Guest Blog 100

Probation Past but not Forgotten 

Just to be upfront with my readers this blog is focussed upon the use and development of Business Processes and Computer Systems within the National Probation Service (NPS) and then a Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) being based upon my working experiences from 2006 to 2016. I am not a qualified Probation Officer. But I have a long career prior to joining probation in the private sector in Business and Computer systems. First employed in 2006 within the NPS West Midland Trust, Learning and Development Unit, Selly Oak, Birmingham as a Business Support Training Officer. 

Then I jointly supported the Learning and Development Unit and the Central Birmingham based Business Transformation Unit (BTU) initially supporting the System Testing and Implementation of Delius. Then in 2013 I was appointed as a Transformation Administration Manager within the Birmingham based Business Transformation Unit (BTU). I was then transferred to a CRC in 2014 before being made redundant in 2016. 

I cannot blog on the current (2024) HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) since I have been outside the Probation Service since 2016. So essentially it is more of a historical record but the effort to write it is based upon me wanting to communicate on “a lessons learnt” basis that may influence and benefit those currently working within the HMPPS. It is also an historical record of the events I experienced at the NPS and then CRC.

So why start blogging on Probation after 8 years outside of the service?

When I was at Probation, like many others, I followed Jim Brown daily since he was telling the “truth” particularly through the blitzkrieg period of change. But over the last 8 years I have only on rare occasions popped onto his blog to see how things are going at Probation, now the HMPPS. So having done one of my normal LinkedIn posts that covered a bit about Probation, I was surprised to get a personal message to call him. Which I did and we had a brief chat on Monday 23/09/24. He asked me if I had any more relevant contributions. I explained that obviously all my experiences are now from the 2006 – 2016 period so lacking relevance to HMPPS in 2024. 

Then it occurred to both of us during our conversation that those experiences might help those trying to sort out HMPPS today. I explained that particularly my NPS experience, not my CRC experience, was a very positive part of my career, particularly in respect of the people with whom I worked. Whilst my experience of the Business Systems and Computer Systems was just the opposite. But I had started in 2006 with the best intentions of improving both of these aspects and to be perfectly frank, after 10 years of hard motivated work, I achieved nothing. I don’t know another part of my career where it was so difficult to influence and effect change to Business Processes and Computer Systems. So if any contribution on here could help those now within the HMPPS family achieve these changes now, I wouldn’t feel my 10 years was such a waste of effort. My commitment can only be a positive and constructive one since I don’t do negative or political.

So I walked out of the Probation Offices in Central Birmingham for the last time on the 3rd July 2016, having been disposed of by Reducing Reoffending Partnership (RRP), a Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) that was now trying to run the Probation Private Services for Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Staffordshire and the West Midlands. I was deemed redundant and my services were no longer required. Not the best of timing for them or me. In their case with me having a long career prior to Probation in Business Systems design and implementation in the Private Sector, they needed me and others like me more than ever with the chaos now being unleashed. Instead they were dependant on the ”all knowing” but “knowing nothing” highly paid consultant swarms now descended on Probation. Many just out of university but deemed chargeable to the Ministry of Justice no doubt with a cashback into the RRP coffers. But it also has to be acknowledged that there were some very smart experienced consultants with some clearly wanting to support our side of how we wanted change implemented. That is carefully and progressively.

These consultants actually listened and didn’t just feedback but actively joined us in trying to get some constructive steer on the changes themselves and the rate of change being planned. They also took some risks within their own Consultant Management Companies, who had won the lucrative change management contracts from the MoJ, in supporting our side of the story. But unfortunately they weren’t listened to either, so blitzkrieg commenced at pace.

The tide of change from Government and the MoJ was too strong and too fast for all of us to contain or control it. They had enforced a blitzkrieg approach to changing Probation. Probation had established its fundamental principles over 100 years and these were already being improved upon as a result of the Carter Report, by a Probation Officer, and its implementation through the 2006 to 2010 period. Things were improving in a Japanese style of incremental improvements like the national use of a new Offender Management System called Delius and access to the Police ViSOR System. 

Although OASys was in most need of re-engineering it was not on the to do list. Probation had never faced a blitzkrieg Government attack before and it was very ill prepared to counter it. Other Government Departments, particularly our own HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) never came in with any support since whilst we were under attack they could standby, avoiding being attacked themselves. Needless to say HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) was also being attacked under austerity principles with many local court closures impacting the application of good and tried local justice principles. The blitzkrieg approach funded by the Government threw money at the private sector to establish the principles of probation moving to the private sector in the form of the CRC’s. So I was transferred to a CRC.

We CRC staff, being ex- NPS staff, were now considered only eligible to be treated with a sort of private sector employment status. Essentially exiled out into the wilderness. With no doubt their planned lowering of pay rates to reflect our drop in both economic and social status. Yes I was now employed by a new lowly entity in the Government MoJ come Probation hierarchy, which was soon to be dropped a peg down on bloc below the unit with the lock and keys the Prisons which were to upstage Probation in the political hierarchy creating the illogical HMPPS.

NPS Induction Training in West Midland taught the hierarchy where the Courts were the very top, supported by the Probation Service with the Prisons as a service locking them up as punishment and to protect the public. Whilst the Carter Report rightly recommended the Prison’s rightly focussed on rehabilitation whilst in a custody setting. Training Prison Officers on Rehabilitation Practices, we were always amazed at how enthusiastic they were about acquiring these new skills and looking forward to applying them within their prison settings. Just the locking up although critical was very boring and contributing to prisoners futures much more rewarding. Probation was a highly respected Court Service which has been that way almost from the beginnings of Probation as detailed in the Probation of Offenders Act 1907. Totally integrated into the Court System allowing them to administer justice and protect the public. Probation was a service geographically distributed in the community operating in support of the Courts as a Court Service.

So that was it. Probation was over for me. I had tried very hard with many other like minded and motivated people to get the Probation Business Processes into a better state. We even organised a group of Trusts covering London, Devon and Cornwall, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, South Yorkshire and the West Midland to establish a common National Business Standards System on the TIBCO Nimbus business mapping product we all had installed and were using daily. Although we tried we got little support from the MoJ in terms of this initiative which was in fact seeded from the bottom of the organisation upwards. Never the right way to get something established. 

The West Midlands had already led on Business Change with its Modelling District Projects but it was only when we combined with the Staffordshire Trust that we gained access to their more advanced use of TIBCO Nimbus which we quickly adopted. Obviously other Trusts had quite independently taken to using TIBCO Nimbus no doubt being targeted by the TIBCO sales force. Whilst we had some MoJ meetings in London where they were impressed by our TIBCO Nimbus efforts, it was never formally adopted and was not included in any MoJ Directives to the Trusts.

I suspect many in Probation may not even be aware of this TIBCO Nimbus initiative taking place in some Trusts. Even within the TIBCO Nimbus active Trusts their own staff were not always aware of its purpose and presence. Not being a subject included in any National Probation Communications for many using it was not seen as a priority. There was certainly no national sign off of the TIBCO Nimbus Business Processes thereby not making them the de facto way of working for everybody. It was a mess. Had it been better established it may have helped us better deflect some of the blitzkrieg attack on our undocumented working practices. We really had nothing concrete or national to defend ourselves with in respect of standardised business processes. With no defences it was inevitable we would lose the battle.

But the one last stand I took supported by my Business Process Design colleague along with surprisingly an RRP Consultant, was to try and convince the Reducing Reoffending Partnership Board to use our Business Processes already mapped in TIBCO Nimbus as a basis for building the new business models brought about by the creation of the CRC’s It made so much sense. This proposal to the RRP CRC Board was dated the 9th July 2015 and I still have a copy I can share on here in the future. I also initiated a brilliant commercial negotiation with TIBCO to virtually have free use of Nimbus for a period to get it established. What was there not to like. But the proposal got rejected by the RRP CRC Board.

The TIBCO Nimbus Servers were torn out of their server racking and sent for scrap. Somewhere I have photos of them lying on the scrap pile representing many years of process design and data entry work. Then beyond belief they started a Business Process Mapping Project to go around collecting all the information again from relevant Probation staff groups and then re mapping it all in Microsoft Visio a product considered very unfriendly for everyday business users being more aligned with the needs of IT Staff.

So to the end of my story at Probation with the CRC RRP making me redundant on 3rd July 2016. Exactly 1 year after our TIBCO Nimbus proposal to the RRP CRC Board had been rejected. My work Nimbus colleague was kept on to continue but without having TIBCO Nimbus and having to return to using Microsoft Visio the objective of installing business systems onto all employee desk tops where they would be used daily by the service was now impossible. My Nimbus work colleague soon left since Business Process Planning was not a priority in the midst of all the firefighting now required to maintain some sort of Probation Service.

Now just to complete the conversation I had with Jim Brown. He said write me a “taster” and I will see if I want to link to it. This is that taster. But included in it is a early High Level Flowchart for use in the West Midlands that I produced way back to illustrate the importance of having a holistic view of all the Business Systems.

The truth is I have many other resources that are now dated like all the original TIBCO Nimbus Process Maps extracted in a PowerPoint format. Along with various other methodologies and techniques we developed and used like iPresentation and iProcess along with Work Instructions. In fact lots of my historic bits and pieces accumulated over 10 years at Probation that may possibly interest probation staff historically or maybe in some cases prove worth reusing today in the HMPPS.

But to be effective though what Probation needs is what my last American Company had which was what they called its own university (Pollak University). In fact it wasn’t a University in our sense of the use of the word meaning a verified academic learning institution. But it was where all product knowledge, manufacturing knowledge, research knowledge, business processes knowledge and computer systems knowledge was documented, co-ordinated, researched and communicated. It had dedicated librarianship, research and training capabilities. Research papers could be submitted and reviewed and so forth. Essentially a “one stop” place for all knowledge and processes within the business entity. So they called it a University. 

Now if this blog got to the MoJ and it triggered them to setup up a “Probation University” that would justify all the 10 years I spent and enjoyed at the National Probation Service. The first thing that needs researching, documenting and standardising and communicating is all the Business Processes. This is about adopting an ideology that Probation can have a common set of Business Processes applied right across all geographical and business areas. To make it happen it needs a champion in this ideology and that champion being in a position at the top with the powers to implement it. There is an argument that computer systems in the future will have built into them workflow principles and this has been accelerated by the AI developments. But until these systems are developed and made available it is vital that all Business Processes are standardised and documented in a user friendly way.

Some may consider the Probation Institute established in 2014 could act like the Probation University I have proposed. My view is it should definitely form part of the Probation University. But a concern might be that once it became MoJ financed would it as a "membership" financed organisation have its independence compromised. I don't see it this way. The membership of the Probation Institute are working at the front line of the Service and their constructive contribution is vital and should be within the proposed Probation University framework. 

But the scope of the Probation University is much larger than that of the Probation Institute. The Probation University defines and drives the operational activities of Probation both staff and systems. I appreciate it's a much used cliche to suggest we should all operate like Amazon and some strong views exist suggesting you cannot apply their methods of effectively shipping goods to essentially the practice of a social science. All I would just say is let an Amazon IT system designer with their keystroke counting audit techniques and workflow engineering skills redesign OASys. The time we waste on OASys could then be spent with our clients (Do we call them clients or offenders these days?) doing our social science best practices more effectively.

Within the Probation University the study of Social and Behavioural Sciences should far exceed the focus on Business and Computer Systems. They are our prime activity. It is what we do working with our clients. So Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology along with an endless list of other subjects that need to be included within the Probation University framework. If this blog post achieved the setting up of a Probation University whilst I am now outside the organisation it would be amazing since I could never achieve it whilst working within the organisation.

Now to share with you a High Level Offender Management Vertical Workflow Map which is now 12 years old covering Offender Management Process Flows (circa 2012) within the Staffordshire and West Midlands Probation Trust. I am sure this could be edited in less than a few hours to accurately represent current HMPPS Probation Business Processes since I suspect much of the supporting documentation (paperwork) has remained unchanged. Although the computer record updating may have changed. I just don't know. Maybe it is a starting point to commencing Business Workflow and Process Mapping. Certainly Indeterminate Prison Sentencing has changed with the removal of IPP's by coincidence in 2012 (As usual just after the map was drawn !!!!) although their removal was from memory not retrospective. If it generates any interest I have another High Level Horizontal Workflow Map I can share showing the relationships between all those parties linked to Probation once again somewhat dated but easily updated. 

Enjoy, 

Banno

Link to High Level Map below.

Once launched use the normal "pinch-to-zoom" gesture to zoom in and zoom out of the PDF to read the small print.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pw4dIYts48SVHQxhE1iKxl5r6eil4RJE/view?usp=sharing

Latest From HMI

On 17th May the House of Commons Justice Committee took oral evidence from four HMI's and this is what Justin Russell had to say about probation:-  

Q79 Chair: Thank you for that, Mr Cayley. Mr Russell, what about probation? 

Justin Russell: Thank you, Chair. As you know, we inspect both probation and youth justice services. We have done that through the pandemic, and we have seen a very different picture between those two services. 

To start with probation, they have had a very tough year. They have had the twin challenges of implementing the unification structural reform, at the same time as recovering from covid and having to go in and out of the exceptional delivery arrangements that were required by covid lockdown. In spite of some very dedicated staff—like Andy, I pay tribute to the commitment of probation staff—they are still a long way from performing at pre-covid levels. Four out of the six of our recent local probation inspections have been rated inadequate and the quality of the work we are seeing in individual cases is down against all our quality standards. 

Although the proportion of cases being seen face to face by probation officers has significantly increased over the past year, which is positive, we are finding on our inspections that those face-to-face interactions are often little more than a brief check-in, with not enough real work being done around offending behaviour. We are finding that 70% to 80% of accredited programme requirements still have not started. Almost a third of unpaid work orders are not being completed within the first 12 months. 

Underlying all the impacts of covid are some deeper structural issues that we were finding before the pandemic. We see acute shortages of staff at all grades in some areas, in particular the south-east. For example, in Essex north, in a report we published this morning, we were told that the vacancy rate for senior probation officers and more junior probation service officers was 60% at the beginning of this year. In Kent, Surrey and Sussex— 

Q80 Chair: Perhaps we can explore that in a bit more detail: a big issue with staffing and vacancy rates. Anything else on probation? 

Justin Russell: In the Kent, Surrey, Sussex region, the overall vacancy rate for probation officers is a quarter. There are significant numbers of new recruits coming, and they have set some ambitious targets for recruitment, but it can take up to three years to recruit, train and settle in a new probation officer. We have to acknowledge that the number of people leaving the service is also going up, so the attrition rate is high. 

Q81 Chair: Can we move on to the youth justice side? We will come back to probation. 

Justin Russell: Youth justice has again had a challenging year but, interestingly, performance has held up. Two thirds of the YOTs we inspected we rated good or outstanding in the past year, and we have not found any inadequate. Their scores on leadership and management of out-of-court disposals are going up. They have been able to respond much more flexibly. The key issue is that they already had quite small caseloads and the caseloads have got even smaller. That has helped them to keep the standard of service going. 

Q82 Chair: That is very helpful, thanks. Mr Taylor, over to you.

--oo00oo--

Q123 Rob Butler: Fine, okay. Mr Russell, you touched on the fact that the probation service was unified in 2021, at the time of the pandemic. You expressed some reservations about how things have gone so far. How well do you think the probation service is operating as a unified model? 

Justin Russell: At the point of unification at the end of June last year, I said unification by itself was not a magic bullet for all the underlying problems we found with the service, and that has certainly proved to be the case since. The staff we are talking to do not feel all the problems have been solved. They say that the service seems to be operating in survival mode. 

There are three crucial things we are still finding as issues. First, in relation to the assessment and management of risk of harm to the public, potentially posed by people on probation, performance is at an unacceptable level. We are finding 60% of the cases we are looking at are unsatisfactory on that key aspect of practice; 40% of domestic abuse checks are not being done where they think they should. There is an issue around risk of harm that has not gone away and, if anything, is getting worse. 

The second issue is around delivery of practical support and interventions to people on probation, where we see courses not started, even by the end of a sentence. Domestic abuse perpetrators with requirements to start a course are still not completing that. At 30% to 40%, commencement is well down on that. The externally commissioned services to provide support around accommodation or education, training or employment activities, are again heavily over-subscribed, so we are starting to see some backlogs around that. 

The third issue, which I have referred to already, is around the acute staff shortages. The great majority of staff we are speaking to are saying that staff levels are simply not sufficient, and they feel their case loads are unmanageable. That problem has definitely not gone away and, if anything, is getting worse. 

Q124 Rob Butler: Have you seen any decrease in staff from the old CRCs, who did not want to join the newly unified service? 

Justin Russell: We can’t make a direct comparison of total staff numbers now with before unification, because we had no idea of CRC staff numbers. What has become evident, as we have seen the unification of the services, is that there were some big gaps in staffing at all grades. I certainly hear anecdotal evidence that some CRC staff are leaving. Published attrition rates have gone up in the last quarter of last year, and are particularly high in the south-east. 

Q125 Rob Butler: When I spoke to CRCs prior to unification, concerns were raised about whether, in the newly unified model, they would have the freedom that they had enjoyed in the CRCs. Examples were about types of flexible working. That was pre-covid times, so that was flexible working that suited where they needed to be for their clients. 

There were also things as simple as having an iPad, or similar tablet device, that they could work on while travelling, rather than have to go back to the office to get on a desktop monitor, as they had had to do previously with the former structure of the probation service. There were also concerns that some CRCs had more up-to-date software systems that gave real-time information about offenders, which were not going to migrate into the new unified model because the national probation service didn’t have one. Have you been able to assess whether there has been any impact of that move to unification? Have some of the advances that were made in CRCs been lost? 

Justin Russell: There are two issues. In terms of the autonomy that service leaders in particular have, because of covid there has been quite rigid control from the centre of what the delivery model should be under these exceptional delivery arrangements. When we have talked to service leaders, they have said that they have found that quite constraining, and that they are looking to acquire more freedoms as things return to normal. 

In terms of the systems that the CRCs developed, I have said to this Committee before that there were some rather good case management systems in London, the Thames valley and the KSS regions that have been lost as those staff have had to migrate on to OASys and then Delius, the public sector systems. Some of the CRC staff are struggling to cope with that, as they didn’t have long to get to know those systems and that learning still needs to be consolidated. 

Q126 Rob Butler: What is the impact of that on the service they can provide and on keeping people safe? One of the aspects that I was particularly worried about in the inspectorate review that we were sent is that there were real concerns about public safety. 

Justin Russell: Certainly, the scores in relation to the quality of assessments being undertaken by probation staff in some areas of Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and in the east of England, were worrying. In an inspection we published this morning on North Essex, we felt that only a quarter of the cases we looked at were satisfactory, in relation to the assessment and management of the risk of harm. That is a big concern for us. Misallocation of cases can result if you get that risk assessment wrong at the beginning of the process. If you don’t do the necessary domestic abuse checks, the public can be at risk. That is still our biggest area of concern in the inspections we are doing. 

Q127 Rob Butler: The number of people who have not completed their unpaid work requirements remains incredibly high. Why do you think that is, given that community restrictions have been lifted? 

Justin Russell: You are right: there are about 14,000 people who have been given an unpaid work order but have still not completed it within 12 months of the order. That is clearly an impact of the pandemic. In the period between March 2020 and the end of last year, there were eight months when it was literally impossible to deliver unpaid work because of lockdown restrictions on the use of minivans or social distancing requirements around placements. They have removed those restrictions since the beginning of April, but there is a huge backlog of work to get through, and that will take quite a bit of time. They have set a target of increasing delivery to 155% of pre-covid levels by September, but that is already pushing back the original trajectory, and they are quite a long way off that level at the moment. 

Q128 Rob Butler: How confident are you that they will reach that target? 

Justin Russell: I think more needs to be done. If you look at what they have got in hand, they are recruiting 500 more unpaid work staff. As I said, they have suspended all the restrictions and a wider range of placements has come on stream. Those new staff don’t really come on stream until June or July, but from that point you would hope to see quite a significant improvement in productivity and performance. The other thing they need to get right is compliance with unpaid work orders. They have seen a big drop-off in the proportion of people actually attending the sessions they are supposed to be doing. Merely by improving that rate of compliance, you would significantly increase the delivery of unpaid work. 

Q129 Rob Butler: On that note, I read, I think only today or yesterday, that in some areas they have invented something that is essentially unpaid working a box. People were sent almost a project that they could complete at home, so they could complete their hours that way. Is that really what the courts intend? 

Justin Russell: I think this was an innovation at the time of total lockdown, when it was literally impossible to run outdoor placements for unpaid work. Rather than not have any unpaid work happening, the alternative was, as you say, to provide projects that people could do at home. I think the focus now has to be on those outdoor placements— agreements with people like the Forestry Commission or the Canal & River Trust—to get people out and about doing visible community payback. 

Q130 Rob Butler: Ultimately, do you think the unified model of probation is going to be an improvement? 

Justin Russell: Yes, I think it was the right thing to do. I think people working in the service thought it was the right thing to do, but it will take at least two or three years to get to a steady state and see performance really improve. You need to fill these great staff vacancies, you need to improve the IT systems that they have, and you need to work on a credible set of programmes as well, so it is certainly some way off before we get to that point. 

Q131 Rob Butler: You touched briefly earlier also on youth offending teams. I think you described two thirds of them as doing well—not least because the case loads are smaller—which is a great tribute to all the people who work in those youth offending teams up and down the country. Are you concerned that case loads might increase with the move away from lockdowns and restrictions, and also with the increase in police numbers? It is certainly a concern that I have had expressed to me locally, in my own constituency, by the police. 

Justin Russell: As crime rates go up, you would expect case loads to increase as well. The interesting thing is the changing balance within case loads. We are seeing fewer and fewer court order cases, and more and more out-of-court diversion work. If police numbers do go up, the likelihood is that it will lead to more out-of-court diversions and community resolution work, which is actually now the majority of the case loads in many of the youth offending services that we are visiting. 

Q132 Rob Butler: Are you content that the funding model for those youth offending services properly reflects that shift in emphasis? 

Justin Russell: I think you have a combination of Youth Justice Board grants to the YOTs plus local funding coming in. They are actually reasonably well resourced at the moment. As you said, we are seeing very small case loads. It is not unusual to see a case manager with only six or seven cases on their books. If you compare that to a probation officer with 40 or 50, there is a huge gap, so I think there is an issue with where those resources are best targeted. They are quite rich in things such as adolescent mental health services, speech and language facilities, and specialist education workers. Could those workers be made available slightly further up the age range? I would like to see YOTs looking at maybe working with 18 or 19-year-olds, for example. That is something that would be worth exploring. 

Rob Butler: You’d be knocking at an open door with me, but I am not the person who makes the decision. I suspect Mr Taylor would like it as well. 

Chair: Many thanks, Mr Butler. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. That has been very comprehensive, and we are grateful to you. The session is concluded.

Command and Control

Thanks go to the colleague for sharing this cracker:-

Sent: 16 March 2022

To: Xxxxxxxx PDU - Staff

Subject: Professionalism, responsivity and health and safety

Dear all,

I’m going to start this email by stating explicitly that the below observations do not relate to all staff. I recognise that you are all working in challenging times, doing the very best you can. However, I think it is important to revisit the expectation that all of us conduct ourselves with the utmost professional curtesy showing due respect for our colleagues and People on Probation. There have been a number of issues coming to the fore of late which can’t continue to go unchecked.

Responsivity

I can totally sympathise with the volume of email traffic that we all get - me personally at least 150 – 200 emails a day. Many of these however are escalation emails to me, where colleagues from with London and further afield are complaining about a lack of response from some of you. I get to see the chain of chaser emails which go ignored or unanswered and this is totally unacceptable. We are all incredibly busy and I recognise that, but even a holding email, advising that you will get to the matter as soon as possible is better than radio silence. This is incredibly frustrating to experience, think about how this makes you feel when you are on the receiving end of it.

Likewise, answering telephone calls. I have seen some staff blatantly ignore reception telephone calls or those form the service centre. What happens next is myself and SPOs then get copied in to emails to resolve queries and issues, only to see you at your desk seemingly able to have facilitated that call in the first place. Frankly, it’s rude, shows a lack of respect for our reception staff, leaves PoPs annoyed and causes unnecessary aggravation. There is a knock on effect when this happens and we need to be considerate of that fact.

PoPs are also left waiting in reception for far to long it causes congestion and leads to people getting irate. If your PoP is early then let reception know that you will come out and see them at the allotted time.

Health and Safety

Staff are still failing to book interview rooms, take the right panic alarm for the right room and if I catch the person who is deliberately unplugging the telephones in the interview rooms, there will be a consequence!! These rules are not meant to be a hinderance - it if for your health and safety. We need to be able to ensure the right response is provided if you need it. Reception staff can’t check to see if you are Ok if the phone is unplugged and if you need assistance in Interview room 3, but the panic alarm for interview room 5 is going off then any meaningful response is delayed. Taking the wrong panic alarm and using the wrong interview room has a knock on effect. This is an impassioned plea for you to all take this more seriously from now on. Health and Safety is a collective responsibility.

Professionalism

This goes without saying for the majority of you, but a reminder that we are a team that need to stick together and look out for each other. We all need to take leave for rest and recouperation and should expect colleagues to cover us as much as we should cover them. Same for unexpected absences, everyone needs to chip in, it should not fall to a select few or those who repeatedly help out whilst others chose to be unhelpful. I expect that cases are in a well-managed state with next appointments and a clear steer in Delius about what work has/is being done with them, especially when cover needs to be provided at short notice.

I expect everyone to take notice of the above. I have asked for examples of where this is not happening and this will be addressed directly with the individuals concerned as it is behaviour that will no longer be tolerated. It is simply unfair!

I appreciate that the tone of the email is curt, but I make no apologies for wanting to foster a work environment where all staff behave professionally and in line with our civil service values.

Kind regards,

Xxxxxxx

Head of Service

PDU Xxxxxxx

London Probation Service

Newcastle Napo AGM 2021 Addresses

I notice the AGM addresses by the General Secretary and Chair have been published on the Napo website and I've selected what I feel are the most relevant parts:-.  

Good morning Conference, I’m Ian Lawrence General Secretary. Proud and privileged to be here with you all in person and to welcome those joining us remotely.

---//---

Lastly, what about the crises being faced by Napo members right now, and that includes the relentless workloads being faced by our members in Cafcass and Probation NI who have common purpose in terms of their pay lagging behind comparable professions and who also need urgent action to redress that imbalance. I will report further to members about the progress in negotiations at the earliest opportunity.

Meanwhile, today I need to address the Broken Promises on Probation Pay. You all heard the comments by new Minister Malthouse yesterday, and I could see that you were overwhelmingly underwhelmed. Sadly, it was full of promises but short on commitment; much about the 4 pillars required to help rebuild the Probation service and the money being made available for that, but no mention of the fifth pillar, namely paying staff a decent wage.

I listened carefully to the debate yesterday and I look forward to taking note of the questions that you could not put to the Minister yesterday. I can assure you that Katie Lomas and I will deliver these in person at our meeting with him in a couple of weeks. I can hardly wait!

Because its time for us to make that stand that speakers in the debates spoke of yesterday. To stand against low pay across all employers obviously, but to build on the confidence that has been generated by way of our recent indicative ballot to reject the pay freeze and to reject the Probation Pay offer that I will be telling Minister Malthouse is an abject disgrace And we will also ask the Minister why, if other departments can agree multi year pay deals such as the MoJ, HMRC and Crown Prosecution Service, why can’t probation?

And we will also ask why it is that the Treasury has such a downer on Probation Pay. There are many potential answers of course, but here is one in my opinion; and its that they don’t believe that Probation staff will stand up for themselves, they don’t think that you have the the stomach for that struggle if it should come to it. Well, for those in high places I have a big message, that for the first time in recent history all 3 probation unions have returned indicative ballot results of between 86% and 99%, all 3 unions pointing in the right direction for further direct action if push comes to shove. Because its pretty straightforward:

Probation workers have had it with low pay, Have had it being taken for granted And are not prepared to see workloads and attrition rates remain at unsustainable levels And who cannot stand to see promising young PQIPS fold after a week in the job, mentally scarred by their experience and cannot tolerate vacancy rates in probation delivery units reach an all time high, and we will ask the Minister - how can you let this happen and what are you going to do to redress years of hollow promises to address low pay in the profession?

But I have an obligation to point out that we have more work to do to prepare for this new frontier that’s ahead of us; more work in tightening up our contact details for members likely to be involved in a trade dispute if it comes, and more work with our sister unions to build on the indicative ballot results, but Napo’s turnout in the consultative process gives me every confidence that we can meet the challenges set by the pernicious Trade Union Act, for that result was the highest turnout in Napo’s recent history and you can be be proud of where we have got to.

I expect that we will talk more about pay before this AGM is done, but for now lets send a very clear message to this Government. Probation staff need a decent pay rise and they need it now; no ifs, no buts, not next year,….. but now! For If you fail to pay people who do so much to protect our communities and try to help people turn their lives around, they may decide to vote with their feet because they simply cannot take anymore. We want to avoid that, so - reach a deal with us, show us some good faith and stop taking your loyal, highly committed staff for granted.

This AGM has again demonstrates why this union has such a proud heritage, and again its given you the opportunity to showcase the value of the work done by our members, and why those members need to be afforded the respect and dignity that they deserve.

I will be led by your judgement and your decisions, and in return I pledge to offer every ounce of my energy to this new, urgent campaign on Probation Pay. It’s a struggle that has sadly become necessary but one that you and your leadership group will embrace and pursue to the best of our ability.

Thank you conference,

Ian Lawrence

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Good afternoon to you all, whether you are in glorious 3D here in Newcastle or joining virtually from the comfort of your home or the relative discomfort of your office. I am so pleased that we are, yet again, trying a new way of delivering our AGM to make it as accessible as possible. The decision to run a fully virtual event last year was brave and while it wasn’t a complete success it certainly taught us something about how our AGM could become more inclusive. As you know it has been our practice for some time to move the AGM venue each year to share the burden of lengthy and costly travel around. This does mean that some people only attend an AGM when it is close by and some don’t attend at all, those with school age children or adult care responsibilities can particularly struggle. One of the things that struck me most after last year’s event was that some members said they were attending because the event was virtual and therefore accessible in a way AGM had not been before but another member said they felt more confident to speak at AGM when it was virtual. This told me something about the barriers to AGM attendance not being solely about the distance and staying away from home.

This year the threat of COVID has not disappeared and there will be members who aren’t advised to travel or mix with others, especially as we go into the winter season when many experts predict other viruses will delight in the depletion of our immune response due to lockdowns. So we decided to try something new – a hybrid AGM that would be more accessible and inclusive, that would allow more and different members to attend. Luckily our chosen venue for 2021 is pretty big and that allowed us to remove the restrictions on in person attendance allowing as many people as wished to attend in person. There are bound to be some hiccups with the hybrid format but we are absolutely determined to do as we did last year and learn all of the lessons we can to make future hybrid AGMs ever better.

For me personally nothing can beat the feeling of solidarity, camaraderie and joy that an in person event brings but I am not naïve and I know that this experience and viewpoint is not universal, for some being face to face is far more challenging, or the price that they pay for those good feelings is too high. So we will continue to try to make our events hybrid, and therefore more inclusive. As ever please give as much feedback as possible to help us develop and improve, we really value it. You may notice that we have focussed this year more on participation than fanci-ness and that is deliberate and as a direct result of feedback from last year.

It falls to me to open our AGM and conference and in doing so reflect on the forgoing year. I genuinely feel that each year I say “what a year it has been” and this year will be no different. I stood here last year and spoke about the unification process and how tough it would be. How foolish I was, how naïve! I thought it would be tough but in fact it has been far worse. The confusion and frustration around assignment and alignment processes were awful for members who faced uncertainty in the transfer process. That was bad enough but the weeks after transfer have shown just how bad things were in CRCs and the NPS. The coming together has exposed the weaknesses across all employers. Workloads have sky-rocketed to ever more dangerous levels and staff struggling to adapt to a new employer and new ways of working are bombarded with tick-box spreadsheets and demands to complete mandatory online training. Confusion and chaos reign in Probation right now, with pay problems that elicit at least 17 different responses depending who you ask, continuing confusion about the consultations on major changes involved in moving to the Target Operating Model and workloads so high that newly qualified officers leave rather than suffer the way they’ve seen their colleagues suffer during training. The whole system is in disarray but I just wanted to highlight a few areas that we are working on at present.

SPO Workloads are out of control. They have been a concern since 2014 but in the last year they have reached crisis point. SPOs managing a team of people with excessive workloads find themselves at the mercy of a resourcing model which says they can manage 10 people. That would be challenge enough but consider the number of staff working part time, the calculations use FTE (full time equivalent) so if the team has several people working part time in it the number climbs but the staff require managing whether they work full or part time. Then PQUIP trainees only count for a fraction of a full timer even though they arguably need more support and closer management than more experienced staff. So an SPO can have 15 or 20 staff to manage, all needing supervision, all needing input on their work around risk, all struggling with excessive workloads and all needing support to navigate massive organisational change. On top of this SPOs are the first port of call for pay problems which, we have discovered, can be so intractable that it takes teams of people months to resolve them. Every time a new process is introduced, every time an audit or case review suggests the need for practice improvement, more work is heaped onto SPOs. Our SPO Forum relaunched this year and Vice Chair Carole Doherty has created a space for SPO members to come together to offer and seek support and to make sur their concerns are raised. Sonia Flynn attended the last meeting to hear first hand the views of members and Carole is now working with the team who are carrying out the management review that we secured commitment for in our 2018 pay deal. It takes time to effect change but we are proudly making sure that the voices of our members are heard when decisions are being made.

ViSOR use and the police vetting required for it continues to be a huge concern. We now know that vetting failure rates are low but the impact on those who fail this vetting is huge. Movement to a different area of work has an impact on morale and potentially your career but more insidious is the impact on diversity of our workforce. Police vetting for ViSOR use is now part of the recruitment process and anyone who fails will not be employed in Probation. To understand why this impacts on diversity we must consider the known reasons for failure. You will automatically fail if you have live County Court Judgements against you, this is a situation that many people who have experienced financial hardship will face. If you are a Black or Asian man you are more likely to be stopped by Police, more likely to be arrested, more likely to be charged and at Court more likely to receive a custodial sentence than if you are a white man. Police vetting looks at any convictions you have but also convictions of your closest contacts and any intelligence about criminal networks. It surely follows therefore that people in our society who are more likely to be convicted and who have families also more likely to be convicted will be less likely to be able to work in Probation. Next we consider another reason for failure of vetting – those who have been a victim of domestic abuse but remain connected to their abuser in some way, perhaps because they have a child or children together. This can be considered an ongoing link by Police and vetting would fail.

So, those who have experienced financial hardship and had no cushion to help them – poor and working class people are less likely to be able to work in probation, black and Asian men face far higher likelihood of failing police vetting and therefore ever more barriers to employment in probation, and victims who struggle to fully disconnect from their abuser, either because of the nature of the abuse or because of some other link between them are also less likely to work in probation.

At a time when HMPPS are proudly announcing the employment of 1,000 people with lived experience of the criminal justice system in the Probation P of HMPPS people with lived experience who already work in the system are being sidelined and recruiting new staff with such experience will be ever harder. Make no mistake, there are now, and have been for decades, people working in Probation at all levels with lived experience of the justice system, and probation practice is all the richer for their presence. Now however we face people with this invaluable experience being recruited only to special roles separate from ordinary probation practice.

Napo’s position is that people with lived experience of the justice system should be able to work in any and all roles in Probation. We know that careful consideration must be given and assessments will need to be made to enable this but external vetting by the Police for the sole purpose of using a computer system should not be a barrier to creating a diverse workforce. We have consistently taken a solution focussed approach to this, first suggesting that ViSOR is not the best way to share information given the complexities of processes – instead we suggested allowing other agencies restricted access to Delius instead. This was not pursued, then we suggested that those who fail vetting could be given a protected caseload that didn’t require ViSOR use – this was seen as not possible for NPS. When unification was on the table we tried again, a mixed caseload in the PS would surely allow for staff without ViSOR vetting to have a caseload that didn’t need ViSOR. Again our reasonable suggestions were politely ignored. We will continue to raise this and to carefully monitor the impact of vetting on staff who transferred from CRCs. We have raised the issue with Justin Russell, after the HMiP report on race in probation and are now working hard to raise the issue more widely.

Another ongoing and very tricky issue is OMiC, the movement of the supervision of clients during the custodial part of their sentence into the prison where a team of Probation and Prison staff work together to carry out all of the tasks formerly performed by an Offender Manager in the community and an Offender Supervisor in custody. We are told this is being done because “end to end offender management” didn’t work. But it wasn’t really given much chance, with community staff not being resourced to travel to prisons, bans on travel claims due to cuts and excessive workloads meaning custody cases were deprioritised. Despite the obvious solution being to fix these issues OMiC was apparently the answer. So now instead of the community practitioner being the consistent thread throughout the sentence, from custody into the community someone serving a custodial sentence will have a new offender manager every time they move prisons and only meet their community officer close to their release. OMiC moves the work formerly done in the community and adds it to the work formerly done in the prison. It therefore moves staff into prisons. There is at present no workload measurement tool for OMiC and so inevitably workloads are high, staffing too low and because the administrative support comes from the prison team it is taking a long time for them to adjust to tasks they have no experience of.

Most concerning is the plan to move prison based SPOs into the line management of the prison governor. This is due to happen soon. We are utterly opposed to this and have been since the start. Probation Service staff have different terms and conditions and different ways of working than prison staff, the experience of COVID showed us that these differences can cause tensions and we had to intervene in several regions where prison governors, even before line managing the SPOs were insisting that despite the PS policy being to work at home where possible they wanted all probation staff to be in the prison every day. SPO members working in prisons tell us they are looking to move roles to avoid the inevitable issues that will make their positions very tough indeed. We have yet to see the full guidance for the line management arrangements but we remain vigilant to the risks to our members.

Unification has meant that programmes work now all resides in the probation service. This is cause for celebration however there are many concerns about moves to alter programmes and delivery requirements and the potential for “dumbing down” skilled work. We await the promised consultation on the detailed plans for programmes, but we anticipate having to fight the move away from quality and towards economy as driver for the changes.

COVID has brought many challenges and it’s impact will resonate throughout the system for years. One of the challenges we face now is the backlogs of cases waiting to go through the Courts, we all know that the Court system was struggling anyway and closures of Courts, low staffing and lack of resources meant there were already delays but some now face a wait of years for their case to be heard, and members working in Courts face ever more pressure to produce their advice to the Court in the quickest way possible. Despite many reports reinforcing what we already knew – that a quality pre-sentence report cannot be produced quickly – the direction of travel is towards speedy justice, seemingly at any cost. Rather than reopening closed courts, or investing in the staff who make the system work, the focus now seems to be on extending Court sitting hours and pushing through cases, ignoring the warnings that speedy justice sometimes simply isn’t justice at all.

In Unpaid Work there are also backlogs due to the pandemic and Napo’s ‘safety first’ approach to recovery is being pushed past it’s limit by the fervour to ramp up delivery despite concerns about virus transmission. Alongside this we have the challenge of unification, with the chaos that has brought. Unpaid Work staff face uncertainty and the planned work with trade unions on the new operating model, which could have helped to deal with some of the backlog issues, have been forgotten about as senior leaders just try to deal with the immediate chaos facing them.

There are so many other problems in the system, too many to list – even though we have three days!

Does this all sound a little bleak? At a recent branch meeting we acknowledged it is all quite bleak and that much work is needed to get us to a point where practitioners feel that Probation is functioning again. The damage that has been done to the system is both broad and deep and will take many years to repair. Amidst this bleakness however there is a spark of hope. The hope is Napo, us, the members, the reps, the staff, working together not just to represent the interests of members in their employment rights but also to represent the profession, the idea and ideals of Probation.

Our reps, activists and members have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to keep themselves, their colleagues, their clients and the communities they serve as safe as possible. The haste to “recover” has been resisted at all levels and while we struggle to hold the line on this we must always remember that safety comes first. Keeping us safe in our work is a legal duty on our employer and whether the risk be COVID or work related stress the same duty of care is owed to us. If you feel unsafe at work, due to COVID or due to work related stress, please contact your branch reps, follow the advice we’ve issued, escalate concerns to the Link Officer and Official for your branch and make sure we all work together to fight these significant threats to our safety.

In many ways it may seem that we have lost some of our power since TR, the Civil Service approach is not always conducive to problem solving and the solution focussed approach we took when we were in smaller probation trusts. But we do have power – in our union. We have collective power, far greater than the sum of it’s parts. I am looking forward to spending these three days discussing and debating how we use that power, and how we channel and focus our efforts to effect real change.

If the situation for Probation members in England and Wales sounds a little bleak, our colleagues in Cafcass and Probation Northern Ireland aren’t faring much better. The organisational change issues aren’t there in the same way but workloads and pay are. In Cafcass our reps have been working tirelessly to protect members from the threats of COVID and work related stress. Dialogue with the employer has been established but there is much work to do and I know that will be discussed more tomorrow. There is, just like in Probation, no easy or quick solution to the workload issues. The work is there, and is increasing as a result of the pandemic. The funding provided to meet the need was a one off – so won’t continue and hasn’t appreciably made a difference. Cafcass needs serious investment, long term funding to increase staffing and reduce workloads to manageable levels.

In Northern Ireland workloads continue to be an issue and we are working hard to try to put in place processes to address workloads and to ensure that staff have a route to address them.

With all of this going on it can be difficult to take notice of what is happening around us, and to make space for things that we, as a professional association, should be involved in. That’s why I want to pay tribute to Emma Cluley as she steps down as Managing Editor of the Probation Journal. Emma has made an incredible contribution to Napo in this role and will be greatly missed. I know the recent Editorial Board meeting was her last, and the report to this AGM will also be her last, please show your appreciation for her dedication and commitment to Napo and to Probation.

Yesterday I was pleased to chair the women in napo fringe meeting where we launched a research partnership with long term member Becky Shepherd. Becky is looking at vicarious trauma in women who work with women and we hope that her findings will help us to secure better support for staff working with women on probation and women victims. This is a really important topic and I am looking forward to working with Becky on it. Women members will be receiving an invitation to participate and we hope you will share it with women colleagues who work with women to increase the responses.

I’ve been reflecting lots in recent weeks on the issues that women face in their daily lives. The sentencing of a Police Officer for the murder of Sarah Everard has sent a shockwave through society but the misogyny that enabled that heinous crime has always existed and we have always known about it. Even after the media was filled with people saying what must be done about the problem of institutionalised misogyny in my home area of North Yorkshire our Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, in interview, made comments that were textbook – worthy examples of victim blaming. He is still in post, for now, although widely criticised. He has apologised but the problem is not that he said the comments in public, where we could hear them, the problem is that he held those beliefs. The problem is that women are being told to use tracking apps, to avoid walking alone at night, to modify their clothing, to change their behaviour to keep safe. No one is telling the perpetrators to modify their behaviour. No one is intervening to remove people from positions of power and influence when they say or do things that demonstrate misogyny. We must - all of us - make ourselves free to do this, to call out misogyny, to demand better from those in positions of power.

Tomorrow at our AGM we will launch our race action plan, and dedicate ourselves to being anti-racist. Not just to say we will avoid being racist, but that we must ever strive to be anti-racist, actively and using all of the power and influence we have. We must do this collectively and individually, in our work, in our union and in whatever we do when we are not working or coming together in Napo. We must become the champions of anti-racism in our workplaces and our communities. I will be proudly signing my pledge and I hope each of you will too.

Together in Napo we can do great things, and there are great things to do. I hope you will leave here, after 3 days of being inspired by other activists, and spread the word to workmates who aren’t members. That they can and should join Napo, and share in the joy, the antidote to despair that is our solidarity. As I enter my last year as Chair I will hold those feelings close and use them as fuel – to fight the good fight and share as much of the antidote to despair as I can with others.

As I now finish I would like to read the message of solidarity from Unison, who are holding their own conference this week:

UNISON sends this message of solidarity to our sisters and brothers in Napo with best wishes for a successful AGM. We look forward to working with you on the many challenges which lie ahead. Together we can prevail.

Katie Lomas 

Caseloads and Workload

Regular readers will be fully aware that one of the disastrous effects of TR was on the level and nature of caseloads, especially for POs and SPOs moved into the NPS. Alison Moss's recent damning book has laid out in stark detail some of the resulting tragic consequences, rather cogently summed up in this recent Amazon review:-  

Required reading for Probation Staff at all levels

A hair-raising account of abuse by management at the highest level at the behest of politicians in fear of the media. The ‘manage from the top down’ mentality enables and encourages scapegoating of the unfortunate overloaded employee on the ground rather than addressing systemic failures brought about by the disastrous TR (Transformation of Rehabilitation) experiment dreamed up by Chris Grayling, despite warnings and protests from the organisation. This left Probation officers in the National Probation Service supervising the most dangerous individuals with no respite.

The SFO had already been investigated at the time and action was taken at local level. When the politics hit the fan 19 months after the murder, it was decreed that “heads may roll”; clearly understood as an instruction. How can it be reasonable to one-sidedly “investigate” a case like this without interviewing the people being investigated. The whole sorry tale reeks of political machination.

The book highlights the plight of dedicated professionals when things go wrong. It is clear that probation officers and managers work under extreme pressure to the best of their ability, holding on to the values of why they joined the service. They should be aware they could easily be the next to be scapegoated and thrown under the bus to protect the organisation and politicians; who have little understanding of the day-to-day challenges or the reality of working in an under-resourced and overstretched system.

Alison eloquently makes the reader aware that such tragedies are not isolated instances and will continue to occur in the future, despite best practice. The truth is that some men are just too dangerous to ever be released, despite their ‘human rights’.

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It will be of considerable interest that HM Inspectorate have just published their findings on the matter:-

Caseloads, workloads and staffing levels in probation services

Context 

Within our standards framework for inspecting probation services, our organisational-level standard on staffing (standard 1.2) emphasises the need for: (i) sufficient staff levels to meet workload and caseload demand; and (ii) the active management of practitioners by managers who themselves have a manageable workload. 

This bulletin examines the extent to which probation services have been meeting these expectations, as well as exploring the consequences and the prospects moving forward.

Approach 

The findings in this report are based on the following five sources of evidence: 

(i) Relevant official Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics. 

(ii) Data collected from our probation inspections conducted between June 2018 and June 2019, including aggregated data from over 3,000 case inspections, and qualitative analysis of about 2,000 interviews with frontline probation staff.

(iii) A reanalysis of qualitative data obtained from a survey of senior probation officers conducted for our 2019 inspection of National Probation Service (NPS) central functions.

(iv) A commissioned Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) of the UK and international evidence about caseloads and workloads in probation services and other related policy spheres.

(v) Interviews with senior officials and leaders on their experiences of workload and caseload management in probation services. 

Key findings and implications
Our key finding is that when probation practitioners hold a caseload of fifty or more, they are less likely to deliver high-quality work meeting the aims of rehabilitation and public protection. A precise target number for caseload cannot be set as there are too many inter-connected variables in relation to case complexity, the available administrative support, and the interventions and services that can be accessed. 5 However, there was a consensus among staff and senior managers that between 50 and 60 cases is the maximum number that can be managed well. 

• Less than half (46 per cent) of probation practitioners believed they had a manageable workload, while just over half (54 per cent) considered that team workloads were actively managed. Probation officers were less positive about their workload than probation services officers, and those working in Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) were less positive than their NPS counterparts. 

• Senior managers in both the CRCs and the NPS agreed that workloads were unbalanced and resulted in stress and anxiety for many staff. Probation practitioners told us that high workloads were exacting a high personal toll upon them in the form of stress, sleeplessness, and fear of making serious mistakes through overwork. 

• Moving forward, in addition to the plans to recruit more staff, there are other promising developments for reducing workload pressures for the probation frontline: 

• The creation of administrative service hubs, which, if implemented well, can relieve practitioners of many support functions and thus free up time for one-to-one work. 

• Improved ICT and management information, facilitating faster access to case information, improving partnership working, and avoiding duplication of administrative efforts. 

• Improved access to accredited programmes and structured interventions, preventing the need for probation frontline workers to make up for gaps in provision with time-consuming and sometimes less effective one-to-one work. 

• Improved access to wider services, particularly through co-location and the creation of community hubs which put individual service users at the centre of service provision. 

• Employing support workers with lived experience, helping to engage service users. 

• Evaluating the potential value of remote supervision and new digital interventions.

Introduction 

This bulletin aims to contribute to understanding how well caseloads and workloads in probation have been managed in recent years, and how they could be managed in the new probation delivery model. 

Concerns over rising caseload and workload levels 

We expressed concern about workloads and staffing levels in our 2020 submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review (HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2020a), stating: ‘probation staff are struggling to manage high numbers of offenders – 86 per cent of staff in CRCs and 33 per cent in NPS divisions are responsible for more than 40 cases. In our opinion, it is difficult for even experienced practitioners to deal with 60, 70, 80 or more cases properly. Financial pressures have also led to some CRC providers replacing qualified probation officers with less experienced staff who are still training towards a qualification.’ The human price of high workloads was also emphasised by our Chief inspector in a recent speech as he noted that “the impact of this on some of the staff we spoke to was clear. Some were in tears as we spoke to them. Others spoke of being burnt out and of having to work evenings and weekends to keep their head above water” (Russell, 2020). 

Causes of rising caseloads and workloads 

Transforming Rehabilitation has been a key driver in relation to changes in caseloads in recent years. In June 2014, 35 public sector probation trusts in England and Wales were replaced by: (i) a new public sector NPS with responsibility for supervising those who present a high or very high risk of serious harm or who are managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA); and (ii) 21 private sector led CRCs with responsibility for supervising most other service users presenting a low or medium risk of serious harm. As such, staff were no longer supervising ‘mixed’ caseloads in terms of risk levels. 

Transforming Rehabilitation also introduced (through the Offender Rehabilitation Act (ORA) 2014) a new duty on probation services to supervise prisoners released from short prison sentences of less than 12 months. Post-sentence supervision came into effect for those whose offence was committed after 01 February 2015 and who would be over the age of 18 at the point of release. This considerably increased the number of post-release service users managed by probation in the community, climbing from just under 40,000 on 31 March 2015, to 68,863 on 31 March 2020, a rise of 74 per cent. Prior to Transforming Rehabilitation, the caseload for the probation trusts had been falling year on year since 2000. 

Another driver of caseload change has been the introduction of the suspended sentence order (SSO) in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (with the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introducing SSOs without requirements) – these orders have proved popular at the expense of community orders (COs). Those currently supervised under COs have declined by 31 per cent since 2008, whereas SSOs have remained relatively stable (minus two per cent). 

The result of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms combined with offending and sentencing trends have left probation services with a caseload of service users who have more complex needs, more entrenched offending attitudes, behaviours and lifestyles, and often higher levels of risk than before the ORA was implemented. 

What is an acceptable caseload size? 

In providing context for their REA on probation caseloads, Fox et al. (2020) noted that the question of identifying optimum caseloads and workloads for probation staff has always been complex, as governments have consistently sought to reconcile the competing aims of maximum effectiveness and value for public money. Across Europe, different jurisdictions have very different models of probation. The most recent Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics (Council of Europe, 2019) found that the ratio of probationers per individual staff member varied from 4.7 in Norway to 240 in Greece with an average (median) ratio of 33 cases. 

Within the UK, there is no legislation or guidance specifying the ideal or maximum caseload size to be held by a probation worker, and there is no definitive research to establish the optimum workload in terms of mix and numbers for effective work with those subject to probation supervision. However, Rule 29 within the European Probation Rules (Council of Europe, 2010a) states as follows: ‘Probation staff shall be sufficiently numerous to carry out their work effectively. Individual staff members shall have a caseload which allows them to supervise, guide and assist offenders effectively and humanely and, where appropriate, to work with their families and, where applicable, victims. Where demand is excessive, it is the responsibility of management to seek solutions and to instruct staff about which tasks are to take priority.’ Further elaboration is provided in the accompanying commentary: 

‘An adequate staff complement is essential to the agency’s effectiveness and efficiency. If staff workloads are too large, then the probation agency will not be able to work as it should. Workloads should be assessed in a holistic way with an assessment made of the demands of individual cases and not simply on the number of cases or offenders under supervision. An overall shortage of resources constrains an organisation’s potential and excessive workloads will prevent individual members of staff from achieving their best practice. This Rule appreciates that agencies may not have as many resources as would be ideal. If the workload of an individual staff member becomes excessive, then the importance of setting priorities becomes even more pressing. The Rule states that management has a responsibility to devise strategies to manage demand and to assign a reasonable and equitable workload to members of staff. Where this cannot be achieved because of pressure on resources, managers should be actively involved in advising staff about which tasks must take priority over others.’ Council of Europe, 2010 

In England and Wales, Webster et al. (2020, unpublished) noted that the changes occasioned by Transforming Rehabilitation have led to a number of contentious discussion points among the probation community including the following: 

• What is the long-term impact for NPS staff of managing a caseload solely comprising those who have committed offences causing high levels of harm to the public? (Phillips et al., 2016)

• What is an appropriate caseload for responsible officers in CRCs who are operating to very different models and expectations, depending on the approach of their owner?

• Should caseloads be lower for NPS staff supervising those presenting a high risk of serious harm or are the demands of supervising more low/medium risk service users within CRCs actually greater, recognising that a greater proportion may have a high likelihood of reoffending, multiple needs and chaotic lifestyles?

Some of these issues will be superseded by forthcoming reforms to the probation sector, whereby all offender management will move to the NPS in June 2021. However, these issues are still of relevance to the findings in this bulletin.

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Extracts

Analysis of the qualitative data from the staff interviews revealed how individual staff felt about the manageability of their workloads. There were some staff members who described their workloads as manageable, and indeed there was one officer (but only one) who had asked management for additional cases. Yet even when staff said their workloads were manageable, they often then added that it was still “not ideal”, or only manageable “to a degree.” They were also aware of other colleagues whose caseloads were not manageable. 

Nevertheless, the overwhelming message from staff was that they saw their caseload levels as too high to be manageable, with one describing caseloads as “an ongoing nightmare.” In some CRCs, staff reported that they had over 100 cases to manage, whereas the ideal was seen by staff to be somewhere around 45 cases: 

“60 cases for a PO is too many. I would be completing quality work if this was approximately 15 less.” (PO, CRC) 

“I think a caseload that is manageable would be 45 to 50 but I am above that.” (PSO, CRC) 

“I would prefer to have 40 cases where I can do more meaningful work.” (PSO, CRC) 

CRC senior leaders we interviewed agreed with that benchmark for case numbers, one remarking, “40 to 50 cases [has been] seen as reasonable since time immemorial.” Another CRC leader argued that more than 45 cases was too many life stories to try to absorb. Linked to the high-risk nature of NPS cases, caseloads were generally lower, but still many staff reported being over capacity: 

“My caseload has traditionally been over 60 and it is not manageable. I have forced the issue with my manager to have it reduced so I can try and deliver a quality service. All except two of my cases are high risk.” (PO, NPS) 

Within the CRCs, PSOs could play an important role in easing workloads. However, due to the differing nature of the cases, it was often not appropriate for cases to be allocated to PSOs within the NPS: 

“The team has a high proportion of trainees and PSOs and so there are limits as to the number and type of cases that the staff can hold” (PO, NPS)  

“Across the team we have PSOs with capacity to do more but they can’t hold the high-risk cases we need managing.” (PO, NPS) 

Those who were working part-time said they felt additional strain, and that allowances were not always made for their reduced hours: 

“I went part-time, but my caseload did not change.” (PSO, CRC)  

“I work part-time, but I hold what I would consider to be a full-time workload.” (PO, CRC) 

Even though many staff did say that their workloads were now lower than they had been in the past, they were still seen to be far too high. 

“Workload is not manageable although it has been significantly worse in recent months.” (PSO, CRC)  

“I used to have 67 cases, so 57 seems more manageable in comparison. But this in itself is not manageable.” (PSO, CRC)

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Where staff considered their workloads to be manageable, they often said this was due to caseloads being actively managed: 

“Managers are very good at reallocations and take good care not to overload those who may not have the mental or physical capacity to have their caseloads increased.” (PSO, CRC) 

For others, even though they believed that their work was being managed, this had not led to a smooth-running system: 

“It would be unfair to say we are not actively managed but there is a lot of firefighting.” (PO, CRC) 

In some areas, staff were able to have their cases reallocated to new staff or PSOs but this was not the norm. In many areas, while managers were sympathetic, there was little that could be done regarding reallocation. Often there did not appear to be a ceiling to the number of cases which staff could hold, and as all cases had to be allocated to someone, staff did not feel in a position to refuse work, even when they were already over capacity: 

“Our manager understands, but the cases can’t go anywhere else as no one else is not up to capacity.” (PO, CRC) “Everyone is struggling with workloads but there is no one else to redeploy the cases to.” (PO, CRC)

In these instances, the main advice which managers could give was around how best to prioritise workloads. There were also concerns from many staff that if they did have work taken off them, it would simply be reallocated to a colleague who was similarly overworked: 

“I was struggling with stress and my manager eventually took 10 cases off me but she gave them to a colleague who sat next to me. I then had to watch her struggling. It really affected our relationship.” (PSO, CRC) 

“There are difficulties in managing the cases we have, then when we are covering for others – which is quite often – it causes more difficulties.” (PSO, NPS) 

The NPS use the online Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) to monitor staff capacity. Much of the data is uploaded each evening from the nDelius case management system but line managers need to undertake some data entry (adding reductions or changing contracted work hours as appropriate) and to monitor accuracy. The WMT takes account of: 

• attributable time (time spent managing service users) 
• non-attributable time (travel, ICT problems, supervision, comfort breaks – 16 per cent is assumed) 
• non-effective time (holidays, sickness, training – 20 percent is assumed). 

The current measure of excessive workload is where an officer has a WMT capacity of over 110 per cent over a consecutive four-week period. 

Some CRCs have commissioned bespoke workload measurement systems, or use resource management tools or other manual calculation methods based upon routine management information. 

When speaking to probation staff, many indicated that their levels on the WMT or equivalent systems were constantly over 100 per cent. Consequently, they deemed the tools largely ineffective for managing workloads, and seeing the high numbers could be a cause of raised anxiety: 

“The last time I looked at the WMT I had the highest workload so I have stopped looking at it.” (PSO, CRC) 

“Staff often do not know how many cases they have as they find it distressing. I purposely do not look at the WMT because it is always over 100 per cent and causes me stress.” (PO, NPS) 

Managers complained that they often felt that they did not have the time to complete the WMT. It was also noted that this rarely offered a full picture, with the time required for more complex cases or other tasks not being accurately reflected. This was seen by one PO as especially true in the NPS, although there will be other aspects of complexity in managing CRC cases: 

”NPS have complex cases which generate parole reports, referrals, ARMS assessments, recall reviews etc. These processes are massive and it is difficult to keep up with the pace. The WMT does not adequately account for all the work that is required.” (PO, NPS)

Those senior NPS managers we interviewed were concerned at the focus given by some staff to the WMT capacity metric, with one senior leader recognising that it did not fully reflect the manageability of an individual’s workload, going on to explain: 

“[WMT] is not a tool for telling you whether an offender manager has got too many cases. It is to tell you whether compared to their colleagues they’ve got too many cases. It is to balance a caseload, not to say whether too much is too much. If one offender manager has a score of 130 and another has a score of 70, that does not tell you that the person with 130 has too much workload – they may be able to manage that – but it does tell you that the workload is unbalanced.” (NPS senior official) 

There is clearly a need to better communicate the purpose of the WMT to frontline NPS staff and create a common understanding of what the capacity metric does and does not demonstrate. It currently appears to be causing considerable stress and anxiety to those for whom being anywhere over 100 per cent logically feels like the workload is too high (although, of course, this may well be the case). A senior NPS HQ official did concede that a WMT capacity metric over 120 per cent was, on average, too high but it was important to remember that the number could not describe the full complexity of probation work situations. 

One of the hopes for the new unified probation service from summer 2021 is that the revised WMT will be able to demonstrate more clearly when ‘probation is full’ in a similar fashion to the measures that indicate when prisons are overcrowded.

 

Conclusion 

While there is no ‘magic number’ for the ideal caseload in probation services, our analysis demonstrates how the quality of probation delivery can fall when practitioners hold caseloads above 50. This is in line with the, albeit limited, academic evidence that reducing probation caseloads is associated with improved compliance and reductions in reoffending. Notably, there was a consensus among staff and senior managers that between 50 and 60 cases is the maximum number that can be managed well. The toll that higher caseloads was having upon staff in terms of stress, anxiety and sickness was very evident. 

Transforming Rehabilitation was experienced as painful by many probation staff, whether they worked in the NPS or in a CRC. Probation leaders will need to work hard to rebuild trust and heal the rifts that have developed within the profession. Senior leaders we spoke to agreed that there should no further ‘big bang’ for probation, with caseloads slowly blended after appropriate training and bedding-in periods. CRC staff will need refresher training, or to be inducted, into working with sexual offenders, MAPPA cases, and foreign nationals. NPS staff will need to (re)learn the challenging work of managing low and medium risk of serious harm cases, where post-sentence discovery often reveals chaotic lifestyles, multiple needs and deeper problems such as domestic abuse and child safeguarding concerns. 

The Probation Reform Programme is an opportunity for joint learning and the sharing of experience that could help overcome divisions and build the new probation culture so urgently needed. In addition to the plans to recruit more staff, there is much to learn and retain from the CRCs who have developed innovations such as support hubs, co-location with statutory and voluntary partners, and service user involvement. These initiatives, when implemented well, have improved service delivery and relieved some of the workload burden on the frontline. CRCs have led the way in working with or developing community hubs to bring probation into neighbourhoods and ease access to essential services (HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2020e). Some CRCs have co-located with other agencies to reduce costs, while improving information flows, referrals and joint work. 

The Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) is being taken forward in the unified probation service. The tool is being used to model staffing requirements and likely caseload scenarios, including the impact of an additional 20,000 police officers to be recruited over the next three years. The WMT will need revising to meet the post-pandemic world of work; there is the potential for more remote supervision, more home visits, and more working from home. The time values at the heart of the WMT will require reworking in consultation with frontline staff and middle managers. Staff also need a clear explanation from probation leaders as to the function of the WMT. Leaders must stress that it is not necessarily a reliable indicator of workload at the individual level, but a management tool for rebalancing team workload and caseload. At a strategic level, it could be invaluable in making the case for resources, particularly if it could indicate more clearly when probation services are operating at a maximum capacity (in a similar way to how HMPPS monitors prison capacity). 

The innovations we have seen in the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent probation EDMs will need to be carefully evaluated in terms of the impact on workloads. For example, although travel times have been radically reduced by remote supervision (telephone or videoconferencing), the amount of contact has in some instances increased. Moreover, we currently have no strong evidence that remote supervision is an effective means to 31 supervise and help rehabilitate probation service users, and protect the public (HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2019a). The Target Operating Model for the new unified service proposes a blended approach to contact (HMPPS, 2021), and we have thus recommended in a recent thematic review that HMPPS should ‘urgently conduct a large-scale, robust outcome evaluation of the effectiveness of remote (telephone-based) supervision for different types of service user’ (HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2021). 

Probation staff and managers have demonstrated impressive levels of dedication and resilience to keep services running and keep protecting society during the Covid-19 pandemic. Moving forward, the frontline and their leaders are clearly determined to successfully unify and reinvent probation for new times. But, as we emphasised in our 2019/2020 Annual Report, success will also depend upon: 

• a reasonable financial settlement enabling the recruitment and training of sufficient qualified staff 
• providing the right amount of administrative support 
• ensuring the availability of a broad range of interventions and community services for probation service users.