 

– Programmes that exist in theory but not in practice
– RARs that quietly translate into “telephone check-ins”
– Commissioned services that are commissioned but not really available
– Risk management done fast, not well
– Public protection framed as compliance, not craft

We’ve shifted from professional judgement to defensive practice. From “What does this person need to change?” to “What do I need to record so I don’t get blamed?” That’s not what any of this was meant to be. Staff aren’t the problem. They’re holding up a broken system with skill and integrity that goes largely unrecognised. The danger is that we start to accept this as normal. Because once failure becomes normal, recovery stops being possible.

Probation needs honesty, investment, and the return of trust in professional practice. And those of us inside the system know exactly how far away that is.

--oo00oo--

"Sometimes people ask me what's it like being a probation officer. I say : part social worker, part security guard, part clairvoyant — basically the Avengers, but with worse pay. Still you'd be amazed at what you can achieve when you replace experience with optimism and a mandatory e-learning module."

******
"I tell them it's basically a factory job with a human conveyor belt, transporting people from prison, to court, to the community then back to prison. We wrap them up nicely and label them High, Med, Low to ensure correct delivery and obviously we have to hit daily targets and also check for any damaged goods. So basically the criminal justice version of Amazon as we always accept returns and constantly introduce new ways to trap people into thinking we're offering a decent service."

Follow the Blueprint?

This response is in two parts1/2

Thank you for this vital and clear-eyed analysis. You’ve perfectly framed the collision of ideology, profit, and political convenience that has hollowed out probation’s soul. Your question—‘unintended consequences or quiet conspiracy?”, pushes beyond the ‘how’ to the more profound ‘why.’

Reading your words, I was struck by a chilling thought: what if we are not witnessing a unique policy failure, but the latest activation of a very old blueprint? Your observations about the shift from care to control, the bureaucratisation of indifference, and the political theatre of punishment echo across centuries of systems designed to subjugate.

I’ve tried to trace these echoes below, not to contradict your excellent summary, but to place it in a darker, historical context. You ask if we’re willing to reverse the trajectory. I believe the first step is to recognise the ancient pattern we are up against.

The Blueprint of Control: What Probation's Decline Teaches Us About Systems of Subjugation

The story of probation’s slow transformation—from a service of social work to an arm of enforcement—feels like a modern, bureaucratic tragedy. But to view it only through a contemporary lens is to miss its deeper, more unsettling resonance. What we are witnessing is not an anomaly; it is the latest iteration of a historical blueprint for the subjugation of marginalised populations.

You asked if this damage was “unintended or ideological,” pointing to a pattern that repeats across centuries. The mechanisms may differ—no shackles or explicit pogroms—but the functional architecture of control remains recognisable.

The outsourcing of probation and prisons to corporate contractors mirrors a foundational tool of oppression: the commodification of human beings and their destinies.

The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Plantation System. Human beings were literally converted into capital assets, their value measured in labor output and market price. Their well-being was secondary to profit margins and contractual obligations between traders and owners.

Today, the “offender” becomes a revenue-generating unit within a Ministry of Justice contract. Success is measured by cost-per-case and contract compliance, not by healed lives or restored communities. The profit motive, when applied to human correction, inherently creates a perverse incentive to manage rather than solve, to process rather than liberate. It is the enclosure of the social realm, turning public duty into a private revenue stream.

The obsession with KPIs, dashboards, and audit trails is not neutral efficiency; it is the bureaucratisation of indifference.

The meticulous ledgers of colonial administrations and the cold, procedural efficiency of certain authoritarian regimes. These systems perfected the art of reducing complex human communities to data points—taxable units, resource quotas, census numbers—to be administered from a distance. South Africa apartheid was an example, propelled not just by hate, but by terrifyingly meticulous bureaucracy that turned ethnic control into a logistics problem.

The professional judgement of a probation officer, rooted in a relationship, is replaced by a drop-down menu of risk factors. The complex, messy human story is flattened into a “case file” for throughput. This illusion of scientific control strips away context, empathy, and humanity. It is a system designed to be blind to the individual, making oppressive outcomes feel like administrative inevitabilities rather than moral choices.

2/2

Politicians choosing “tough on crime” rhetoric over evidence-based rehabilitation are playing a very old game: consolidating power by defining and punishing an “other.”

The Roman practice of bread and circuses included the spectacle of brutal punishment in the Colosseum, pacifying and uniting the populace through the violent subjugation of a designated group (slaves, criminals, enemies). For centuries, rulers have used public punishment—stocks, pillories, executions—as theatre to reinforce social boundaries and state power.

The political theatre of announcing longer sentences, tougher conditions, and more surveillance serves the same purpose. It defines the “law-abiding” public against the “dangerous offender,” offering a narrative of safety through control rather than through complex social investment. It is a short-term political strategy that sacrifices long-term human and social well-being, exploiting fear for gain.

The move from care to control is the story of institutional mission drift, where systems designed for one purpose are warped into instruments of oppression.

The transformation of some religious missions, orphanages, and “schools for assimilation” (e.g., for Indigenous children). Founded under banners of salvation or education, they often became systems of cultural erasure, emotional abuse, and control, their original ethos corrupted by the unchecked power dynamics and punitive logic embedded within their operation.

Probation’s original mission—“advise, assist, and befriend”—has been corroded. The relational, social-work heart has been replaced by a surveillance-and-enforcement mechanism. The system no longer exists primarily to elevate the individual, but to manage the risk they are presumed to pose. The helper has been recast as the guard.

The retired officer is correct. You don’t need a conspiracy when ideology, profit, and political convenience align. History shows us this alignment is how oppressive systems are built: not always with a grand plan, but step-by-step, through the rational language of efficiency, safety, and order.

So where is the humanity? In this historical light, humanity is the first casualty of the blueprint. It is deliberately designed out of the system because it is inefficient, unpredictable, and resistant to metrication.

To fight for a humane justice system, then, is to do more than argue policy. It is to recognise and name these historical patterns of subjugation when they reappear in managerial dress. It is to insist that a system processing human beings must be built on a foundation of dignity, redemption, and relational trust—principles that have always been the antithesis of control and the bedrock of true liberation.

The question for us now is: having seen the blueprint, will we have the courage to stop building by it?”

ANARCHIST PO

--oo00oo--

What you describe as the “blueprint of control” is exactly what frontline probation staff are trapped inside. The hardest part isn’t recognising the problem—it’s acting against it when your job security is tied to the very bureaucracy you’re trying to resist.

Practitioners are told to use their professional judgement, but the moment that judgement conflicts with targets or risk narratives, it gets shut down. You can’t easily challenge a system when the system controls your workload, your appraisal, and your future employment. That dependency keeps people compliant, even when they can see the damage it does.

If power is going to shift back to professionals, it has to start with three things:

(1) collective voice rather than isolated dissent, (cue the NAPO complaints)
(2) structures that genuinely trust practitioner judgement, and
(3) protections that make humane practice safe, not risky.

Probation can’t rebuild its humanity unless the people doing the work are free to act like humans—and right now, the bureaucracy holds too much of the power for that to happen.

Personally I'm not very optimistic about this getting any better anytime soon. I've had a lifetime of doing my best in difficult circumstances, but I can't wait for this to all end for me personally and I hope that there is life outside of probation where I can do something useful.

********

Thank you for this. You’ve put your finger on the exact tension: seeing the blueprint isn’t enough if we feel powerless to redraw it.

I hear you about NAPO—it’s a common feeling that the official machinery of change moves slowly, if at all. But maybe hope doesn't live there right now. Maybe it lives in the spaces between us—in the conversations like this one, and in the small, stubborn ways practitioners keep humanity alive despite the system.

When you say collective voice is needed, you’re absolutely right. And perhaps that voice begins long before it reaches a union podium. It starts when officers:

• Share their moral dilemmas openly, not just as complaints, but as evidence of a broken system.
• Document quietly, not just for cases, but for the record—noting when policies harm rather than help.
• Support each other’s judgement in team meetings, backing colleagues who advocate for a person over a procedure.
• Connect across offices, informally at first, building a network of the disillusioned but determined.

So when we talk about collective voice, maybe step one is exactly this: using spaces like this to name what’s happening, to mourn what’s been lost, and to imagine what could be. Every time someone shares a story like ours, it becomes harder for the system to pretend everything is working. We are building a living archive of frontline truth.

These aren’t dramatic revolts. They’re the daily, quiet work of keeping the professional conscience alive. And that conscience is like a seed—it can look dormant for a long time until conditions change.

You also mentioned making humane practice safe. That might begin with us deliberately protecting each other’s humanity—covering for one another, validating difficult choices, refusing to internalise the system’s contempt for our own values.

I don’t know if the big structures will change in time for those of us nearing the end of our careers. But I do know this: every time someone like you speaks plainly about what’s happening, we make it easier for the next person to do the same. We’re not just waiting for the end—we are passing on the clarity that will be essential whenever the cracks in the system finally widen.

Hope doesn’t have to mean believing the system will transform tomorrow. It can mean believing that what we protect now—our ethics, our empathy, our solidarity—will be the foundation for whatever comes next. We are already building that foundation, even on the days it feels like we are just surviving.

Thank you for staying in the conversation. It matters.

ANARCHIST PO

********

This guest blog hits hard because it calls out what many inside probation already feel in their bones: we didn’t stumble into this mess — we were steered into it. Bit by bit, the service drifted from rehabilitation to risk-orthodoxy, from social work to surveillance. And now, in an era of rising authoritarianism and populist “law-and-order” swagger — not just in England but across the world — probation risks becoming nothing more than a political prop.

But this doesn't need to be the end of the story. Staff still have agency, and there are ways to take back control and recover the rehabilitation mission before it is lost to the slogans and spreadsheet

Here's my top five suggestions for action.

1. Reclaim professional judgement like a tool left rusting in the shed.
For too long, discretion has been treated as a risk rather than a strength. It’s time to insist that time spent with people — not time feeding data into hungry dashboards — is what actually changes lives. Rehabilitation isn’t an algorithm; it’s a relationship.

2. Build alliances across the social landscape.
If probation waits for ministers to rediscover humanity, it’ll be waiting a long time. But local partnerships — with community groups, housing leads, mental-health teams, addiction workers — can rebuild what central government keeps stripping away. When probation becomes a bridge rather than a border checkpoint, rehabilitation breathes again.

3. Speak truth to power, loudly and consistently.
Document the reality on the ground. Not only what is failing, but what still works when staff have the space to practise properly. Counter the tabloid myth that “punishment equals safety.” Make the case — publicly, relentlessly — that rehabilitation is the only strategy proven to reduce reoffending.

4. Protect relationships from the rising tide of tagging and surveillance.
The more we outsource public safety to devices and recall culture, the more we amputate the core of probation: trust, hope and skilled human engagement. Tagging can track someone’s ankle; it cannot steer their life.

5. Tell the story of probation as it was meant to be.
The public is bombarded with political theatre — “toughness,” “crackdowns,” “zero tolerance.” But probation was built as the quiet counter-narrative: the lighthouse, not the searchlight. Staff, ex-staff and supporters need to say clearly what’s at stake. When rehabilitation is sidelined, communities don’t get safer — they get more fractured, more chaotic, more fearful.

We are living through a global moment when authoritarian instincts are growing louder and more confident. If probation doesn’t assert its purpose now, it risks being swept into that current, transformed from a service of hope into one more cog in the machinery of control.

This is the moment to grab the wheel.

Rehabilitation was never meant to be a footnote — it was the headline. And if staff stand together, insist on evidence over rhetoric, and keep practising the craft of change even in small daily acts, the rehabilitation initiative can be reclaimed.

Probation doesn’t need to wait for permission to rediscover its purpose. It only needs the courage to remember it.

Guest Blog 106

Unintended Consequences or Quiet Conspiracy?

I'm retired a few years now but I spent nearly 40 years of my career in and around probation. Like Jim I'm old school CQSW trained probation - and I would be the first to admit that I'm distant from modern day probation practice. But that doesn't stop me from caring about what is happening to probation or trying to work out how we ended up in such a mess. So I jotted the following thoughts down. I thought I would share them here. I'm sorry they got too long so I'll have to do it in parts.

When you look at what has happened to probation and prisons over the past decades, you can approach it in two ways. Either it’s a story of unintended consequences—well-meaning reforms that spiralled into dysfunction—or it’s the product of a subtle, persistent ideological project driven by right-wing political and commercial interests. In truth, you don’t need to believe in conspiracy to see how powerful interests lined up behind the same direction of travel: marketisation, managerialism, and a performative toughness on crime. The outcomes, planned or not, have been the same.

1. Privatisation: When Ideology Meets Profit

The probation and prison services became testing grounds for the idea that the private sector can always deliver public services more efficiently. It didn’t matter that evidence was thin or that services relied on professional relationships rather than widgets on a production line—privatisation fitted a political worldview and appealed to commercial providers keen for long-term government contracts.

The result? Large outsourcing firms took over supervision, tagging, and entire prisons. Success was measured in contract compliance rather than human outcomes. Inevitably, quality gave way to cost-cutting. Staff were stretched. Services became fragmented. And when things went wrong, the response wasn’t to question the model but to double down on it.

2. Managerialism: The Belief That Targets Fix Everything

A deep belief in managerialism crept across the justice system. It told ministers that if you create the right KPIs, dashboards, and compliance regimes, services would magically improve. But probation and prisons aren’t factory floors. They’re complex, relational environments where trust and time matter.

The managerial turn shifted culture from professional judgement to box-ticking, from human contact to case throughput. Officers increasingly spent more time recording their work than doing it. Decisions became less about what helps an individual change and more about what satisfies the audit trail. In the process, creativity, discretion and empathy were squeezed out.

3. Appealing to the Public’s Punitive Instincts

Politically, there’s always been an easier sell in punishment than rehabilitation. Saying you're “tough on offenders” gets headlines and applause lines; saying you want to invest in rehabilitation gets you accusations of being soft.

So the political incentives tilted decisively toward enforcement: more tagging, more conditions, more surveillance, more breaches, more recall. “Help” became “compliance.” Probation’s identity shifted from a service that supported people into one that monitored them.

It is cheaper and more electorally convenient to promise punishment than to engage the public in the harder truth that rehabilitation is messy, individual, and long-term—and far more effective in reducing crime.

4. The Cultural Shift: From Care to Control

Probation once lived in the space between social work and criminal justice. It was a service that believed people could change and worked with them to make it happen.

But over time, the system moved steadily from care toward control. The pressure to enforce, the contractualisation of services, and the politicisation of crime all pushed probation to become an arm of enforcement rather than an agent of rehabilitation.

Prisons, too, became less about resettlement and more about containment. Overcrowding, underfunding and constant crisis management left little room for anything resembling rehabilitation.

5. So Was It a Conspiracy or a Collision of Interests?

You don’t need backroom plots or dark networks pulling strings. Right-wing political ideology, commercial interests, and managerialist thinking simply aligned. They didn’t have to coordinate—they shared assumptions:

the market is efficient
the private sector can do it better
punishment is popular
professionals need tighter control
rehabilitation is too complicated to sell

These beliefs produced structural change that hollowed out probation, overcrowded prisons, failed communities, and ultimately made society less safe.

What we’re living with now may not have been intended, but it certainly wasn’t accidental. When ideology, profit and political convenience march in the same direction, you don’t need a conspiracy. You just need a government willing to ignore the warnings.

6. And Now?

We’re left with a probation service recovering from fragmentation, a prison system bursting at the seams, and a political climate that still reaches for punitive solutions first. The road back to a system rooted in rehabilitation, professional expertise and humane purpose will be long.

But admitting the truth is a start: the damage didn’t happen by chance. It happened because the incentives favoured control over care, punishment over change, measurement over meaning, and ideology over evidence.

The question now is whether we’re willing to reverse that trajectory—or whether the unintended consequences will continue to play out exactly as some interests always expected they would.

Anon

Serious Tagging Concerns

With so much going on in the probation world recently, the following article from Civil Service World about tagging has slipped down the agenda. The subject only got a brief mention on Monday at the Public Accounts Committee car crash session and the oft-quoted '£700 million':-

Probation Service ‘being set up to fail’ with tagging expansion, committee says

Peers warn resourcing for planned surge in electronic monitoring is "almost certain” to be not enough

A House of Lords committee has warned that the Probation Service is in danger of “being set up to fail” as part of the Ministry of Justice’s planned expansion of electronic monitoring (EM) to help ease the prison capacity crisis.

Under proposals set out in the Sentencing Bill, which was introduced to parliament in September, the number of people required to undergo tagging as part of the terms of their release is set to increase significantly.

However, a letter from members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee to MoJ ministers raises serious concerns about the resourcing for the expansion being offered to the Probation Service. Peers also question the capacity of private sector providers to cope with a near doubling of the number of offenders and defendants required to wear EM devices as a condition of their release into the community.

The committee says the government’s plans envisage 22,000 more people being subject to tagging each year – a significant hike on the 26,647 people being electronically monitored at the end of September. However, it says an extra £100m earmarked for investment into EM only represents an uplift of 30%.

The peers’ 28-page letter notes the MoJ’s “much trailed” pledge to invest £700m in the Probation Service over the next four years, but says the share that will go into staff hiring, development and retention is “almost certain to be insufficient”.

It also directly challenges the MoJ’s reliance on suppliers previously found to have massively overcharged the ministry for EM services.

“We find it extraordinary that contracts were awarded to both Serco and AUEM despite being found by the Serious Fraud Office to have been dishonestly misleading the government while providing EM services,” the letter states. Allied Universal Electronic Monitoring – or AUEM for short – is the new name for G4S Monitoring Technologies.

Serco and G4S wrongly billed the MoJ for tens of millions of pounds for tagging services under EM contracts first awarded in 2005. G4S eventually repaid the department £100m, and Serco repaid £70.5m. Investigations by the SRO resulted in Serco being fined £19.2m plus £3.7m costs and G4S being fined £38.5m plus £5.9m costs over the scandal.

The committee’s letter goes on to say: “Continued failures in service provision from Serco in particular lead us to conclude that without major changes in contract management, including flexing to additional providers where necessary, EM service provision will continue to be woefully inadequate.”

Committee chair Lord Don Foster said the government needed to reassess its approach to electronic monitoring.

“The Probation Service needs more funding, and many more well-trained staff if there is to be a successful EM expansion,” he said. “Without this, the Probation Service is being set up to fail. It is startling that the government is promoting the biggest expansion of EM in a generation at a time of great technological advancement yet does not see fit to accompany this with a new strategy.”

Foster said the rise of new technologies, including non-fitted devices and AI, further highlighted the importance of a new strategy that clearly defines the purpose of EM to both the judiciary and the public.

He added that a new presumption that all prison leavers will be subject to EM on their release from custody had the potential to hinder the Probation Service in its work.

“This blanket approach to tagging, regardless of crime and circumstances, diminishes the role of effective, targeted probation interventions, and risks creating an unethical system that is overly punitive and disproportionate,” Foster said.

Proper resourcing and training for the Probation Service is front and centre of the committee’s recommendations to ministers.

Additionally, peers are also calling on ministers to prioritise the publication of a new EM strategy that “comprehensively covers” the rollout, scaling, and implementation of the government’s new approach. The letter says the strategy should also address ethical issues, and the “intersection” between EM and AI.

Further demands include more longitudinal studies of the long-term efficacy of EM – both pre- and post-tag removal – in terms of reducing reoffending, supporting victims, and detecting crime.

Peers are also calling on ministers to “immediately begin” a tendering process to expand the number of EM service providers available to the MoJ.

An MoJ spokesperson said: “Tagging is a critical tool in our efforts to punish offenders and evidence shows it’s increasingly proving its effectiveness in cutting reoffending and keeping the public safe. That’s why we are increasing the probation budget by around 45% over the next three years and investing an extra £100m into electronic monitoring so we can tag tens of thousands more offenders under our upcoming reforms. We will carefully consider the committee’s findings and respond in due course.”

The ministry added that Serco has improved its performance and backlogs from last year had been cleared, with the number of outstanding visits back to normal levels. It said a “series of measures” had been introduced to toughen up scrutiny of Serco, including direct access to its systems.

The MoJ said it was “very confident” that its tagging service could meet the additional demand of the proposed reforms and said it is “working with suppliers to ensure change is implemented effectively”.

A Serco spokesperson said the company’s performance on the MoJ electronic-monitoring contract had “improved significantly” and that it is now “successfully tagging record numbers of offenders”.

“We disagree entirely with the committee’s suggestion that we lack the ability to cope with an increase to the volume of people tagged,” they said. “This is not based on recent evidence. We have already successfully dealt with a number of early release schemes and are well placed to deal with the forecast expansion in people being tagged.”

Guest Blog 105

A Cruel Parody

The blog post and the resulting comments powerfully capture the profound disconnect between the realities of frontline probation work and the leadership tasked with its stewardship. The NAO report laid out the facts of the crisis, but the reaction from staff after the PAC hearing reveals the true depth of the failure: a collapse of trust.

The PAC session wasn't just a poor performance; it was a testament to a leadership culture that seems to prioritise bureaucratic reassurance over honest reckoning. To claim ignorance of the workload crisis, after years of warnings from staff, unions, and inspectors, is not credible—it's insulting. To remain silent on attacks on staff is a dereliction of duty. To offer "digital transcription tools" and "digital platforms" as the primary answer to a crisis of understaffing, burnout, and physical danger is to fundamentally misunderstand the problem.

The comments from readers underscore three irreducible truths that any real solution must address:

1. Leadership must be accountable and present. The "missing in action" critique is damning. Leaders cannot manage a human service by spreadsheet and risk register alone. They must be visible, especially in crisis. They must speak plainly about problems, take responsibility for their role in creating them, and fight unambiguously for the resources staff need—starting with pay that reflects the complexity and risk of the job.

2. Safety and morale are prerequisites, not afterthoughts. A service where staff feel unsafe, unheard, and disposable cannot function effectively. The silence following the Oxford incident speaks volumes. Investing in staff wellbeing, security, and professional respect isn't a cost—it's the foundation of any resilient service.

3. Probation's soul is at stake. The managerial shift towards a narrow, risk-averse model of "public protection" is stripping probation of its rehabilitative heart. As noted, this is backwards. Effective public protection flows from successful rehabilitation. A service that sees its clients only as risks to be managed has already failed in its broader social purpose.

The £700 million announced in the Spending Review is a recognition of the scale of the problem, but money alone is not a solution. It will be wasted if spent on technological sticking plasters or to sustain the same failing structures and leadership approaches.

The path forward requires humility: listening to frontline staff who know where the system is broken. It requires courage: making bold decisions about pay, workload, and the purpose of supervision. And it requires integrity: leaders who can say, "We got this wrong, and here is how we will fix it, with you."

Until then, the "virtuous circle" promised by officials will remain a cruel parody. The real work of rebuilding probation must start from the ground up, with the people who have been holding the service together despite it all.

ANARCHIST PO 

Starting to Turn the Corner?

It will be recalled that the National Audit Office issued a damning report on the state of the Probation Service in October, which we covered here. Well, yesterday all the top brass found themselves in front of the Public Accounts Committee for a grilling, including the 'Missing in Action' Chief Probation Officer and the hapless Permanent Secretary:-. 

Dr Jo Farrar CB OBE
Permanent Secretary at Ministry of Justice

Adam Bailey
Director, Probation and Reoffending Policy at Ministry of Justice

James McEwen
Director General CEO at HM Prison and Probation Service

Jim Barton
Executive Director, Capacity Implementation at HM Prisons and Probation Service

Kim Thornden-Edwards
Chief Probation Officer at HMPPS

Here's what the Committee were exercised about:-  

Efficiency and resilience of the Probation Service

The Probation Service is suffering from poor performance and persistent staffing shortages, particularly of qualified probation officers. The National Audit Office in its recent report found a service under significant strain following reforms in 2021, meeting only 26% (seven out of 27) of its performance targets in 2024-25.

While HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has made efforts at recruitment and retention, in 2024 it found it had been underestimating the number of sentence management staff by around 40% (around 6,900 full-time equivalent staff.) This meant it had been operating with only about half the staff needed to manage offenders' sentences.

In an evidence session with senior officials from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMPPS, the PAC will seek answers as to why probation performance has gotten worse, not better, despite past reforms. Other likely topics for questioning include the management of the Our Future Probation Service programme, and how this will achieve its planned aims to reduce workloads by 25%.

I was alerted to this session by catching a clip on the BBC Radio 4 'Today in Parliament' slot at 11.30 last night, no doubt to be repeated at 5am this morning.The snippet I caught of Clive Betts laying into Jo Farrar and her deeply unimpressive bluster in response confirms in my mind that the whole two hour session will repay close examination and almost certainly will be more shocking and impactful than trying to plough through the transcript when available. As I'm preparing this 'holding' blog post, some early comments 

Seems hmpps' perm sec got a kicking about probation staffing today... Tonight's bbcr4 Today in Westminster... I'm sure there's a transcript online somewhere.

Excruciating, embarrassing, dishonest, delusional... Utter bollox from farrar & mcewen: "a situation we inherited"... Fucking liars...

are confirming my suspicion that this car crash of a session just might turn out to be of huge significance for the incompetents in charge at Petty France.

For those that want to leap straight in with either a strong coffee or stiff whisky, here's the link to the excrutiating video:-

https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/7de0b0ba-a35c-4337-86f1-4f189810733e

I've now endured the whole session:-

Floundering, bullshitting, waffle. Key bits:-

Data moving in the right direction, not complacent, listening to staff concerns, more complex caseload, recalling for the right reasons, didn't take eye off the ball, inherited difficult situation, fair and manageable workload, we now understand the full picture, £700 million, digital platforms, recruitment, brave decisions, hoping for a virtuous circle, it's why we're here as a service - to protect the public, no big bang changes, impressed with governance, 30 plus initiatives on the way,  Our Future Probation Service, (OFPS), Impact, Reset, address 25% capacity gap,£700 million, transcribe will allow higher caseloads, digital tools will help fill capacity gap, review of OMIC, tackling the root causes

Loved this bit:-

Chair "HMPPS have been behind the curve all along because they think they know how long it takes to do a job and the staff keep telling them it takes longer. How can we have any confidence you actually know how many staff you need to do the work?" 

Answer "Staff surveys reveal staff are actually doing more than they need to."

What is my take on what I've heard?

1) A deeply, deeply unimpressive management team

2) A total failure to admit Probation is utterly dysfunctional

3) Politicians who don't understand Probation and that it's heading in the wrong direction

4) Probation has no effective voice with a coherent plan for structural reform

5) Public protection is NOT the main purpose of Probation. 

6) Rehabilitation should be the main purpose and public protection thus follows  

7) Management have no clue what is involved in being a Probation Officer

8) Tagging at prison? What could possibly go wrong?

9) Scope for diverting some people to voluntary sector - social work needs perhaps? 

10) Naive belief in tagging answer to everything

Reflections

We seem to be entering a very dark period in history?

I came with a compass, to advise and befriend,
To help a lost soul find a way to the end
Of a dark, tangled path, to stand by their side,
With a value of justice, a purpose, a guide.

But the compass is broken, the map is a lie,
Replaced by a screen with a blinkless red eye.
It counts my compliance, my ticks and my checks,
The weight of the data now bows down my neck.

“Assist and befriend?” A forgotten, old phrase.
The mantra is “Process,” and count down the days.
“Enforce and recall!” the new leadership cries,
While the light of true help in a deep office dies.

I’m a social worker, they gave me a caseload,
Then a lawman’s cold badge and a perilous road.
I’m told to seek risk in a handshake, a glance,
And to never, not ever, be given to chance.

My desk is a fortress of files and of fears,
Of silent goodbyes and unshed, bitter tears.
For the man who’s now homeless, the woman who’s using,
The system’s cold cogs are just brutally bruising.

I’m haunted by faces, the ones I can’t save,
From the churn of the recall, the pull of the grave.
I’m told to show compassion, to practice with care,
But the culture we have is a soul-baring snare.

They speak of “moral injury,” clinical, cold,
A wound that is sold when your conscience is sold.
It’s the chasm that grows between what’s right and the task,
The answer you know, but are too weary to ask.

So the rage and the grief find a home in this blog,
A cry from the heart, a dis-spirited log.
Of a service that’s sick, that treats people like shit,
From the client to staff, who are forced to submit.

But sometimes, a moment, a flicker of trust,
A person, not casefile, rising from dust.
A “thank you” that’s genuine, a small, hard-won start…
That flicker still beats in my professional heart.

Though the badge that they gave me feels heavy and cold,
A story of humanity, waiting, untold.

ANARCHIST PO 🇵🇸

--oo00oo--

The Line We Used to Walk

There was a time when probation in England
stood on the softer ground of hope—
a practice built on patience,
on conversation,
on the simple belief that change grows best
in the presence of trust.
Advise, assist, befriend
was more than a motto;
it was a way of meeting people
where they were,
and walking with them toward where they could be.

But the centre has shifted.
Policy, panic, and headlines have pulled the work
into colder territory—
a landscape governed by algorithms,
“risk,”
and endless demands to monitor, enforce, recall.
Clipboards now speak louder than compassion,
and the door that once opened to rehabilitation
revolves faster and faster
with unnecessary recalls and shattered confidence.

The human cost is mounting.
Two probation officers have been stabbed in recent months,
leaving colleagues stunned, grieving,
and painfully aware of the dangers
that rarely make the news.
Their empty chairs haunt the office,
quiet reminders of how exposed,
how undervalued,
frontline staff have become.

Morale is sinking—not for lack of commitment,
nor courage,
but because so many feel the soul of the job
is slipping away.
The role that once built bridges
is now asked to build barriers.
The work that once changed lives
now too often revolves around
fear of failure,
fear of scrutiny,
fear of blame.

And yet—
beneath the weight of it all,
a stubborn spark remains.
Call it belief, call it duty,
call it the memory of what probation once was
and what, one day,
it could be again.

Because the heart of this profession
was never meant to beat in time
with enforcement targets.
It was meant to beat
for people—
all their complexity,
their possibility,
their imperfect, necessary hope.

Anon

What Probation Has Become

I published this cartoon from Private Eye on October 9th:-

This came in over night:-

In all my 20 years in probation I've not heard of serious incidents from people on probation to staff....in the past 6 months I've heard of 2. There are posts above about how the recall, tick box, authoritarian, breach first and so called risk management culture leads to resentment, combative practice and poor decisions. We have poorly trained staff led by power hungry monsters. It's not scanners and bag searches we need...its properly trained staff and an overhaul of our entire approach and culture. 

This organisation is sick and unhealthy for both the people working for and using the service. I've literally had my motivation and vivacity sucked out of me by this organisation. Of course I have compassion for the employees involved and such incidents are horrific. But as a good probation officer I want to fully understand what has led two people to making such horrific choices in the past 6 months. Sadly I have no faith that this organisation has the ability to self reflect on its own potential contribution to such terrible acts and behaviour.

On October 9th I published this:-

It was an interesting discussion, I clicked on it when Jim put it up in a previous blog. Gaie Delap used the term "moral injury" to describe the trauma of the injustice she experienced. This term occurs to me whenever I read the comments section in this blog, or when I reflect on why I am still raging at the damage to my profession after retirement, or when I speak with colleagues still in work. 

Just recently one of them, talking about the terrible morale in their office, said "even the new staff, they're hating it. They just dont feel they are helping anyone" It was sort of encouraging to hear that the new recruits, who have never known any different than HMPPS, are there because they want to HELP people, not batter crap into a laptop and breach and recall. I mean, there's the poor pay, and the vicious blame culture too, but right at the centre is the yawning chasm where a solid set of values and sense of justice should be.

Anyway, back to Moral Injury, which depending on where you look for a definition, is a form of PTSD,. Collectively and individually, Probation is a traumatised organisation, and it is playing out in front of us. It plays out in this blog; the rage and the grief, the fury aimed at any and everyone who might have prevented or softened the damage. It plays out in work, the bullying and intimidation meted out by an organisation that, at least at the top, is run by people who sold their souls and they know it. 

Run by "leaders" (now that is a trigger word for our shared condition to flare) who spout guff about "trauma informed practice" but can't or wont translate that into what they do to their staff, like it doesnt tanslate into the work we are told to do. So it plays out in long term sickness and people just voting with their feet and leaving at the first viable opportunity. 

Heaven forfend Probation staff are instructed to name and shame their clientele in public. Such a stark horrible reminder of just how dismal the whole thing is, and where its heading. Question is, can anything be done to turn this tanker around? If so, what?

Cause and Effect

We have a very serious situation:-

Trainee probation officer stabbed yesterday. Circumstances being kept tight lipped. Questions raised as to why changes since Preston haven’t been implemented, being blamed on funding and all offices requesting it. Not good enough. I don’t want to work for this service anymore, we are not valued.

******
Almost 6 months after the last one. Still no security or scanners in the office. Yet Martin Davis assures us staff security is at a premium. yeah right sure it is.

*******
If things are being missed when certain behaviours mean alarm bells would be ringing loudly... then where the hell is the management leadership and oversight, and when is it going to be properly held to account rather than case managers being blamed totally and punished in isolation under the SFO procedure, leaving managers in the clear.

*******
Good on Mr Gilmore. Win, lose or draw, he should be able to clarify a situation which exists in this country too. I had issues previously about a pre-sentence report where there was a great disparity between what the quality control audit people felt and what the sentencing judge thought. I asked the question, who are we writing the report for, the probation service or the sentencer? There was much huffing and puffing and a bit of threatening before it all went away unanswered. I know from speaking to colleagues that I was not on my own.

*******
I can recall being in a parole hearing when the case manager was asked to express their opinion on how manageable was risk. The initial response was, ‘my manager says…..’ the panel quite rightly pressed the matter in line with Parole Board rules and we’re then told, ‘the area manger thinks,……’ Upon being asked a third time, they were told, ’the MAPPA committee has decided……’ This is what they have created. Supposed professionals who either don’t have, or who aren’t allowed to express an opinion.

*******
There's one seriously important & invaluable observation from Acheson, one that NOMS/MoJ/HMPPS has never understood and will never understand, as they have no concept of managing that tightrope:

"I can still remember when these organisations were different but complementary entities. As the Governor of a prison with a lifer unit, I was inclined to keep most of the risk inside the walls and my colleague, the seconded senior probation officer, had the opposite perspective. That creative tension meant good risk-based decisions happened."

This puts me in mind of the similar *necessary* tensions that existed between Pre-Sentence Report authors & sentencers, carefully crafting argument & counter-argument, balancing all facts & considerations in a bid to realise the most appropriate & effective outcome. A balance that was shattered - & shat all over - when 'the centre' decided that concordance rates (probation proposals were in alignment with sentence outcomes) were a key performance indicator. Proof positive they had no concept of what constituted meaningful risk assessment.

Again, to quote Acheson:

"It was certainly no worse than the algorithmic, push button approach that dominates today."

*******
Two stabbing in the space of five months and no actual physical changes in offices to safeguard staff. Lockers to be installed but what about weapons concealed against the person? Workloads through the roof, a culture of bullying from senior management, and a pay deal that isn’t likely to materialise this financial year leaving staff struggling against the cost of living rises. What a sh*t place to work.

*******
Unfortunately since the Damien Bendall murders in 2021 HMPPS have forced Probation to over risk, cover backs and have trained new staff (and bullied/threatened experienced staff) to see offenders as the 'enemy' and to breach and recall for any slight issue. New staff haven't been encouraged to build rapport or develop relationships but to hit targets and write Oasys. This has made offenders see us as basically police or community prison officers who aren't there to help and support but to hinder, control and punish. I'm generalising but it's how I see the situation and I don't think it's possible to turn the tanker around...

*******
Very sad and shocked to read the extraordinary staff briefing yesterday afternoon. A trainee PO stabbed in Oxfordshire Probation office. Thankfully not critical but the trauma for them and colleagues must be enormous. What is being done to protect us as this is becoming a very real threat now with the proliferation of knives.

********

Recall, breach, recall, breach, exterminate, exterminate, PQIQ Daleks

--oo00oo--

Lets just cut to the chase here. 'Probation is now seen as the enemy' fed into Google AI delivers this:-

The idea that "probation is now seen as the enemy" stems from a shift in its role from rehabilitation to a more punitive, risk-management-focused system, which can be perceived as adversarial by offenders. This change is linked to increased bureaucracy, pressure from managerialism, and a focus on "tick-box" procedures rather than social inclusion. As a result, probation officers are sometimes seen as part of the state's penal apparatus rather than as supportive "friends" who help offenders lead non-criminal lives.

Shift in focus: The original purpose of probation was to "advise, assist and befriend" offenders, but this has been increasingly overshadowed by a focus on risk management and punishment.

Increased bureaucracy: A "tick-box" culture and heavy procedures dominate the service, sometimes undermining the judgment of individual officers and causing offenders to feel that progress is being hindered.

Punitive measures: The system has become more risk-averse, making breaches of community orders and licences, which can lead to re-sentencing or prison, a default position for probation staff.

Perceived as adversarial: The more punitive and bureaucratic nature of modern probation means offenders can see their probation officers not as helpers, but as adversaries or the "enemy" who are trying to catch them out.

Cultural and structural changes: The service's integration with the prison service and its placement within the civil service have been criticized as culturally inappropriate, further contributing to this perception of a more adversarial system.

--oo00oo--

England once had a gold-standard and world-leading Probation Service that was informed by a Social Work ethos and staffed with highly skilled and well-motivated professionals able to exercise skill and judgement to 'advise, assist and befriend' in furtherance of both rehabilitation and public protection. Management, at the behest of politicians, have destroyed that over recent years and brought us to the point of utter chaos, rammed prisons, totally demoralised workforce and England having become an outlier as far as enlightened world-wide practice is concerned. This cannot go on as Acheson indicates:-

"But there’s no time and no appetite for any more change in this much abused and misunderstood service. The Government has made its choice on sentencing, and that is to load even more risk onto an agency that can’t guarantee public protection and rehabilitation with existing workloads."

The Government must bite the bullet - Probation as part of HMPPS is totally unfit for purpose and must be reformed and recast or things will get even worse.

Towards a Moral Revolution

I must be honest, I've become increasingly demoralised by the criminal justice picture emerging on a daily basis, together with no sign of hope for the Probation Service returning to something approaching the force for good it once was. Having to admit failure is never an easy thing to do and I've always had the naive belief that a blog could be part of trying to make things better. Surely the force of sound argument, evidence and testimony can change things?

Our recent discussions surrounding morality have very neatly brought us to the BBC's Reith lectures and a tantalising notion of hope in the offing. I urge readers to come along on this journey. I didn't catch the first broadcast on Tuesday, but listened to the linear repeat last night. It's good and it's promising:-

"What we need now is not just better policies or better politicians. We need a moral revolution. We need to revive an ancient idea, almost laughable in today's climate, that the purpose of power is to do good. And that is the goal of this lecture series. To argue that the most urgent transformation of our time is not technological or geopolitical or industrial, but moral. We need a new kind of ambition, not for status, or wealth, or fame, but for integrity, courage, and public service, a moral ambition. This may sound.....   And yet, it's precisely because things can get much worse that they can also get much better. History is not just a record of the declines. It's also full of astonishing turnarounds. In my next Reith Lecture, I will show how moral revolutions have shaped the past and how we can make it happen again."

The transcript indicates a missing word, so I used AI to sort it:-

"The most likely missing word is "controversial" or another word with a similar meaning, as the full sentence would be: "This may sound controversial, and yet, it's precisely because things can get much worse that they can also get much better." The statement suggests that the potential for extreme negative outcomes provides the necessary impetus for significant positive change."

The transcript can be found here and all episodes here.