Revisit

Just recently this forum has moved at a cracking pace and on a number of fronts, but in the process I think much tends not to register, so on occasion I think it's useful to revisit:-

Original comment listed in the article raises a number of very valid points, especially around inexperienced practitioners becoming SPOs. Seeing this happen with astonishing frequency, meaning that when practitioner's go to discuss case issues they aren't able to answer or have an idea who they could contact to clarify. We are compounding a dangerous situation, with the inexperienced leading the inexperienced.

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Corporate bullying has become much more subtle in recent years with them adapting a lawfare type approach……present a problem and you are the only one, with it…or so you are told…..ask an inexperienced SPO to make a 50/50 decision and most will have to ask their manager or ask you to ask them….we live under constant threat of capability proceedings or if we work to our hours, we are somehow letting the side down, probation is fuelled by goodwill, remove that and who knows what would happen……..

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"Local delivery is important, but structures alone won’t restore the profession. That requires leadership which values experience, encourages constructive challenge, understands frontline realities and recognises that professional expertise is not confined to those occupying management positions."

And therein lies one of the biggest hurdles - getting those with authority & influence to accept that centralising, privatising & re-unifying probation services was a total fuck up. This requires 'the centre' to openly admit that their raison d'etre was - and is - not just flawed, but built on years of lies, fabricated evidence & abusive practice.

It all followed on from the initial decisions to centralise in 1999 (new choreography), impose central control (noms), embed privatisation in law (OMA2007) and the subsequent ideological lunacy of 2013/4 whereby noms/hmpps intentionally targetted existing experienced staff & threw hundreds overboard. Why? It was essentially an attempt to remove &/or manage the discontented, the nay-sayers & those who voiced concerns: "take the money or we'll manage you out with nothing."

Using public funds (£80+million provided by the Cabinet Office) they facilitated a mass redundancy scheme (money the CRC owners misappropriated in most cases)... a scheme the unions signed off on, then in a fit of delayed guilt felt they ought to go for judicial review, realised they were hoist by their own petard, & hastily withdrew:

"• In February 2015, NAPO (the trade union and professional association for family court and probation staff) instituted a judicial review challenging the legality of the government's Transforming Rehabilitation contracts for the 21 community rehabilitation companies (CRCs).
• NAPO subsequently withdrew the judicial review and was ordered to pay the substantive costs of the legal proceedings."

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The dialogue and subsequent comments says it all. Probation has become a poisonous, ‘them and us’ organisation. It will never recover what it previously delivered. The OFPS guarantees that PO’s will be sat delivering the Janet and John supervision model forever, using proscribed supervision sessions developed by people with no probation experience. I have the privilege to be able to evidence different roles completed such as community, resettlement, custody, IOM and a specialist role. A lot of those up the greasy pole do not have that experience and look at people like me as a challenge and threat. I am no threat I don’t want to progress I have enjoyed my probation experience. I have experience of managing at another organisation took a redundancy package that meant I was comfortable and able to take the pay drop to become a PO. I have previously had experienced SPOs and Senior Managers. 

But things change and we work in a change environment. Unfortunately though it has not changed for the best, TR messed it completely and now we have SPOs and Senior Managers with no V or HROSH case management and hate it when their decisions evidence that limited knowledge, especially in the MAPPA arena, not understanding parole processes or registration for specific offences. It is embarrassing at times when you see a COM or POM advising them of their errors. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in probation, the highs the lows and the occasional conversation at the shops with people that I previously supervised both in the community and custody on community orders and licence. I don’t know if the new generation will have that experience or even make it passed ten years.

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Re Probation has become poisonous. I posted this earlier on the post Our Future is Local.“The comments posted above just shows that HMPPS continues to operate with impunity. Two years after the Rademaker Review was completed we still have no change. Nor will there ever be.”.

In 20 something starting in PS, the working environment and the incompetence of managers was something of a culture shock. Got worse when I moved across to Sentence Management. Toxic, toxic, toxic. SPOs could talk the talk, but didn’t walk the talk. When challenging a SPO on how I was to achieve all the mandates of the National Standards with my caseload and not been given the required time to complete certain training without a caseload, the SPO actually said to me that National Standards was Probation myth and legend and didn’t exist. This was a SPO who spent his most of his day scouring the internet for news, properties on the market, sourcing companies to do renovations for his house, finding ammunition for his personal vendetta against former CRC SPO and the list goes on. This happened each and every day he was in office until his appearances in office eventually became an occasion to celebrate. I took great delight in getting an electronic copy of the National Standards and sending it to him saying here we go, not a Probation myth or legend. A lot of blustering later but no apology.

I do acknowledge that a lot of the PDU culture is down to the leadership (or lack thereof) at PDU level. The ‘Queen Bee Syndrome’ can be very prevalent in some PDUs. Yet other PDUs have wonderful and inspired leaders. These are the exception. Is a shame as the bad grapes should never have been promoted to ACOs. God only knows how they do the selection criteria.

I still cannot understand to this day as to how they (SPOs) knowingly are complicit in overworking and whipping staff (idiomatic metaphor) to achieve the performance metrics. They know it is impossible within current staff shortfalls of at least 25%, unmanageable caseloads for a 37 hour week forcing uncompensated overtime for those officers whose motivation is intrinsic. This, stagnant pay, as well as withholding of CBF and extensive delays of annual pay awards are systematic exploitation. It amounts to constructive wage theft and moral injury. The system is only functioning by extracting unsustainable amounts of emotional and physical Labour from its ever dwindling remaining workforce. There is no gratitude. Only bullying, coercion and control.

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Let’s bust the myth, there is no leadership in the PS, nothing that would be recognised by those who have leadership and management qualifications of which I am one. They even have leadership courses but again no really recognised qualifications. One of my former colleagues said that they promote the incompetent as a result the organisation fails, you can read as many policies as you want if you cannot interpret them positively then as a manager you have failed, do as I say is not management, because I am telling you to is not management, I was told you had to do it this way is not management. Leaving your team members to face an SFO because of your incompetence is not management. So no leadership and no management equals probation currently and all the experienced POs leaving.

Moaning or Highlighting?

The research Jim has highlighted about ‘complicated loyalty’ is particularly interesting, because I suspect it explains why so many experienced PPs remain in a service they have become profoundly disillusioned with. Their loyalty isn’t necessarily to HMPPS. It’s to probation, to the people they supervise and to the belief that skilled, meaningful intervention can make a difference. But there’s a limit to how long an organisation can continue relying on that commitment while simultaneously undermining the conditions needed to sustain it.

And I think we’re overlooking another consequence of losing experienced PPs: who is going to develop the professional judgement of the next generation? There’s a great deal of emphasis on modernisation and technological efficiency, but I wonder whether we’ve properly considered what might be lost in the process. Take Justice Transcribe. Newer practitioner's may never experience having to listen, reflect, identify what matters and construct their own analytical account of a supervision session in their write ups.

Writing a case record isn’t simply an admin task. Done properly, it’s part of the thinking process. You consider what was said, what wasn’t said, how someone presented, what might be significant, whether your assessment has changed and what needs to happen next. The very act of deciding what to record, how to interpret it and why it matters helps develop professional judgement.

Of course, AI can assist with recording, and nobody wants practitioner's spending unnecessary hours typing. But there’s a difference between using technology to support professional thinking and allowing technology to increasingly perform the initial interpretation for us. If newer practitioner's become accustomed to reviewing polished, preconstructed narratives rather than developing their own accounts, how do we ensure they acquire the analytical skills needed to recognise what the technology has missed, misunderstood or overstated?

And who will help them develop those skills if experienced practitioners continue leaving, or are themselves so overwhelmed that meaningful mentoring and reflective supervision become luxuries? This is why the discussion about experience and professional mastery matters so much. Professional judgement isn’t acquired simply by completing a qualification, following a supervision package or progressing through management grades. It develops through experience, reflection, constructive challenge, learning from mistakes and working alongside people who know how to think critically about complex situations.

We seem very focused on developing systems that make probation more efficient, but rather less concerned about developing and retaining the people whose expertise makes probation effective.

The danger isn’t simply that we lose experienced practitioners, it's that we gradually lose the means by which professional expertise is passed on. And perhaps that’s the greatest irony of all. In our determination to make probation more efficient, we risk removing some of the very experiences through which practitioners learn to become effective professionals. You can't automate professional judgement and then wonder why the profession is losing its depth.

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Reading through these comments, I find something deeply troubling beyond the accounts of poor management, bullying and the loss of experienced staff. It’s the extent to which probation appears to have become divided against itself. POs against SPOs, experienced staff against newer colleagues, those who have progressed into management against those who have chosen to remain on the frontline. And somewhere in the middle, an increasing sense of resentment, mistrust and disillusionment.

How did a profession supposedly built upon empathy, reflection, understanding human behaviour and facilitating change become an environment in which some of those qualities appear so conspicuously absent in the way we treat one another?

The response telling a clearly distressed colleague to stop complaining, upskill or leave is particularly revealing. We spend our working lives recognising that people’s circumstances are individual and complex, that behaviour has context and that meaningful change requires support rather than judgement. Yet when a colleague expresses distress, the response from another member of the profession is effectively to dismiss them. Surely we should be capable of better than that?

I don’t believe all managers are incompetent or that every experienced PO is automatically an excellent professional. Nor do I believe newer colleagues lack the capacity to become outstanding POs or effective leaders. Those generalisations merely deepen the divisions. But I do believe an organisation has a serious problem when constructive challenge is perceived as disloyalty, experience is mistaken for resistance to change and staff begin to fear the consequences of questioning decisions.

A healthy professional culture should encourage respectful disagreement, critical thinking and learning from mistakes. It should be possible to challenge a manager without being labelled difficult, just as it should be possible for managers to make decisions without every disagreement becoming a personal confrontation. And leadership has a responsibility to create those conditions, not simply demand compliance and call it professionalism.

What concerns me is the apparent normalisation of hostility and distrust. We talk endlessly about improving performance, increasing productivity and retaining staff, yet how much attention is given to the damage caused when people no longer feel respected, listened to or psychologically safe at work? How much experience is lost because people become exhausted by the culture rather than the work itself? And what sort of professional environment are we introducing newly qualified POs into if division, cynicism and fear have become accepted features of working life?

The research on ‘complicated loyalty’ makes this particularly poignant. People can remain deeply committed to the purpose of probation while feeling increasingly alienated from the organisation employing them. That should concern every level of leadership. Because the real tragedy isn’t simply that experienced staff are leaving or that others feel trapped. It’s that people who entered a profession to help others are describing a workplace in which they increasingly feel unsupported themselves.

We cannot credibly promote rehabilitation, respect, constructive challenge and positive change as the foundations of our work while failing to demonstrate those same principles within our own organisation. And no amount of restructuring, professional registration or transformation will repair a culture that has forgotten how to value its own people.

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I'm a realist. Moaning on a forum changes what? I don't like the changes, I don't agree with turning a skilled trade into civil service nonsense. But it's happened, it's becoming more watered down and less skill required. You are replaceable by another PQIP off the conveyor belt. Do I agree? No, but it's a reality. So upskill, move sideways or if lucky enough, retire.

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I think the comment actually illustrates part of the problem. There’s a difference between recognising the reality of what probation has become and accepting that nothing can or should be done about it. Of course people can upskill, move sideways, seek promotion or leave. But why should those be the only realistic options for someone who wants to remain a skilled, experienced PO doing the work they originally entered the profession to do?

And describing newly qualified POs as coming off a conveyor belt risks directing our frustration towards the wrong people. They haven’t created the system they’re entering. Many will arrive with enthusiasm, commitment and a genuine desire to make a difference. The question is whether we’re providing the professional development, experience and support that will enable them to become the skilled POs we’re so concerned about losing.

The comment about TR is particularly relevant. We saw how organisational decisions could divide colleagues who previously shared a professional identity. Surely we should have learned something from that, rather than continuing to reinforce divisions between experienced and inexperienced staff, frontline and management, or those who stay and those who leave.

And I don’t accept that raising concerns is simply moaning. Critical reflection, constructive challenge and questioning established practice are supposed to be fundamental to probation. We encourage the people we supervise to examine their circumstances, challenge unhelpful patterns and recognise that change is possible. Yet when colleagues question the conditions in which they’re expected to work, some are told to accept reality or move on.

There is something deeply contradictory about that. Nobody is suggesting that a blog discussion alone will transform HMPPS. But dismissing professional concerns because they won’t immediately change the organisation merely reinforces the silence and resignation that allow problems to persist.

Perhaps what should concern us most isn’t that experienced POs are becoming disillusioned. It’s that we’ve reached a point where accepting the erosion of professional standards is being presented as realism, while questioning it is dismissed as complaining. Surely a profession worth preserving deserves better than that.

A Cry For Help

"By the way the Probation blog is now officially blocked on the HMPPS system."
I'm only guessing, but maybe the reason might be connected to this sort of thing:-

11:44 It's a joke when you have people with only 2 or 3 years experience on the frontline as PO's being able to apply to become SPO's, then only a short 2 or 3 years later jumping into Ace roles then they are Head of this or Head of that. These people are nothing more than careerists only thinking about lining their own pockets! It's insane that you have to ask them to sign assessments and reports off because it is only ever a back covering exercise for them because they don't have the experience or knowledge to make any kind of informed decisions on cases.

Then they judge anyone still on the Frontline for more than 5 years as a loser and let you know if you dare challenge them that they are one big club and you in your lowly PO role are definitely not in it! Grievances are a joke and will always side with management and it doesn't matter how many years experience you have there are SPO's who will infantilise you and treat you like a pquip who doesn't know s**t from mud when you're in your fifties! A surgeon can have a reputation and carry it around with him/her for decades wherever they go but if you are an excellent PO for decades, doing overtime, hitting all targets, doing amazing intervention work but then change office your reputation doesn't follow you in Probation.

If your health changes, your circumstances change and you have kids now or just can't work like you did in your twenties you are deemed rubbish and treated like rubbish and the service will try and mange you out! No one knows or gives a s**t about all the years you broke your back for the service. That's why I think all these people doing overtime and going the extra mile are idiots. If you want to do it to help a service user then do it but don't do it for the service because they really don't give a crap and none of it means anything to them! Your brilliant reputation can be shot to s**t at the drop of a hat or the change of a location/office!

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16:42 The response of a bitter jaded PO who has been knocked back for promotion. Try upskilling, move job role if it's that bad. It's not a good look being bitter and blaming others for your shortfalls.

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16:42 you are part of the problem and not the solution. You clearly don’t have any empathy or even listening skills. That was actually a cry for help from a colleague who feels very trapped due to their age and no viable alternatives for alternative employment options due to their age. They have given their all as they passionately believed they could and did make a difference to their service users. I have no doubt they are being pushed out due to them challenging what is happening to what was once a noble profession. Your tenure might seem secure at the moment, and you have a dismissive and callous attitude, but believe me, no matter how well you do your role and have brilliant success stories and have helped your service users turn around their lives and follow a crime free life (which is after all our objective), one day you will become enlightened and challenge the status quo. You will find yourself marginalised and on the outside and seen as a trouble maker and will start questioning your mere existence within your career.

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16:42 clearly has a lot to learn. With years of experience will inevitable come failing health and the change of attitudes of others is remarkable. Not at all a caring organisation, easily and quickly replaced.

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11:44 is closer to the new truth than many care to admit, the loss of experience has been replaced not by critical thinkers or those who challenge but by those promoted because they needed to get out of the front line and it is amazing how many SPOs suddenly become experts in their field………there are many hard working men and women who stay as POs as that is how you hone your skills, usually to a very high level………11:44 probably remembers when probation was a hive of critical thinking, innovation and you were able to challenge those further up the ladder………now they are so unsure in their roles they wouldn’t let you say boo to a goose before threatening you with disciplinary…………so to 11:44, continue to be that turbulent priest that they fear so much………..

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11:44 I don’t even think you need to change office to be treated like that! The first commenter is correct though, there’s many other jobs out there that will value, respect and pay you better! [above] is correct too, and this has been the direction for some years.

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Plenty of empathy here. I'm realistic, it's a poisonous job, but I don't sit around complaining or moan about managers. I'll do another couple of years and move on. The system is messed up, stop with the pathetic, my manager is mean to me. It's a job, don't like it? Go elsewhere, it is that simple.

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00:35 Hmmm, rather than run away & let the bullies remain active, wouldn't it be more satisfactory if:

* the unions were strong enough to properly & robustly support their members
* employers were decent enough not to encourage/tolerate bullying &/or other abusive practices, and
* that the bullies get dealt with such that the focus of the employee becomes doing 'the job'.

How much more productive might that be, HMPPS?

* Far fewer lost days to sickness/stress
* Hours & hours of staff time saved because there are far fewer tribunals, complaints or investigations
* A considerably happier & positive workplace
* A far more productive workforce

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I agree with much of what 11:44 has said, and I find the response at 16:42 rather telling. Suggesting that someone who expresses disillusionment should simply upskill, seek promotion or leave rather misses the point. Why should remaining on the frontline, developing expertise and becoming an exceptionally skilled PO be regarded as a failure to progress?

Not everyone aspires to management. Nor should they have to. There is enormous professional value in someone who has spent years developing the judgement, confidence and experience needed to undertake complex probation work well. Yet we seem to operate within a culture where progression is too often synonymous with moving upwards and away from the very work the organisation exists to deliver.

Experience isn’t simply a matter of years served, and there are undoubtedly excellent managers who have progressed relatively quickly. But equally, appointment to a more senior position doesn’t automatically confer the depth of knowledge, judgement or credibility that comes through sustained practice. Professional leadership should recognise and draw upon that experience, not feel threatened by it.

What particularly resonates with me is the apparent fragility of professional reputation. How can someone spend years demonstrating commitment, competence and sound judgement, yet find that their credibility is seemingly reset by a change of management, office or personal circumstances?

And why should a PP’s value be measured by their willingness or ability to work beyond their contracted hours? People get older, acquire caring responsibilities, experience ill health or simply reach a point where they can no longer sacrifice their personal lives to compensate for organisational demands. None of that diminishes their professional expertise.

The response suggesting people should just leave if they’re unhappy is equally troubling. Of course, individuals can choose to move on. But if the answer to experienced staff expressing legitimate concerns is simply to encourage their departure, how does that help a service already struggling with retention and the loss of institutional knowledge?

The reference at 00:35 to workplace culture is important too. A healthy professional organisation should be able to accommodate challenge, disagreement and critical thinking without automatically interpreting them as negativity or disloyalty. And this brings us rather neatly back to Martin Jones and the future of probation being local.

Local delivery is important, but structures alone won’t restore the profession. That requires leadership which values experience, encourages constructive challenge, understands frontline realities and recognises that professional expertise is not confined to those occupying management positions.

We talk a great deal about retaining staff, developing capability and improving public protection. Yet how much attention do we give to retaining the knowledge, judgement and experience of those who have chosen to remain closest to the work? Perhaps one of probation’s greatest problems is that we’ve become much better at recognising career progression than professional mastery. And those are not the same thing.

But What's the Job?

23431 - Project Manager - The Project Delivery Function aim is to have capable and empowered teams, delivering Project Delivery excellence... The MoJ’s Functional Operating Model is unique across government. All project delivery professionals are line managed through the Function and then assigned to projects and programmes across the MoJ and its Agencies. Successful candidates will be part of a flexible resource pool and may be placed in roles based on business needs. The Project Manager leads and manages the project and project team. They are responsible for driving and overseeing the delivery of the project to ensure objectives are clearly defined and achieved within agreed time, cost, and quality constraints. The national salary range is £42,914- £46,182, London salary range is £49,325- £53,081.

But what's the fucking job?

23392 - Change Delivery Officer - Midlands Team - The Change Officer role is an integral role within both Area and National Change Delivery teams which work across Prison and Probation. This role is pivotal in overseeing, and in the delivery of, both local and nationally identified change initiatives. With approximately 175 staff across 3 functions, our Change Group represents half of the Change Directorate.
£37,238 - £44,520

But what's the fucking job??

23239 - Change Systems Project Officer - The Project Officer role specialises in change systems and is instrumental in facilitating the smooth implementation of HMPPS Gateway Management System and HMPPS EQuiP Process Management system and processes within HMPPS. Facilitate comprehensive process mapping workshops to visualise current workflows and identify opportunities for process optimization.
£28,064 - £33,549

Uhh?

22878 - Senior Project Manager - The Project Delivery Function aim is to have capable and empowered teams, delivering Project Delivery excellence. ​Our people will be empowered to develop the skills they need to succeed, and our line managers will be accountable for upholding functional standards and demonstrating excellence in project delivery. Successful candidates will be part of a flexible resource pool and may be placed in roles based on business needs. The Senior Project Manager leads and manages the project and project team. The national salary range is £71,381 - £80,419, London salary range is £75,674 - £85,257

But what's the fucking job???

23405 - Senior Programme Manager - This is an important leadership role within the Service Centre expansion project, providing an exciting opportunity to shape and deliver a significant programme of change across probation services. Working under the governance of the Our Future Probation Service Programme, the postholder will oversee the full range of governance arrangements for the project, including reporting on progress, managing risks and issues, and ensuring clear and effective decision-making. We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

Communicating & Influencing (skilful bullying)
Delivering at Pace (intense bullying)
Leadership (incompetent bullying)
Seeing the Big Picture (erm, which one?)
The national salary range is £81,338 - £89,472, London salary range is £84,458 - £94,690.

Has anyone any fucking idea what the fuck they're drivelling on about?
ahh... "Some of MoJ’s terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform."

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This makes me laugh - hysterical laughter. They are doing this arse about face. OFPS launched February 2025. The OFPS program should have been informed by a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) project firstly. Ha ha they are now looking at doing the BPR and advertising roles 18 months later.You couldn’t make this up. Most important role advertised is actually the 23239 - Change Systems Project Officer who will be mapping the ‘as is’ processes and then design the ‘to be’ processes. I can guarantee you all that they will not consult with the frontline officers re the current and future processes. I have repeatedly said that frontline officers know the problems and the solutions but no, the officers are not considered clever enough are they! The officers MUST be part of the mapping processes.

Senior management who have come up with the whole OFPS are Fuckwits (excuse that but I don’t think this deserves me to find a more polite way of saying it). I will bet my last £100 quid this is not going to end well as JB regularly references. Anon

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So AI, what is a Business Process Reengineering Project? 

A Business Process Reengineering (BPR) project is a radical, project-based management strategy that completely tears down and rebuilds core organizational workflows, systems, and structures from the ground up. Unlike incremental improvement methods (such as Business Process Improvement or Six Sigma), which tweak existing routines, BPR aims for dramatic, breakthrough leaps in performance metrics like cost, speed, quality, and customer service.

Core Characteristics of a BPR Project

Radical Redesign: It challenges every existing assumption and tradition rather than patching current flaws.

End-to-End Focus: It shifts an organization from a rigid, department-based structure to a fluid, process-based one.

Information Technology as an Enabler: IT is used to fundamentally transform operations (e.g., replacing manual paper invoicing with automated electronic systems), not just speed up old tasks.

Finite Scope: It is managed as a distinct, large-scale project rather than an ongoing daily routine.

Typical Phases of a BPR Project

1. Define Goals: Align high-level business objectives (like reducing cycle times or cutting operational costs) with strategic targets.

2. Map the "As-Is" State: Analyze current workflows, document steps, and pinpoint bottlenecks or redundant tasks.

3. Design the "To-Be" State: Rebuild the workflow from scratch using fresh process diagrams and new technology foundations.

4. Implement and Manage Change: Roll out the new structure supported by heavy leadership commitment, staff training, and active change management to ease employee resistance.

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You were right, JB, productivity IS the answer!

"Barclays is cutting its staff by around 5,000 as it introduces more artificial intelligence (AI) into its work processes. Barclays said the changes were the result of an ongoing modernisation plan, with the use of AI being the "icing on the cake" of its strategy.... "AI has an important role to play and may have a more important role to play in the future."

Oh.

"The Ministry of Justice projects the tool will save around 450,000 hours annually for frontline officers... Productivity improvement: The Justice Transcribe AI‑enabled transcription tool... Identifying opportunities for productivity improvement ..."

"The Project Delivery Function aim is to have capable and empowered teams, delivering Project Delivery excellence... The Change Officer role is an integral role within both Area and National Change Delivery teams which work across Prison and Probation... an exciting opportunity to shape and deliver a significant programme of change across probation services...facilitating the smooth implementation of HMPPS Gateway Management System and HMPPS EQuiP Process Management system and processes within HMPPS."

* "Some of MoJ’s terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform."

** "Artificial intelligence plays a growing and transformative role in probation services, primarily by reducing administrative workloads, enhancing record accuracy, and supporting risk management."

*** "HMPPS does not have actual time saved data to monitor how far estimated time savings have been achieved."

--oo00oo--

AI Action Plan Explorer

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) is at the forefront of responsible AI adoption across government. One year on from publishing the AI Action Plan for Justice, this explorer highlights progress against our ambitions. We are committed to being transparent about how we use AI and will continue to work with industry, academia, civil society and the wider public sector to realise its benefits safely and responsibly.

Fred is an AI-powered chatbot that helps people on probation understand their requirements and stay on track with appointments, unpaid work, licence conditions, and rehabilitation activities. By providing clear, accessible information when it is needed, Fred helps people navigate probation more confidently and reduces uncertainty about what is expected of them.

As part of wider efforts to modernise probation services, Fred demonstrates how AI can make public services more accessible, responsive and user-centred. By providing personalised guidance and on-demand support, the tool aims to improve engagement, support compliance, and enable probation staff to focus on higher-value, person-centred interactions. Fred does not make any decisions regarding sentence management, nor does it discuss content outside of probation.

The project is currently being piloted in London, Norfolk and North Kent. Early feedback from both people on probation and practitioners has been very positive.

One individual reflected: “When I left prison, I was completely isolated, with addiction and mental health struggles. If I'd had Fred to talk to, it would have been a lifeline”.

Future is Local

Sadly sometime ago Blogger felt it not worth the bother of being able to share videos from YouTube and as a consequence I've felt not only irritated, but seriously inconvenienced. Anyway, due to the magic of AI and pressing a few buttons in the right order, here we have the HMI saying a lot of interesting things at the Napo AGM and conference last week.

Martin Jones at Napo AGM 2026: The Future of Probation Lies Locally

AI Buzzword/ Buzz phrase Bingo

Forget all that stuff about £700million and 1,300 new Probation Officers - the answer as we now know is AI and Justice Transcribe is boosting productivity amazingly!  

Justice Transcribe has saved an estimated 266,667 working hours across more than 1.6 million probation meetings since its rollout, according to the National Audit Office. The Ministry of Justice projects the tool will save around 450,000 hours annually for frontline officers.

Ok, there are one or two problems:-

i.e. shitloads of extra work as highlighted by the NAO report: "the pilot... recommended regular quality assurance audits and training on how to undertake a meaningful human review. Training and guidance materials emphasise the importance of reviewing the AI notes and the app included reminders for staff to do this at the point of use. For individual meetings, probation officers are expected to review the outputs from the tool before they add them to the national case management system."

There'll now be new well-paid managerial-level posts created for the chosen chumocrats who will deliver JT training & guidance for the frontline monkeys... and, of course, send a shitload of new emails reminding those monkeys to "review the outputs from the tool before they add them to the national case management system."

It aint gonna end well...

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Justice transcribe still requires you to review and edit what it has recorded…. That still takes time…. which it often records names / places wrong. It also doesn’t capture body language or HOW things are said/ the tone. That can be so revealing.

Now we have dense contact logs full of fluffy language making everything sound professional and more than it is. It’s the same repeated phrases for everything. Generic. Robotic… “no intervention completed due to crisis management and stabilisation”… you could play AI buzzword/ buzz phrase bingo!!!

*****

“no intervention completed due to crisis management and stabilisation”… you could play AI buzzword/ buzz phrase bingo!!!

 Ok, lets play AI buzzword/ buzz phrase bingo!!!

Over to you.....

Update

Anon 08:08 - I’ll have ‘meaningful engagement’, ‘explored protective factors’, ‘emotional regulation’, ‘strengths-based approach’, ‘identified areas for further exploration’ and, of course, ‘crisis management and stabilisation’ for a full house, please!

Productivity is the Answer!

We all know that whatever the question, the answer is "£700million and 1,300 extra staff" but actually the real answer appears to be 'automation and productivity'. This from an NAO report published last week:-

Productivity improvement: The Justice Transcribe AI‑enabled transcription tool

This case study focuses on one example of a productivity improvement to automate and improve processes, where the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) sought to improve productivity within the Probation Service by introducing a transcription tool, Justice Transcribe, for probation officers to use in meetings. MoJ and HMPPS expect that this tool will lead to productivity improvements by reducing the amount of time needed to write up meeting notes; improving the quality of those notes; and improving the quality of the interactions probation officers have in the meetings, because they are not focused on note writing. By reducing the time probation officers spend writing up supervision meetings they have with people on probation, Justice Transcribe makes more time available for activities that directly contribute to public protection and rehabilitation. The case study sets out how the tool was identified, developed, tested, scaled and embedded into operational practice by MoJ and HMPPS. It also highlights key lessons from each stage of implementation. 

The case study is intended as a practical example for civil servants and public sector leaders considering similar productivity initiatives, providing insights into the decisions, governance arrangements, testing approaches, implementation activities and evaluation methods that supported delivery. This publication is the first of a series of case studies we plan to publish highlighting practical steps public bodies have taken to improve their productivity and the lessons others can learn from them.

The capacity challenge in the Probation Service 

1 The Probation Service has been under significant strain from staffing shortfalls and increasing demand. In our report Building an effective and resilient Probation Service, we found that, in July 2025, in 10 out of 12 probation regions, Probation Officers were working at above 100% capacity on average. Data from April 2024 indicated that the service had been operating with only around half of the staff needed to run sentence management as intended. In January 2026, the Sentencing Act was passed which introduced measures intended to increase the use of community-based sentences, placing further demands on the service. At the end of June 2026, only 74% of Probation Officer grade posts were filled. 

2 In February 2025 HMPPS established its ‘Our Future Probation Service’ (OFPS) programme. Its purpose is to improve performance, increase retention and reduce staff sickness absence. The programme aims to free up operational capacity by 25% by April 2027. Justice Transcribe, a transcription and summarisation tool enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), has been developed to reduce the amount of time probation officers spend writing up notes of the meetings they have with people on probation, improve the quality of the meeting notes and improve engagement in meetings. This case study sets out how MoJ and HMPPS developed and rolled out Justice Transcribe, and some key lessons for other organisations interested in a similar tool.

Identifying opportunities for productivity improvement 

3 Probation officers conduct approximately 3.7 million supervision meetings annually.3 An accurate record of the key points of these meetings is important for managing risks to the public and tracking progress with sentencing requirements. Writing up meeting notes and recording them in the case management system was time‑consuming and created a risk of poor quality and inaccurate records. 

4 The idea for Justice Transcribe came from front-line probation teams, who had identified the potential for AI-enabled transcription and summarisation to help them manage their workload and were exploring commercial tools on the market. HMPPS assessed the idea alongside wider organisational priorities and considered several factors, including the following.

Productivity improvement 

15 HMPPS expects productivity benefits from Justice Transcribe to include both time savings and quality improvements. It forecasts that Justice Transcribe will save around 450,000 hours per year for front-line probation officers. This estimate is based on an assumed time saving of 10 minutes per meeting on average and that the tool is used for 70% of the 3.7 million meetings a year. HMPPS also expects additional savings for support and other staff. As at April 2026, HMPPS estimated it had a capacity gap of 3,500 FTE probation staff. It expects Justice Transcribe will release time savings equivalent to 470 FTE probation officers, support and other staff, helping it to reduce this capacity gap. These estimates are based on modelling assumptions, and HMPPS told us it is planning further evaluation work to validate time savings in practice and collect more robust evidence of how the tool has changed the delivery of face-to-face supervision. 

16 HMPPS does not have actual time saved data to monitor how far estimated time savings have been achieved. However, it does have data on the number of meetings for which the tool has been used. Between 7 October 2025 and 14 September 2026, over 1,600,000 meetings were summarised using Justice Transcribe. HMPPS estimates that using Justice Transcribe has saved probation officers around 266,667 hours over this period.

17 HMPPS also holds feedback data from staff. Between launch and 2 June 2026, staff using the tool reported high satisfaction rates, with an average of 4.7 stars out of 5 across 63,000 in-app reviews. Probation officers we spoke to told us that Justice Transcribe saved significant amounts of time and improved the quality of meeting summaries as well as interactions in supervision meetings: 

“What it has allowed us to do is... have more meaningful conversations with the people we’re managing… being more active listeners, … rather than having our attention diverted elsewhere.” (Probation Officer) 

HMPPS also holds data on staff retention and sickness absence, so it could use this information to track whether uptake of Justice Transcribe is associated with benefits such as lower sickness absence or improved staff retention.

Further evaluation 

18 MoJ and HMPPS started an internal evaluation of the national rollout of the tool in 2026. This will include evaluation of how the tool is used in practice, how errors are identified and corrected, and an assessment of the quality of the final records. This national evaluation is an opportunity to build on the insights from the pilot and determine the full impacts of the tool, including the extent of time savings and quality improvements. It is also an opportunity to assess evidence of the benefits including, for example, improved retention rates or reductions in sickness absence.

Quality assurance of case management records

20 The pilot evaluation identified that there was a risk that meeting summaries were not adequately reviewed by probation officers. It recommended regular quality assurance audits and training on how to undertake a meaningful human review. Training and guidance materials emphasise the importance of reviewing the AI notes and the app included reminders for staff to do this at the point of use. For individual meetings, probation officers are expected to review the outputs from the tool before they add them to the national case management system.

21 MoJ and HMPPS are developing their quality assurance procedures. The Artificial Intelligence Playbook for the UK Government recommends that public bodies establish performance metrics for AI systems that measure the accuracy of model outputs.The national evaluation will include a linked case audit which will compare a sample of transcripts, AI-generated summaries and final case records to establish whether practitioners identify and correct errors or omissions and add relevant context and professional judgement. HMPPS also plans for regional Performance, Assurance and Risk teams to carry out case audits to look at the quality of the case records, alongside ongoing supervision by Senior Probation Officers that will include review of case management records. At present, however, there is no quality assurance mechanism to monitor the accuracy of the original transcript. This makes it difficult for MoJ and HMPPS to monitor the technical quality of the tool or the risk of probation officers becoming over-reliant on AI-generated summaries and not checking them. This could be addressed, for example, through periodic reviews of a sample of audio recordings, transcripts, summaries and final case records.

Not Fit For Purpose

With a call for probation to be put into 'special measures', I'm reminded of this that ultimately resulted in the MoJ being created and probation moving from Home Office supervision:-

"Our system is not fit for purpose."

And with this description of parts of the Home Office in 2006, the then-Home Secretary John Reid minted a phrase that has lodged in the lexicon of British politics. He was speaking a few months after thousands of foreign-born prisoners had been released from British jails without first being considered for deportation.

Lord Reid has previously attributed the four-word phrase to an unnamed senior civil servant. Now in a three-part series about the Home Office, the Newscast podcast can reveal the identity of its author. It was the permanent secretary in the department at the time, Sir David Normington.

"It is my phrase, but it was written in a private memo to the Home Secretary, John Reid, just after he had arrived. [It was] me saying, 'This is what the Home Office is like,'" he told us.

Sir David accompanied Lord Reid as he uttered the now infamous form of words to a House of Commons committee two decades ago.

"With me sat beside him, [I tried] to rearrange my face as he described all 70,000 civil servants in the Home Office as not fit for purpose," he recalled. "That was a difficult moment and the civil service said to me: 'Well, why don't you stand up and tell him it's not true?'

"The trouble was… it was my phrase."

In the 20 years since it was popularised, "not fit for purpose" has become a universal by-word for state incompetence, something bureaucrats and their ministerial bosses reach for when they are trying to strike a tough, no-nonsense tone.

The Hansard record of parliamentary proceedings suggests it has been used nearly 3,000 times in the Commons and Lords since 2006. In the 20 years before that, the phrase was used just 37 times. It has been deployed in debates ranging from conditions in armed forces housing to the sewerage system of a Cornish hospital.

--oo00oo--

Now at this point, can I point readers in the direction of Dominic Cummings' evidence to the House of Lords Consitution Committee a couple of days ago. For those interested in probation's nightmare journey at the hands of government and civil service, I think you will find your time will be well spent as you reflect on his robust demolition of the shit show that purports to be our system of government and political control. Reflect also on the role the Cabinet Secretary plays and our past dealings with the current post holder.*

--oo00oo--

In the absense of being in the room and limited news emerging, I guess this in the Guardian from Polly Toynbee gives a flavour of feeling within Napo at the AGM in Newcastle:- 

Britain is addicted to prisons. Our crumbling probation service proves they don’t work

The current system is unable to quench the public thirst for locking people up – and certainly doesn’t ensure proper care once they are released

Public services need more investment across the board. Every day, another wretched story. Look at the Institute for Government’s (IFG) Public Services Performance Tracker for a plain assessment of A&E corridor care, councils struggling to meet the demands of social care and the Send system, the courts backlog, GP caseloads or families lost in temporary accommodation. A chancellor approaching a budget is besieged by need. It’s easy for us journalists to pick out shock stories and claim each one is an absolute priority, but how should a chancellor choose?

Today it’s the probation officers, whose conference in Newcastle is launching a ballot for industrial action. Their caseloads overflowed long ago, but now thousands of prisoners released early – 2,000 this month – have been thrust upon them. The responsibility is overwhelming, with officers blamed for crimes their clients commit.

The probation story is told in scores of reports: the National Audit Office found the service running on half the staff needed to cover released prisoners. It also reported failures in electronic tagging, echoed by the IFG reporting only 55% of tags were fitted in time. Napo, the probation officers’ union, blames the problems on awarding contracts to the lowest bidders at prices that mean the job isn’t done properly.

The number of offenders charged with serious further offences while on probation has increased, with the public accounts committee blaming staff shortages. Vacancies leave probation services 25%-30% below target levels. The government is training another 1,300, but that’s not enough, says Napo, considering the high dropout rate once recruits discover the abuse, threats and stress of the work, alongside the fact that the most common cause of staff sickness is mental ill health.

The sheer impossibility of their caseloads caused the government to abandon any attempt to say what their caseload should be, so the “workload measurement tool” was abruptly ditched in September just before the October raft of new prisoner releases. There is no point in stating an official workload standard that can’t be met.

Eleven hostels and seven halfway houses, places that help probation officers supervise released prisoners, have just closed for repairs and because of a lack of staff. Drug addiction and mental health problems untreated in prisons, coupled with cuts to education, training and rehabilitation, make prisoners even less prepared for release.

The probation system was broken by a disastrous privatisation when Chris Grayling (who banned the sending of books to prisoners) split it apart into 21 private companies, with the workforce organisationally divided in two. Private companies only handled offenders judged low to medium risk, while the most serious offenders remained under the control of the state. Companies under-invested, experienced staff left, and none of the innovation promised was delivered. After this ideological privatisation was abandoned in 2021, the probation service never recovered.

The lord chancellor is set to address the probation officer’s conference. “But please,” says Napo chair Ben Cockburn, “no bullshit. Don’t tell us how well we do an exceptionally difficult job. We know that.”. Napo rejected a 5% pay offer on the grounds it falls far behind equivalent offers to workers in local government, police and social work. Under planned industrial action, Cockburn says probation officers will work to contract and refuse unpaid overtime. That, he says, will cause collapse.

What probation officers need immediately is reduced workloads, pruned to the riskiest cases, leaving less serious cases unallocated. “Put the service into special measures,” Cockburn says. He also wants the courts to stop piling on more cases until there are enough staff to cope. “We are firefighting from one emergency to another,” he says – or called away to someone in a police cell, or to a paedophile found dating a woman with a child, or a domestic violence case.

Cutting workloads for probation officers is only a short-term solution, one that avoids the real question. Why is there an ever-rising prison population, despite the sustained, multi-decade fall in crime rates?

“We are addicted to prison,” Cockburn says. In his view, probation works when officers have time for long-term working relationships with offenders. “It’s the best job in the world,” he says, recalling the journey of one prisoner who had committed a terrible crime as a young man. “I saw him in prison, knew him for 15 years, with time for therapeutic work.” But, these days, that’s so rare. “Someone now might see eight different officers, retelling their story over and over, creating no trust.”

Why build more prison cells? An inspection of a brand new private prison, HMP Millsike in East Yorkshire, found it unsafe due to a lack of experienced staff, as well as chronic staff shortages. Even at its opening, it was “chaotic”, lacking basic processes for important things like locking doors and counting prisoners. Hundreds of cells are still empty because of a lack of officers.

--oo00oo--

So, what would 'special measures' mean? According to AI:-

If you are following current justice system reforms, calls to put probation into special measures are almost always referring to the institutional turnaround framework to prevent the service from collapsing under the weight of the prison capacity crisis.

Putting the Probation Service into special measures means placing it under a strict, time-limited intervention framework triggered by severe organizational underperformance, safety failures, or critical staff shortages.

When a public sector institution in the UK criminal justice system (such as a prison or a regional probation delivery unit) enters special measures, it signals that standard operations have failed and external authority must step in to stabilize the service.

Organizational Turnaround (The Institutional Meaning): As described above, it is an enforcement framework used by the government when an agency is failing its basic duty to protect the public.

Key Operational Changes

• Loss of Operational Autonomy: Senior leadership faces intense external scrutiny. A specialized oversight board or external management team usually steps in to run or strictly monitor operations.
• Emergency Workload Restructuring: Frontline staff and unions often call for special measures to force the government to legally reduce extreme caseloads. This allows practitioners to focus only on high-risk offenders, leaving lower-risk cases unallocated or managed via automated tracking.
• Emergency Funding and Resources: The Ministry of Justice may inject emergency capital, bypass hiring bottlenecks, or deploy "detached duty" staff from other regions to fill severe vacancy gaps.
• Mandatory Action Plans: The service is legally compelled to publish and execute a strict turnaround plan, typically within a window of a few weeks, addressing specific failures like public protection shortfalls or vetting delays.
• HM Inspectorate of Probation will conduct frequent, unannounced follow-up reviews to ensure compliance, rather than waiting for standard inspection cycles.

--oo00oo--

We've already had one response:-

I’m not convinced that calling for probation to be put into special measures is the right strategy. It focuses on framing probation as a failing service that needs hope, help and government intervention and restructuring, rather than exposing the consequences of years of underinvestment, excessive workloads, poor pay and difficulties retaining and recruiting experienced staff.

The priority should be a sustained campaign for better pay and conditions, manageable workloads and the resources needed to deliver an effective service. These are the measures that would help retain experienced staff, attract new recruits and improve outcomes.

Calling for special measures risks handing the government the justification to restructure the service on its own terms, potentially with union consent, as happened in the past, rather than forcing it to address the issues that have brought probation to this point.

Let’s not allow union failure to hand over defeat. Probation needs investment, not a declaration of surrender. The unions should be using their collective strength to demand the conditions necessary for the service to succeed, not inadvertently strengthening the case for further government intervention.

Reading Anonymous, 15 October 2026, 23:04 — satire or not — while the AGM sabre-waves and applauds, this is the reality. The question is whether union leadership is prepared to fight for the future of probation and the people who deliver it, or whether it is helping to pave the way for another government-led restructuring.

*Postscript

Just noticed Cummings "calls on voters to back Reform UK in bombshell defection". This from AI:-

Dominic Cummings is not traditionally a "right-wing loony," though critics from both the left and right often view him as a disruptive, iconoclastic, and polarizing political strategist.

Key Context About His Politics and Reputation:

Not a Party Member: Cummings has never been a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party (and has frequently expressed deep contempt for mainstream Tory politicians, MPs, and party structures, which he has described as "dead" or incompetent).

Ideological Stance: He is best known as a committed Eurosceptic and the mastermind behind the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, rather than a standard left-right partisan. His primary obsessions are institutional disruption, overhauling the civil service, and using data and technology to reform state machinery.

How Others Describe Him:

Former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron famously labeled him a "career psychopath".

Journalists and biographers frequently describe him as a "brilliant eccentric", an "evil genius", or a ruthless pragmatist rather than an ideological extremist.

Critics on the political left accuse his brand of "disruption" of advancing a right-wing, anti-public-service agenda, while traditional conservatives have often resented his disregard for party traditions and hierarchy.

Innocence and Risk

Clients who maintain innocence have always posed a particular challenge, and the following from InsideTime highlights some of the issues involved, particularly around 'risk':-   

My 10 probation officers cared about ‘risk’, not progress

I was on probation from 2018 until 2026. My main conclusion is that the experience you have in this bizarre process is entirely dependent on your probation officer (henceforth PO). Sadly, I had 10 different POs over these years. The focus of this female-dominated workforce is now entirely on ‘risk’, a long way from the ‘hand to hold on release’ which probation was originally set up for over 100 years ago. This ‘risk’ is monitored by something called an OASys report, which is updated after meetings.

Two of my 10 POs were men, the other eight women, and the ‘churn’ was unbelievable to witness. In prison the POs generally monitor progress and how the prisoner is doing; on the out, they are there to make sure the person they are supervising keeps on the straight and narrow. Many people on probation appreciate this oversight, recognising there is something in them that needs this kind of support. But many don’t, including those like me who maintain their innocence and don’t see the requirement for ‘rehabilitation’ or such intense scrutiny.

It is counterintuitive for POs to endlessly monitor their charges according to a risk criteria based on police or court records, when those records may have been fabricated or otherwise manipulated. This is the Probation Service ‘cleaning up’ after the individual has been put through the wringer of a broken justice system. When this purgatorial waste of time is put to the PO, their training is to say ‘We need to treat you based on the findings of the courts’ – which is the victory of Starmer-era bureaucracy over the humanistic founding principles of probation in Britain.

While nine of my POs may have been objective, care-focused professionals of the old school, I felt that one or two had a specific animus against the crime of which I had been convicted. This suspicion was confirmed when I made a Subject Access Request (SAR) for all notes about me and my case. It made for illuminating reading. While all the POs were reasonably polite to my face, any complaints I made about the system were minimised and even ridiculed in notes going back years.

Early on in my time on licence, I was offered a job as a magazine editor. The employer didn’t ask about convictions. But when I told my PO, she said I had to disclose them voluntarily. When I did, the offer was withdrawn. Just before this happened, in another early probation meeting I reported that I had been in contact with a well-known justice reform campaigner, and had done some media interviews and podcasts about my own case. The next week I had two new, extra conditions added to my licence – not to be in contact with people with certain criminal convictions (how would I be able to know that?), and not to talk in the media about my case. The reason given was that complaints had been received, but I could find no evidence of these complaints in the SAR response.

A year or so into my time on probation in the community I made a new friend via social media, who came to visit me once, staying overnight. She was splitting up with her partner at the time, and he accessed her phone while she was sleeping after she got home, investigated who I was, and reported it to probation. Without being asked, I was given another licence condition requiring me to take polygraph tests, even though I had disclosed to the friend as a matter of course (and we weren’t ‘romantic’ anyway).

I complained about this, and was then in a months-long struggle session with probation about the legality of polygraph tests – which don’t measure ‘lies’, just emotional responses. Still, other POs were excellent, professional and understanding. My time eventually came to a more peaceful, less scrutinised end.

As a result of these sanity-testing, counter-intuitive experiences, I am determined to push that people consistently maintaining innocence be released with NO licence conditions, only having them added if, after proper investigations, it can be proved that there is a real ‘risk’ factor. Because as it stands, while there are good people within probation, it suffers from a victory of bureaucracy over humanity. While people like former Prisons Minister Lord Timpson – who replied to none of my emails – may say that all cases are judged on an individual basis, probation is very much failing to ‘hold the hand’ of the released prisoner.

Lived Experience

As I was waking up this morning to the 6am BBC Radio 4 news broadcast, I couldn't help a wry smile because that bloody "£700 million and 1,300 new officers" got yet another outing as a further tranche of 650 prisoners are released.  Anyway, the subject of 'lived experience' and the death of former prisoner and PO Bob Turney raises yet another aspect of our enforced takeover by HM Prison Service and it's damaging effect on probation. As we know, ViSOR vetting amongst other hurdles now makes Bob's story impossible today whilst probation remains shackled to HMPPS and civil service control.

Obituary: Bob Turney, ex-prisoner who became a probation officer

Bob Turney, who recently passed away, was an inspiration to me and others when it came to changing our lives. There is nothing more inspiring than seeing someone in as low a position as yourself actually making a change and making a difference in the world. Bob had served 20 years in various prisons, mainly for petty offences, then went on to gain a degree in Forensic Social Work. In 1997 he became a Probation Officer – apparently the first former prisoner to do so. He was also, along with the late Bobby Cummines OBE, one of the founders of Unlock, an organisation set up to support former prisoners and offer practical help.

Bob was also a patron of the Longford Trust. I met him at the Trust’s annual lecture in 2016, when Unlock was awarded the Longford Prize for its work supporting ex-prisoners. He was a decent man and very supportive of former prisoners who had turned their lives around.

In 1997, Bob had his first book published by Waterside Press, a memoir titled ‘I’m Still Standing’ with a foreword by the great prison reformer Lord Longford. Bob also collaborated with Angela Devlin on a book called ‘Going Straight: After Crime and Punishment’.

Bob went from being a down and out street drinker and petty thief, a former prisoner with supposedly no future, to a well-respected figure in the criminal justice world. And, also, a respected writer. A father of five, he will be sadly missed by his family and many friends. A true legend who never gave up hope.

Overnight, a contributor highlights why it matters:- 

For me this from HMIP Insights sums it up the importance of people like the late Bob Turney.

“In other words, rehabilitation is a forced approach aimed at fixing the problem (the offender) whereas desistance is a subjective journey whereby the individual makes their own decision to change their lives for the better. In recent years, desistance has become central to probation work (heavily influenced by the work of Shadd Maruna and Fergus McNeill), and as a former probationer turned desistance scholar, this is something I welcome. Over the years I have had many probation officers, all of whom were trained social workers, and their approach was very nurturing and our rapport was essential to developing trust. There was, in essence, always a desistance-based approach – even if not officially – with practitioners being very encouraging to help probationers find their way towards a better life. At the same time, probation has also veered over the years towards risk-based approaches; I can recall that in 1998, during my final weeks on probation at North Tyneside, my probation officer told me she was planning on retiring because of the major changes in the service. “It’s going to become more like the American Parole Officer approach” she said.“

“Outside of the academic world, ex-offenders are routinely employed in prisons, and it seems that prisons have come a long way. Prison governors are much more proactive towards ex-prisoners’ involvement in prison mentoring and drug counselling and the need for such intervention has now been recognised by the Ministry of Justice who have pledged to roll out more updated and nuanced training and inclusion of diverse groups including ex-offenders. In terms of ex-prisoners working as probation officers, this is nothing new; Bob Turney and Allan Weaver (also see Hylton, 2015) are well-known examples of how people with extensive offending backgrounds can make an invaluable contribution towards the criminal justice system.”

“I continue to draw on my past experiences when teaching students and undertaking research which is personally satisfying because I know I am making a difference. Most importantly though is that prisoners’ and ex-prisoners’ voices are being heard and their experiences are being taken seriously. For all those involved in the overseeing and delivering probation and criminal justice services, the core message is that there is significant value from giving people with a lived experience a voice, ensuring that this happens in way which is collaborative, non-tokenistic, sensitive, respectful and inclusive.”

Of course yet another loss to the probation service has been the involvement of volunteers, a route by which many gained first-hand experience of a role much misundertood by the general public, but later became some of  our most valued colleagues.

A reminder that with the Napo AGM and conference in Newcastle, I am going to be at The Mile Castle Wetherspoons on Grainger Road near the railway station on Thursday from 6pm in order to meet any colleague old or new, up for a chat.