TR in Derbyshire

Especially aimed at those persistant commentators on this blog who say things are 'just fine' with TR, here's how it's going in Derbyshire, as reported on the BBC website:-

Probation in Derbyshire has 'slipped' after reforms, says report

Supervision of criminals in Derbyshire has got worse since the government out-sourced parts of the probation service, the chief inspector of probation says. Dame Glenys Stacey said the standard of some services in the county was now "significantly lower" than before.

In 2014, the government replaced probation trusts in England and Wales with 21 rehabilitation companies, made up of private firms and charities. A Probation Service spokesperson said it would "monitor performance closely".

Probation reforms, implemented by the then Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, overhauled the supervision of released prisoners and people serving community sentences in England and Wales. As part of the changes, the probation service was split in two, with community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) supervising low and medium-risk offenders.

At the same time a National Probation Service (NPS) took over the supervision of high-risk offenders.

In one of her first inspection reports since the new system was introduced, Dame Glenys says she found no evidence that public protection was being made a priority by Reducing Reoffending Partnership - the CRC that won the contract in four counties in the East Midlands.

Her report said the "quality of work" provided by the company in Derbyshire was "significantly lower" than it was under the former Probation Trust - describing it as "poor" in some areas. Dame Glenys said many staff felt the new approach to rehabilitation was "not yet a reality". She said the CRC had "ambitious plans for an effective and modern probation service, to make a difference to people's life chances and reduce re-offending". However, she said the implementation of the changes has been "troublesome and slow" and that "standards have slipped. Leaders do need to focus on delivering good quality services today as well as improving tomorrow," she said.

She went on: "The public can be reassured, however, that the National Probation Service in Derbyshire is managing high-risk offenders well."

Catherine Holland, chief executive of Reducing Reoffending Partnership, said the probation team in Derbyshire was working hard to keep the public safe "by reducing reoffending". 

"We welcome this inspection report which identifies recommendations and many areas of good practice. We will use its findings to further strengthen our work," she said.

A government spokesman said "public protection and reducing reoffending will always be our priority. "We hold providers rigorously to account for their performance and insisted a robust action plan was developed by the CRC. We will continue to monitor performance closely."

However, Andrew Neilson, from the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the report indicated the probation service was "letting down people who are trying to change their lives.The Howard League warned that ministers were taking a huge risk by dismantling a service that was performing well. We remain of that view," he added.

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From the report:-

Overview

Overall, the quality of work was mixed, and differed as between the CRC and the NPS. 

The quality of CRC work was significantly lower than that we saw formerly in the Probation Trust, and was in some respects poor. Assessments and plans were often not good enough, and purposeful rehabilitation work was seen in too few cases. We expect to see public protection prioritised, yet we did not find evidence of this. The organisation was still in transition, with systems implementation taking longer than anticipated. 

The NPS was in a better position. A strong, legacy culture of good professional practice and a focus on public protection prevailed. The quality of work was generally good and the NPS was effective in protecting the public and assisting the rehabilitation of offenders. 

Staff and leaders in the CRC had experienced and were still experiencing a great deal of change, those in the NPS less so. No doubt this affected the quality of CRC work: CRC senior staff were still occupied with the imperatives of change implementation.

Staffing 

CRC leaders thought the organisation was short-changed in the allocation of staff to Derbyshire on inception. Derbyshire were slightly under the allocated resource at the time of the Probation Trust split and this was compounded by a disproportionate number of staff, compared to the rest of the CRC, leaving for jobs in the NPS and prisons around January 2015. Numerous attempts have been made to recruit permanent staff, with varied success, leading to a high level of agency staff being deployed in the interim. At the time of the inspection Derbyshire were continuing to recruit as current operational staffing levels were below those identified in the target operating model. 

Managers 

First line manager numbers had reduced from seven to four, in line with the operating model. Several front-line staff said they did not feel adequately supported, with those managers taking on new responsibilities for buildings, performance, personnel issues and other matters. Managers reported they had not been able to maintain a focus on service delivery, for similar reasons. The changes had reduced significantly the time available to them for promoting quality practice. We found few instances of management oversight adding value to the work of practitioners. Only 4 (of 36) practitioners said that inadequate management oversight had limited their ability to achieve positive outcomes with service users. We considered the situation was more problematic than this figure suggests, as few cases could show that management input had either added value to the work, or resolved concerns about work that was of poor quality. 

Workloads 

Frequent reassignment of cases, together with staffing levels below those planned and new (short sentence cases) work led to very high caseloads for responsible officers. Several said their caseloads were around 70. They felt their caseloads and workloads had increased since CRC inception. For some, the workload pressures had increased as a consequence of holding more complex cases. The frequent use of agency staff led to high levels of caseload reassignment. Some staff told us that often they did not know anything about the case when they saw a service user for the first time. There was an element for many service users of having to ‘start again’. One was very critical of the number of different responsible officers he had had. He said: 

“I’m well p***ed off. I’ve now had four different workers in six months. I’m sick of telling them the same stuff. Can they not look in my file? Yeah, I did wrong but how would they feel if they had to keep telling different people about their personal stuff?” 

Delays in implementing key aspects of the operating model (new IT systems and interface, and the customer services centre) designed to free up responsible officer time and improve efficiency and effectiveness left individual workloads not conducive to delivering high quality services. 

It was not reasonable to expect responsible officers to achieve consistently the rehabilitation and public protection goals required. We asked responsible officers if their workload had an impact on their ability to deliver positive outcomes in their work with service users. Almost three-quarters said it was having a negative impact on the quality of their work. 

Staff told us that the reality for them consisted of fewer staff with higher caseloads, having to do what they could with the limited resources available. A practitioner told us:

“high caseloads have led to us having less time to spend with service users. Some cases can have five or six responsible officers over the term of their order. There is no consistency for service users. We have had a big turnover of staff and agency workers. It tends to be agency workers’ cases that are getting passed around the team. Some cases are going two to three weeks without a responsible officer. Some agency workers are not up-to-speed when they start, as they are not familiar with the work or systems, having been out of practice for a while”.

Just over half of the 36 staff who answered the question felt that that their training and support had enabled them to help the individual who had offended to achieve positive outcomes. Several staff told us that they felt their level of professionalism had dropped since CRC inception and that they did not experience the CRC as prioritising quality of work.

Operational sites 

The CRC’s estates strategy had seen the Derby team recently move into new business premises. Staff had encountered a number of problems with the new building and several reported that they had not had suitable responses to the concerns raised. Ongoing issues in respect of IT, the perceived lack of suitable interview spaces, and health and safety concerns had left many staff demoralised. Some were concerned that critical telephone or email messages were not getting through and that they might be missing important information about, and from, service users and others. During the coordination of this inspection we also encountered difficulties in communicating with CRC staff, both by telephone and email. Much of this was no doubt initial ‘teething problems’ with the new building but the experience of staff in Derby was raising concerns for staff elsewhere, as others would also be moving to new premises in the near future. 

Supporting systems 

The CRC was still reliant on legacy systems, but had provided staff with new hardware while innovating, and developing a new case management system known as ‘Partnership Works’. Partnership Works is designed to reduce double entry of information, support case administration, and help practitioners to develop quality sentence plans and put in place the right interventions, thereby enabling them to manage high caseloads and spend more time with service users. 

Development has progressed, but before use the system must be approved NOMS. The approval process is onerous, staged, and lengthy (the process began in 2015). Managers were anxious, as the CRC’s new operating model depends on successful implementation of the system. Managers were hopeful of conditional approval in late September, but were concerned at the likely demands of the further stages to full approval, and the potential for significant consequential delays in implementing the new operating model. 

The CRC was the first to try and link to the Ministry of Justice’s Strategic Partnership Gateway, the facility that would enable the various systems to work together. The Strategic Partnership Gateway was not yet available. CRC managers confirmed all those involved understood its importance and Ministry of Justice staff had been working to provide interim solutions. The delay was nevertheless hampering the CRC’s ability to provide their new customer services centre. The customer service centre aimed to go live in September 2016, using alternative enablers, until Partnership Works is launched.

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I notice that news about Derbyshire has prompted a rare press release from Napo - apparently the first since May:-

Probation union Napo responds to HMIP report on Derbyshire Probation Services.

The HMIP report on Derbyshire Probation Services is damning of the service being provided by the Community Rehabilitation Company owned by RRP.

The report highlights that there has been a significant reduction in the quality of the service being provided in comparison to the previous Probation Trust which was dissolved in 2014.

Napo is deeply concerned that the report exposed so many failings and in particular those relating to public protection and safeguarding. However, this is in line with reports from our members about excessive workloads and a shortage of experienced staff following an unnecessary redundancy process. There has been a consistent failure on the part of the CRC to provide adequate ICT and the introduction of a poor telephony system has only exacerbated the issue of poor communication between agencies and service users.

Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence said: "Whilst Napo is not surprised by this report we are saddened that our predictions of service failure following the privatisation of probation have come true. We warned the government that these so called reforms would reduce the quality of service delivery and have direct impact on public protection. We now call on the Minister to urgently review these arrangements and set a clear and strict timetable for the CRC to implement the recommendations of the report. If the CRC is unable to improve then the MOJ needs to seriously consider removing the contract and returning the probation service back to public ownership."

Napo's AGM, due to start 29 September in Cardiff, will be debating a number of motions regarding the new delivery of probation services. However, the Minister Sam Gymiah has declined an invitation to attend and to speak to members directly about their concerns for the profession and for public safety.

Rumour and Speculation

I see London CRC management have been quick to respond to these contributions from last night:-

"London CRC in Special Measures - Inspection uncovered many cases which haven't been seen for months!"

"Have you heard London failed their HMIP inspection? Like properly failed. No redeeming features."

I am aware there is some social media speculation about the current HMIP inspection of London CRC, and there maybe more in the coming days.

As you know, the inspection team is currently spending time with us and while that work is continuing, it is not appropriate to comment on any possible conclusions that the inspectors may come to. However, I want to be as open as possible with you about the current situation, and changes ahead.

As I said last week in my Ambition 20/20 update, for several months we have been planning significant changes to address concerns many of you have raised about caseload levels and management issues. You will also have heard me say that we need to improve skills and data integrity to meet our Ambition 20/20 goal to be the best at reducing reoffending.

Ambition 20/20 Change Plan

I assure you that these are not vague aspirations, but real plans to deal with substantial variations in workload across our cohorts.

Ambition 20/20, the London CRC Change Plan which is being lead by Paul McDowell and his team, is detailed and comprehensive. It addresses the immediate concerns of high caseloads, offender managers’ skills, leadership and managerial accountability, and data integrity.

Our plans have been shared with NOMS who have been supportive and are content with the approach we are taking to address the concerns we share.

You can find a summary of our plans, plus the latest Ambition 20/20 news and progress, on London i.

Focusing on our future

There will be much more information about the outcome of the inspection in the coming weeks, and I will share as much detail about progress as possible, as my approach is to be as open as I can be.

In the meantime, please treat speculation and rumour with great caution, as we will need to work positively and without distractions to ensure we achieve the results we all want and to focus on the needs of our service users.

Helga Swidenbank
Director of Probation

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According to the posters up in every London office:-

Only 50%* of our service users have an OASys Sentence Plan!

*April's figures

Napo at Work in the South West 5

As always, thanks go to the reader for forwarding the latest news from the South West:-

Branch report Redundancies update 13

Dear members,
The National election for Chairs has now been concluded and I am sorry that my total was just not enough. Whether I could have made any difference substantial or otherwise to the future of the union can never be known. Too often these days I am resigned to saying “we are where we are” and getting here has been at the odd decisions and direction of wider events that drive us. The result while disappointing comes from another low turnout and should be of concern. It appears to indicate a low interest level of our membership. Sadly this disengagement by potential voting members is illustrated in part by reduced voting trends. It is concerning as none of the candidates could claim much of a mandate on the cast votes.

Nevertheless we have the incumbent chairs in place and continuity of the same is inevitable yet we have to think carefully and to ensure we stay with our union, get behind them. We have a full suite of officers in the leadership fully conversant as NPS employees and that level of structure may well be clover for NPS representation. All good then for the purposes and understandings for the way the civil service is dictating the changes.

Sadly for the NPS membership the E3 agenda has started to make itself felt. Not so much in mass change but in the actual confirmation it has started to implement a negative blueprint for staff changes across the board. No matter how many National Napo fielded have from the NPS to combat the worst aspects the losses to terms and conditions they seem to continue to mount up and look relatively unchallenged. The terrible outcome of the VLO situation is shrouded in a controversy. From their perspective of what actually led them to a pay band cut, no hope of any equalising for those already underpaid and worst no chance of climbing on a now frozen time marking pay structure. This is not the only issue that dominates my fear as many will argue it was pre-determined NPS desired outcome. It is exactly that which worries me. Is this the first of many more to come downgrading in both pay and job descriptions? Anyone in the NPS will need to give the position a long and carful look as E3 unfolds. The Hostel staff also affected and worst to come the discussions on privatisation of aspects of the night waking cover arrangements.

What we have to ensure is that we remain strong within CRCs now that our national union is so obviously favoured in the officers structure from the NPS. Couple this to the issue of the debate seeking permission from the membership on the dis-continuation of National Collective Bargaining to be debated at the AGM. If this falls to the regions, local CRCs, will inevitably destroy the unity we have as s single probation union. It would not be long before all terms are re negotiated or imposed and all existing policies will be assigned a comfortable place in the bin of the TR destruction. That said I am aware the General Secretary is clear that he wants to ensure all current policy terms are protected for a period in a legacy agreement.

I could never support any further moves to reduce the capacity of NAPO from national- collective bargaining. In this regard working constructively within NAPO the South-West dispute has taken the whole region forward in unity. Facing the determined yet awful ways Working Links the company have continued to neglect effective trade union consultation and negotiation. Our members facing unreasonable and multiple work and role changes the spectre of redundancies looming. Continued issue of S188 notices example poor practices. Because this was done to us without any real dialogue. (I wrote previously) it was mentioned in passing in a presentation slide last October. Following that the incredibly premature S188 notices set the combative situation as a formality ever since.

Recently at the second of three dispute meetings in London the General Secretary Ian Lawrence put similar points to working links with Glyn Jones to withdraw the notices come back to a fresh table and start to work towards areas that might be agreeable in the longer terms. Exit Schemes for staff at risk and to follow properly, agreed redeployment process across counties if necessary. To follow the best agreeable redundancy process and those already laid out in local terms. These remain protected under the period of contract while the staff transfer and protection arrangements are binding agreements. He expects the employers to honour. Pointing out they bought the contract in the knowledge of the policies and the terms. In fact the GS had also made it clear to members in the recent bulletin circulated mid September. All the senior heads of Union are united in this dispute as they all understand the DDC redundancy policy is the cornerstone of fair and agreed process for the dismissals of staff if the worst is to happen.

What the Unions find unacceptable and just simply not credible is that Working Links want to Axe over 140+ DDC staff by March end next year 2017. They claim they cannot \ will not slow the process yet new recruitment has continued rather than redeployment and retraining for existing substantive staff. Job insecurity has become a tool in the WL efforts to drive staff into roles borne from uncertainty of future. We have a range of selection recruitment issues coming to the fore. Jobs without description and no mention of pay rates. Members are complaining rightly so, of the continued feeling of a mis-managed process. It might be wiser to think this is a well managed process in the way the reorganisation establishes itself and will leave a lot of members displaced. Is probation being discarded for modern messaging now being delivered? The new way with a fraction of the skilled people. These approaches are not what many staff will have experienced in the past.

It is certain other areas will likely face similar in the future. Once CRCs get a foothold on local bargaining, your terms on pay working hour’s annual leave and so on will be fast on the agenda. Members will realise employers are likely to cut away any policy that supports staff in the ways that we have previously understood. Our most recent experience of this has been the tabling on the agenda of the DDC redundancy policy itself. Of all the policies that could do with an update any employee supportive policy. No, nothing, silence in fact. We had in local JNCC talked of the harmonisation expectations that were expected to be part of our working relationships which were flatly rejected. It has been no surprise to us in the JNCC that this policy agreement your terms and conditions which has been collectively agreed in the past would have come under the spotlight now. Working Links the company actually believe that because the policy has a review period written in as do all policies that this is the time they want to table a changes discussion. Reviews are written in as standard to recognise legislative issues that may arise or look to work for both sides to see what improvements could be made in the light of operational practice. Clearly Working Links the company have no interest in actually delivering on the current redundancy agreement because by doing so they will have inadvertently accepted the terms contained in that policy implementation. Oddly though by attempting to look at it through JNCC this quickly makes it clear this policy is one they must need to damage. Just as small point on pay negotiations redundancy is Pay and the argument for a 3 year protection on Pay related issues issue comes alive. Also phased a changes over a period of time is something that any negotiation will need to understand. We will keep you informed as soon as the JNCC are restored and after the disputes heads are settled if that is possible.

However, much of the redundancy policy has already been avoided in the current ways they have set about changing what was probation. The employers know this, which, is why staff have been subjected to the inappropriate 1-1 interviews outside of any agreement. This process is underpinned by lawful requirements yet Working Links have not demonstrated a competent approach to this after the catalogue of failure. This being a strand of the dispute. Much of it without proper notice, or real cooperative support for the Unions representation. Hurried examples where staff are contacted by telephone or have been called in from sickness to take part. Absolutely staggering examples of how not to do things yet claiming to be a fair and equitable employer. Hardly!

In the current round of dispute talks the employers want to claim that they are listening and dialogue should continue locally. It is clear and was made obvious, while a national dispute is running over reductions, the methods of selections, the current activities around recruitment, the untested and non-verified new model of working and the Innovation Wessex claims of true independence. Wessex drawing its funding entirely from Working Links despite an unverified claim to the contrary. We rightly remain sceptical that in fact any jobs should be lost. We need to be convinced that the monies are not in fact being redeployed for other structures and plans. Member’s jobs sacrificed to fund them.

While on funding discussions we found it incredible while national dispute is running and the General Secretary has reported this already, we listened to Working Links offer a revised position downwards for voluntary redundancy amounts. This worked out to 22 week reductions in total over the 15 years maximum.

It felt an absurd position, as to whether Working Links the company are serious about being seen as sincere. Coming to a dispute meeting with a genuine intention seeking to resolve issues is doubtful on this current form? From that point we have now had a secondary London meeting and have been arguing the status of the rates of the terms the periods of protections. The legitimate needs to equalise the best in terms for the region as Working Links the company plough on regardless of fairness. There is no point in saying anymore readers will get the point now.

As of today 20 Sept the there is a fourth meeting with Working Links the Company and the heads of the 3 unions In Weston. I doubt at time of writing there will be any breakthrough agreements or the forming of a new treaty. Instead it will probably see us move to joint secretaries and beyond as long as Working Links continue to fail to adopt and follow legitimate terms of all our members’ contracts and the national staff protections. Ian Lawrence has been incredibly patient and although I am not part of the closed team today I am optimistic given negotiations can be harder line as we have a legitimate starting base. Whatever happens I am expecting a wider report as Working Links constantly cry confidentiality and a secretive furtive need to stop disclosing issues. What are they talking about I ask myself. Occasionally hearing business risk or some other hackneyed claim. It is wearing.

Members it is important to remind us all that none of this defensive work is possible if we do not act as a collective. The Chair of NAPO BGSW Ceris Handley who is always in touch and supportive of the combined strengths from Wales Napo reps and chair Pen Gwilliam and Migden Roberts. Thought provoking and single minded. We have all worked collectively in our member’s interests and of course to protect us all.

The General Secretary Ian Lawrence has played no small part in that alongside his counterpart Unison and GMB. In this difficult period of positioning and what is increasingly hostile sometimes toxic environment. It is important to keep matters in perspective. Our Union sides remain solid in our intentions to hold any breaches of staff terms and conditions by Working links to account by whatever means appropriate. The General Secretary demonstrably made efforts to work to agreements and achievable ends in the interests of NAPO and union members. Some of what is reported has not been accurate and the recognition of leadership and good team solidarity has to be remarked upon here. We are a capable group and with your ongoing support we have some clear opportunities to ensure our conditions of service are honoured.

I am sure this report will no doubt make its way onto the On Probation Blog. I know we have differing views but it has to made clear in these types of open branch reports to members that circulation is incredible when viewed by Facebook and others. It is a wide media readership and I am always a little concerned to read the permutations offered as to what will happen what should be done next who’s doing what and all the rest. In the SSW branch we have a position we have a structured plan and we are managing the process as difficult as it is. Please don’t speculate what the options might be it does not help our thinking. We are conscious of the dissatisfaction the employers Working Links the company take at reading Branch reports they get widely circulated to our all Napo audience. I do not understand why if they are proud of their treatments and management of our members.

I make this point now because at some point in mid-October time limits for notifications will get closer and the agenda to drive those cuts either voluntary or compulsory will be the focus of attention. Napo will then look to you as members to support our media campaign press, TV, radio public and MPs to challenge the situation that we are facing. Large cuts are news and the views of professional practioners on what will be the consequences will be valuable. Anecdotal stories of your experiences the recruitments the leaver’s stories and why many felt they were pushed out on timing than supported. All these will feature as we challenge to reject anymore of the current trend.

In the meantime keep reporting to the branch exec and Denice James all you can and the way things are running and we will log them for the records and reporting. Stay in Napo get colleagues and non-members to join us in a stronger movement to help protect them further and to look to how you will be able to help the branch as we start to look at what needs to be done as matters may well continue to escalate.

Please Print a copy or two of this update and leave them around for non-members by all means to read and join Napo now. Share as widely as you choose to ensure we get full support from our Napo membership. Would the helpful Napo member who encouraged the BBC to contact me recently, do so again thanks? Any other support welcome through the branch and please attend the Plymouth meeting on Weds 21st 2:00pm.

Dino Peros SSW Branch Chair JNCC Representative.

FAO Liz Truss MP, Sec of State

An excellent article here by an ex-prisoner on the Politics.co.uk website and addressed to Liz Truss:- 

Memo to the minister: If you care, this is what life is actually like in prison

There were a lot of things the new justice secretary didn't know when she appeared before the justice committee earlier this month. She didn’t seem to know what legislation she'd be pushing through, on what basis, or what was happening at her department. She and her rather baffled, investment banker under-secretary of state for prisons Sam Gyimah seem a bit ignorant of what's actually going on in Her Majesty's prison estate, since neither of them have deigned to ask those who have experienced it.

Probably they take the standard view: that prison is basically Butlin's Holiday Camp. As someone who spent a good few years in prison I can assure you it's nothing of the sort. It's about boredom, fences, white shirts and bureaucracy. Our prisons are old, decrepit and not fit for purpose in the 21st Century.

The cells are small, averaging six by eight feet, and built for single occupancy, but they often hold two or even three inmates. This causes an interesting problem due to the fact there is only ever one table and one chair. Privacy goes out the window very quickly. The cell toilet is located usually right beside the door. It's not sectioned off. You eat your dinner just a couple of feet away from an open toilet.

I say dinner, but I mean the unappetising sludge that is served as our only hot meal of the day. The average budget for feeding a prisoner is the princely sum of £1.87 per day for three meals. The daily rations usually consist of this:

Breakfast: Given to us at the serving of the evening meal the night before. Two hundred ml of long life milk, two table spoons of oats, four tea bags, two sachets of powdered creamer and two sachets of sugar.

Lunch: Served at 11:15. A cold sandwich and an apple. Maybe if you're lucky you'll get a cereal bar, commonly called a door stopper.

Dinner: Served at 17:15. A hot meal with rice or chips.

We're given a menu to choose from and all religions are catered for, but the portions are so pathetically low you usually end up tearing open the breakfast pack straight after dinner.

Time for the luxuries; which the tabloids love talking about so much. We get the chance to purchase from the prison shop every week and we can use our wages to purchase goods from it. "Wages?" I hear you say. Yes, we do get paid for the jobs that we do in prison. Well those of us that have jobs that is. There are ten prisoners for every position available. And what jobs they are. I once filled plastic bags with those delicious breakfast packs I mentioned above. Another thrilling job involved filling a small plastic bag with three balloons for a well known greeting card company.

The average working week in prison is 30 hours and the average weekly wage is £9.00, or if you prefer £0.30 per hour. Granted, we have no overheads, but that £9.00 is used to buy phone credit to call our family, purchase stamps to write to them and we might even want the luxury of a razor or shaving gel. Oh and also to pay for our television. Prisoners pay £1.00 per week (or just over 10% of our weekly wage) to have a TV in our cell. It's not free.

While we're here, let's clear up the PlayStation rumour. Other gaming machines are available, by the way. Except that actually they're not. Some prisoners do have Playstations, but they must be on the enhanced level of the current Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme, meaning they must have been well behaved, attended work or education regularly and paid for it from their earnings. The model must be the older one, which have no wifi or USB ports. You can get a used one of these for about £50, but you're not allowed to buy them. The machine must be new.

If you don't manage to get a job then you're left in your cell with the two or three close friends that I mentioned above and locked up for anything from 23 hours per day to the luxury of only 18 hours per day.

That is the norm of prison life.

The under-staffing of prisons makes it much worse. We're told to choose between either a shower or a call to our family. Our places of work are closed. The education department can't open as there is no staff to handle it. Our visits are postponed or cut short. And what do you think that does to rehabilitation?

The chronic under-staffing in prison must be addressed. Without it, we'll see more riots. Oh sorry, they're not riots anymore. The Ministry of Justice now calls them 'incidents'. But any incident which sees staff afraid for their safety followed by the mass transferring out of prisoners seems to me like a riot. Whatever you call them, they're happening as you read this. In the last month, HMP’s Lincoln, Northumberland and Birmingham have experienced 'incidents' due to under staffing.

Staffing is the crux of everything in prison. There can be no reform without it. The lack of staff allows the flow of contraband to increase, it makes rehabilitation impossible and, worst of all, it costs lives. The recent spate of reporting on the increase of self harm and suicides in prison has brought this into sharp relief. I say that any life that is lost in prison due to the lack of staffing should be noted on a wall inside the Ministry of Justice lest we forget who is to blame.

Rehabilitation? Reform? Not until we make some serious changes. And for that he need a secretary of state who knows what they're talking about, or at least one who'll listen.

The Tartan Con is a pseudonym used by an ex prisoner who was sentenced to seven years in prison. He is passionate about prison reform and blogs regularly on the state of our prisons from his rather unique viewpoint under TheTartanCon.blogspot.com. He is on Twitter at @TheTartanCon.

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A couple of weeks ago a reader submitted a letter for Liz Truss and I intended to re-publish it last week, but events intervened. I'll tack it on here:-

Dear Ms Truss,

On behalf of all of the over worked staff in all the CRCs, I thank you for your interest and determined points of view in relation to how you understand the privatisation of the previous gold award standard Probation Services, formally Trusts.

All our PO qualified staff are now languishing and enjoying to some degree the benefits of the new ways of working. We now have zero job satisfaction across the board. In statistics terms that means a 100% score for the card. WELL DONE! Our PSOs now carry all the work that should have remained within appropriate skilled staff groups but for less pay. Why not exploit them? Well Done!

A good percentage of highly skilled staff with centuries of amassed practice and experience, have all been shown the VR door out of work with a series of stolen compensation arrangements. So, in terms of crime, this lot went unreported and so reduced even more the numbers of thefts because of the distorted measurement by which crime is now recorded. Nevertheless, your government has created additional victims who also remain 100% off the score card. Well done. 

Morale 100% in the gutter, lost and deflated staff by resignation. Well Done! Staff sickness absence rates soaring, not quite 100%, but well on the way, so lets see things worsen and you will get another plaudit. Well Done.

Inter teams NPS relations failing. Well Done. Courts in a mess over sentencing and CRCs do not deliver on any proper outcome. Well Done. Of course my colleagues could go on at length. Unpaid Work no longer delivers. Well done! You may realise we have little time to actually complete a piece of real work these days. This list will grow.

Next time you're spouting your mouth off, you ought get one of your new support researchers this country pays for, or your PPS Parliamentary private secretaries to actually find out the real truth and not your disingenuous party line.

For and on behalf of, all of our totally demoralised, insecure and shafted, privateer, rubbish workforce, stuffed arbitrarily into the CRC innovation farce and nonsense.

Yours truly

One of the multitudes of had enough.

--oo00oo--

A postscript from another reader: 

Hear! Hear!

And please don't forget how the ripple effect of the TR target-led PBR bullshit affects communities - those who would see their probation officer regularly or when they felt were 'in need' or 'in crisis' can't do so anymore. So where do they go?

- Mental Health Team? No duty staff available, no Crisis Team.
- Police s.136 cell? Full up.
- Social Services? Overworked & no duty staff available.
- Drug or alcohol worker? No, closed down or appointment only.
- GP? No, only 3 mins available per appointment IF they're allowed in the building. GP: "Why not refer yourself to our NHS counsellor?" (The GP surgery get paid for each referral).

So we now have increasing numbers of sex offenders, DV perpetrators & chronic substance users ringing up & referring themselves to & clogging up the IAPT service - the NHS talking therapy provision for low mood, depression & PTSD as an alternative to prescription meds. And it won't be long before that service is oversubscribed by this wholly inappropriate client group - who, in order to be accepted, are posing as victims & absolving themselves of responsibility for their actions. Result? Another much-needed public service ends up in yet another train crash, a disaster leaving a trail of chaos & devastation in its wake.

Then no doubt some eager Tory child will be quick to suggest that privatising the IAPT service will resolve the 'crisis' - maybe the next MP for Epsom?

Prison Suicides

The Samaritans is a highly-respected charity and in my experience hardly ever puts its head above the parapet and gets involved in politics of any kind. The fact that they have gone public regarding the suicide rate in prisons shows just how bad things have become. This from their press release:-  

Action is needed to tackle rise in prison suicides, says Samaritans

Samaritans is calling on the Government to recruit and retain more prison staff in the face of sharp rises in the rates of self-harm and suicide in jails. In the past year to June 2016, the self-inflicted death rate in prisons has risen by 20 per cent, self-harm is up by 27 per cent and numbers of prison staff have fallen by 25 per cent over the last six years.

Samaritans volunteers train prison Listeners to provide emotional support to prisoners who are struggling to cope. The prison Listener scheme, which began in Swansea prison, operates through a long standing partnership between Samaritans and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) who have a shared goal of reducing suicide in prison. The scheme has been running for 25 years this month in England and Wales.

Samaritans volunteers who visit their local prison to train and support Listeners, regularly witness the effects of a reduced number of prison staff on the prison regime. The suicide rate in prison is estimated to be between 7 and 12 times that of the general population and prison suicide costs the tax payer potentially between £160m and £300m a year. In the 12 months to June this year, 105 prisoners took their own lives.

Samaritans CEO Ruth Sutherland said: “We are concerned about the impact of the problem of low staffing levels in prisons. We believe that this problem has contributed to the rising suicide rates among prisoners and needs to be addressed. A shortage of prison staff leads to prisoners spending longer locked in their cells, reduces access to work or education which helps with rehabilitation, living conditions are poorer and it is more difficult to access healthcare. Prisoners also struggle to contact friends and family under these circumstances. Staff-prisoner relationships are vital for ensuring prisoner safety and preventing prison suicides, and these relationships cannot be built when staff are so badly under resourced.The rapidly rising rates of suicide, which is at its highest in 8 years since 2007, show that conditions in our prisons need improving.”

Samaritans is not the only organisation expressing concern. The House of Commons Justice Select Committee also suggest that low staffing levels contribute to overall declining prison safety including an increase of self-inflicted deaths, self-harm and assault incidents.

The Listener scheme can play a vital role in prisons’ safer custody agenda by helping to reduce self-harm and suicide. It also helps to create an ‘enabling culture’ whereby prisoners feel that it is okay to talk, which stops problems reaching a crisis which is more challenging to deal with. Talking about problems can lead to a reduction in frustration and anger, build trust between prisoners and help to create a calmer, safer environment which provides a foundation upon which the prison service can work to reduce reoffending.

--oo00oo--

Here's Frances Crook of the Howard League on the general topic of prison reform writing for the WriteYou website:-

We need penal reform before it's too late

When the newly appointed Secretary of State for Justice and Lord (note, not Lady) Chancellor appeared before the Justice Select Committee last week she indicated that legislation on penal reform would come, but just not yet.

Michael Gove spent a year consulting on his plans for reform. David Cameron made a seminal speech setting out new principles focussed on redemption and compassion. This was all very wonderful and it did help to change the public, and media, discourse. But, over that year, prisons deteriorated and community supervision that had been privatised by Chris Grayling slowly decomposed.

Things are so bad in prisons that someone takes their own life every four days. There is a record number of unexplained deaths, probably caused by a toxic cocktail of drugs. People are locked up in cells the size of a public toilet, and have to defecate in front of their cell mate, with little or no ventilation in the cell. They spend most of the day in this cell, lying on a filthy bunk in dirty clothes.

The few men (95 per cent of the prison population are men) who get any work, potter about doing a bit of cleaning on the wings for five pounds a week. There are some workshops in some prisons, operating at around half time, but very little meaningful work. Prisons seem intent on proving that work is something that pays badly and is very dull.

The number of frontline officers in prisons was cut by about a third, making prisons unsafe for staff and inmates. With little to do and no one to turn to for help, prisoners are frustrated and angry. Prisons are now dangerous places.

Quietly, there has been a recent reversal. The Ministry of Justice has launched a recruitment drive to get more staff into jails. The problem is that new staff do not stay. They do the few weeks training and once they get onto the landings and experience the challenges they leave.

Something has to be done. I don’t think that waiting for some convoluted legislation next year will do the trick. Something has to be done now. Too many people are dying, too many young men are tying a ligature round their neck in the quiet lonely night in their cell and dying by strangulation.

The Howard League developed a radical plan of action that would save lives, save the taxpayers money and deliver a safe prison system designed for a purpose. We put it together for the spending review last year. We suggested that the prison population should be cut to the level it was under Margaret Thatcher. This could be achieved by abolishing short sentences that only interrupt already chaotic lives, limit the use of custodial remands as 70 per cent of the people remanded by magistrates do not get a prison sentence, curtailing recalls, using women’s centres instead of prison, speeding up parole and ending sentence inflation.

New ministers must have a think and will always want to develop their own policies. But she just cannot take too long. Elizabeth Truss needs to take action, as prisons are in meltdown and people are dying.

CRC Dispute - Latest 2

Napo Working Links News Dispute Special

Dear members,

As you will know, the probation unions have been in dispute with the Working Links Community Rehabilitation Companies for over two months.

Attached is the latest joint letter from the Trade Unions which articulates the continuing difficulties that we are encountering in terms of our issues being treated with the seriousness they deserve.

This bulletin has been written to bring you up to date with the discussions that have taken place so far, it also highlights the issues that are still at large and explains why we believe that we now need urgent action if we are to avoid a possible escalation of the dispute into industrial action.

Basis for the dispute 

The probation unions are totally opposed to the intention of Working Links to shed nearly 40% of the workforce across their three Community Rehabilitation Companies.

Moreover, we have yet to be convinced of the rationale for the plans which the company claim are linked to the reductions in the number of cases on their books and proposed changes to service provision through the target operating model that they are trying to introduce. 

Our position has always been that there is important work to be done across the three CRC's especially given the Government’s intention to make significant reforms to the prison regime, and that we have still to be convinced that job cuts are necessary and sustainable in terms of the responsibility to ensure high quality rehabilitation and supervision to clients and the expected standards of public protection. 

If the company is able to prove that further job cuts are absolutely unavoidable, then we obviously want to secure an early agreement that the most appropriate redundancy policy is put into operation to best protect our members’ interests. 

As can be seen from the latest joint letter the unions have flatly rejected the offer made last week to make Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy available to a limited number of people and on worse terms than those already awarded to staff who have left their employment or are about to. 

Failure to consult signals disrespect to our members Aside from the objections to the prospective job cuts, Napo has made it very clear following feedback from our members, that the operational model they are seeking to introduce is unproven and that the matching process to place staff into new roles has caused unnecessary confusion and chaos with some managers having been placed in an invidious position due to inadequate information and support. Contrary to some rumours, Napo is an inclusive union that is more than happy to include management grades into our membership where you will be most welcome. 

The unions are very disappointed at the limited progress that has been made in the two meetings that have taken place so far with senior management. We have made positive and constructive suggestions which would ease tensions and allow a more coordinated approach to exploring the underlying problems that have given rise to this dispute. 

We will therefore be entering tomorrows talks with the genuine intention of trying to secure a possible resolution of the dispute, but we will need to see a good deal more conviction and respect for our position than that which we have previously encountered. 

For example, we have made a reasonable enough request to the claim from senior management that this is not the first stage of a formal redundancy process by pressing them to withdraw the Section 188 notices of potential redundancies. 

Irrespective of the outcome of this week’s talks, the probation unions are now making plans to consult with our members in order that you can provide your national and local representatives with your views on the next steps. 

Working Links have been advised that we are keeping all of our options open in order to strengthen our bargaining position and more details about these will be reported to the member meetings which we expect to announce shortly.

Why Union membership is vital

By far the best way to apply pressure on any employer is by the majority of the workforce being members' of a trade union.

This means sticking with your union membership and encouraging colleagues who do not currently belong to Napo to join today.

Make no mistake, the threat to jobs and the intention of the company to let staff go on inferior terms are real and serious, and we stand a better chance of securing negotiated outcomes if more employees belong to a union.

Our view is that it is a mistake for anyone employed by a CRC to hope that events may not actually impact on you, or to believe that things will somehow work out in the end.

Working Links and their new owners in the form of Aurelius (well known as a traditional 'asset stripping' enterprise) are in the probation sector to make a profit first and the welfare of those employed in their CRC's a distant second. 

These, and many other CRC owners, are part of an already failing social experiment called Transforming Rehabilitation, and we are increasingly being told that the contracts that were sold to bidders are being described as something of a 'pig in a poke.'

That may not entirely be their fault, but nor is it the fault of Napo members who did not ask to be privatised and never got the chance to vote on whether they should face the employment scrapheap either. They have a not unreasonable expectation that they should be properly compensated if they have no future with the employer.

--oo00oo--

(The letter referred to was previously published on 06/09/2016 - Ed)

Pick of the Week 14

A bit late, but a roundup from before I went offline on holiday:-

UPW is an utter joke in London. It was privatised with the assistance of London Probation Trust and at first staff were told all would be well as Serco wanted it to be a success and would update UPW. What followed should have been a warning to us all. Serco devastated the entire operation with wave after wave of redundancies. Beneficiaries (charity shops, churches, charities etc) who had long supported UPW in London decided they could not deal with the cold ruthless corporate morons they were now faced with and pulled the plug. 

Serco got rid of workshops reducing the capacity for those who could not work outside or in charity shops to perform meaningful work. UPW became a skeleton service run by corporate yes people loathed by the staff. They got rid of vans so many offenders wasted time wandering from project to project. Above all there were hours being recorded that had never been worked. The entire system was a sham conning Sentencers and the public. 

When it came back to the CRC, staff were relieved but not a lot changed other than getting new uniforms with the MTCnovo logo. Projects are still oversubscribed and it is actually quite hard to get breached. There are reports of offenders doing very little at all throughout simply by turning up to oversubscribed projects and spending half the time travelling to another one after get time credited for turning up. There has been an increase in assaults on staff. However MTCnovo is keeping a tight lid on things as UPW earns them money.

*****
I am London PO and after Serco took over the UPW but before the split I stopped proposing UPW in my PSRs (we were working "end to end"). I would find reasons not to proposes UPW because I began to find it really difficult to persuade the service users to comply after the type of work offered became meaningless. One service user complained that he was made to move a big pile of earth with a spade from one end of a small park to another, no wheelbarrow and no explanation as to why. He said it was lucky there was not a man with a short fuse there that day deciding to take the spade to the supervisor's forehead. 

It is a shame we cannot persuade our report writing NPS colleagues to desist from proposing unpaid work. But since they don't have to supervise anyone on it, they forget or become increasingly unaware what a nonsense it is. I sincerely wish I knew a few magistrates I could make aware. Surely something would eventually find its way into their association and on into the media. Didn't the magistrates help to see off those court fees?

*****
NPS are required : No they are directed, by the sentencer, to look at punitive sanctions such as EMS curfew, UPW and exclusion requirements. They have to say if the offender is suitable or not. They cannot say they would not recommend such a sentence as an UPW requirement as the removal of a pile of earth from point A to point B isn't explained to said shoveller as to its end purpose and all without the aid and use of a wheel barrow and therefore a wholly inappropriate disposal. 

I am afraid that a lot of the lay magistrates/DJs, even worse: Crown Court judges, would not only rebuke said author but out of sheer devilment would sanction an UPW requirement immediately, and then demand a review report to ensure that it was enforced. Sorry, but report authors do not have such sway on the judiciary!! Ask any case manager in this great land of ours where UPW has been added by the sentencer, despite the fact that the report author did not recommend such a requirement...... Pejorative I know (sorry), but you get my point....

*****
I don't propose it when I've asked, for instance, BBR as I think that's what's required. Sometimes they go with it, other times they may add UPW. How punitive it's all got. When I started a 2:2 order was about as onerous as you could have.

*****
I think there is a similar problem arising in the NPS in my shire county. So many sex offenders are sentenced to COs on the basis that they will be 'treated' in the community and short custody doesn't allow for it, but in my area SO programmes are being withdrawn or men are getting on to groups half way through their Orders. So their treatment might be not at all, or two years or more after their offence, when their motivation has usually gone. The NPS must surely do what they have told the Courts they will do with sex offenders. But we seem to have lost sight of our responsibility for administering justice as required by the Courts.

*****
The new tiering exercise seems to me to be designed to enable more cases to be managed by cheaper staff. I have no particular issue with PSO's managing medium RoSH IPP's and Lifers. Like sex offenders, there has been far too much smoke and mirrors about these people over the years. RoSH is dynamic and as we all know, offending rates amongst lifers are stubbornly low, to coin a phrase. 

My issue is the formulaic means by which the new tiers have been defined. As a comment above says, people need to be assessed on their individual needs and circumstances. We all know that the most effective practice comes from addressing diversity. Don't we? An illustration of the current lack of joined up thinking in NPS is the E3 proposed end state for staff numbers. It fails entirely to take into account the OMU in custody review that says that prison OMU'S need to be staffed exclusively by PO's starting in the Spring of next year. That means PSO's currently in prisons, as well as a significant proportion of those in AP's, will be coming into the community and PO's will be going to jail. 

In addition, all custody cases will be managed by an OM in prison until six months prior to release. A review of my caseload indicates that the PSO managed tiers plus the custody managed cases mean that I have three left. Two of them are in hospital on Section 47/49 and the other is UAL in India and never likely to return. Oh well, better get my prison suit dry cleaned then.

*****
Rehabilitation Practitioners are on the way. The clue is in the title, they'll fit in anywhere, NPS, CRCs, or even helping out in under staffed prisons. Apprenticeship time served, cheaper to employ, and ratified by the Institute of Probation, the centre of excellence.
Probation services are being phased out, and will be replaced by rehabilitation services.

*****
"The role we will submit will be named Rehabilitation Practitioner - and incorporates the PSO role." More evidence that the PI is part of the problem rather than part of the solution!!

*****
"Rehabilitation practitioner" is a meaningless title. I suspect that, if we did a Family Fortunes style 'our survey said' quiz, the large majority of the population would think it was something to do with physiotherapy or sports massage. Moving away from the word "probation" - which is at least understood in the wider population, even if we complain about our media invisibility - is just foolish. Clearly the PI is desperate for the cash that PACT and St Giles Trust may be able to trickle in their direction.

*****
I'm more worried about the Apprenticeship part of the job title - cos it's all in the choice of terminology. Apprentices have less legal (employment) rights than is enshrined in other employment contacts, including being exempted from the minimum wage. Considering the starting wage for a PSO is more than the minimum, I would be interested to know how much these apprentices are to be paid. Basic apprenticeship wages normally work out at about £2.50 an hour.

*****
Rehabilitation Practitioner is an ambiguous title designed to supply a work force to CRCs on a wage that CRCs are willing to pay, ie national living wage. But don't be fooled. Rehabilitation Practitioner is not just ambiguous, it's all encompassing. Where would such a job description place you? Working with the police? Mental health services? HTC? Or walking the beat to fill in for community support officers? It's a very broad spectrum that can be filled with such a general job title.

*****
Staff used to join probation as a PSO and look forward to training as a probation officer and getting a uni degree in the process. Now they're being offered a bloody apprenticeship to be less than a PSO and probably paid at the minimum wage. Maybe okay for school-leavers but not for the majority. Can this so-called Probation Institute hurry up and rename itself as the Rehabilitation Institute so then it can stop pretending to represent probation practitioners!!

*****
This is the PI showing its business interests and more evidence it has no interest in probation.

1. The MoJ have been trying to align us with the police for the past few year. Being aligned with the police in any way is something I'm wholeheartedly against as our ethos and work is completely different.

2. The PQF had a pathway for students of police studies. I believe the reason was financial related on the part of university and training providers and the police service spreading its wings into 'offender management'.

Guest Blog 60

Relationships Matter

I was taken with a comment to one of my posts on this blog. I had suggested that Probation work was complex but would benefit from getting simpler. In reply someone posted that the problem in my statement was how to distil something complex in a simple way. Many a time when I have been asked by a new acquaintance what it is I do for a living and having replied that I am, or until recently was, a Probation Officer this has been met with a number of responses. Puzzlement or uncertainty; they did not really know what a Probation Officer did or if they did often changed the subject or edged away (some were happy to chat about their experiences too). Curiosity; in which case having tried to explain what I did, I soon realised that trying to explain something complex in a simple way did not successfully convey the essence of what I did. Opinionated; many had a view about either Probation or offending and then often did distil this in a simple way but when their views were queried further with counter points or contradiction soon changed the subject or edged away (some were intent on pressing their views further and / or enjoyed a healthy exchange of ideas). In truth there have been many occasions and different responses, more than I can summarise here. Many reading this blog surely will have had similar experiences. 

My reflection on all of this is that I cannot hope to convey the work of a Probation Officer in the main, although not exclusively, in a brief conversation. How could I? I have spent years studying and working to develop my experience, knowledge and skills and my naïve expectation was to try and briefly distil this in some way that captured the essence of Probation work. However, there are some things that I do know are fundamental to being a good Probation Officer and as a profession I feel we do need to be able to find a way of communicating this. Some, if not all, of these form my own blue print for a Probation Service to aspire to in the future and I want to set these out for comment and further discussion on this blog.

I feel it is important to be open about my opposition to the large scale privatisation of public services such as the Probation Service. I believe that the fragmentation of Probation was an error. I do not want to expand on my thinking about this in the here and now. However, I do accept that we are where we are and I believe my ideas are important regardless of the current situation or what will be in the future. I have so far referred to the idea of a Probation Officer and this is only because I have been one myself. I believe in the idea of being a Probation Service professional, in whatever role that may encompass, is what is collectively important. I am not overly concerned about names in this piece, Probation or Community Justice Sector, client, offender or service user for example but recognise that they hold different meanings and would beg the reader’s forgiveness in this respect. The content is also necessarily limited given that it is a blog piece and no more than a collection of ideas based on my experiences and personal thoughts. I will be delighted of any supportive comments or critical comments but would ask, based on another personal belief, that you ‘play the ball and not the person’. I am also writing on the basis that the ideas I have will be at least partially understood, by this I mean the wider extrapolation of them will be appreciated by those who read this blog; if not maybe the comments that follow may provide an opportunity to expand on them or even detract possibly.

There are five headings that I want to focus on. The first two expose my thinking that the relationship between Probation Professional and the individual Service User is of key importance. The third and fourth look beyond the first two to the wider Community in which they are situated and the Criminal Justice System which is their starting point of a kind and ongoing interest. The fifth risks being contentious. Over the years, I like many who read this blog, have become aware that crime and criminal justice have been something of a political football, often populist and sound bite, whose kicking then has had real and often unintended consequences. The fifth heading is called the Political Domain.

1. Probation Professional
2. Service User
3. Community
4. Criminal Justice System
5. Political Domain

Probation Professional

The Probation Service has traditionally drawn on a wide cross section of individuals and provided them with a route to qualification as Probation Professionals. The qualifications have been significant, a mixture of practice based and academic assessment. This in my view has provided for a highly skilled workforce and a healthy diversity of person and background. Practitioners and others have then had opportunities to progress their careers in a range of setting with their foundation qualification as an overarching platform on which to base their ongoing learning and development. My experience has been one where there has been plenty of opportunity to access further learning and different positions that have enabled me to become a more rounded and experienced practitioner. This has resulted I believe in enabling practitioners to find greater satisfaction and longevity in their careers as well as provide the employer with a flexible and motivated staff group. If, as I believe, Probation work is complex then I feel that there is much to be lost and little to be gained by failing to continue to invest in practitioner and others development in this way. I would argue that further investment is needed to truly cement probation work as a modern profession and Probation Professionals need to be provided with ease of career mobility. I make the following observations and suggestions.

Since I qualified I have attended many, many further training opportunities but these have been poorly recorded and developed. I have kept a record but the organisations I have worked for have not kept a meaningful record. I have never been sufficiently asked to evidence my continuing professional development or validate my continued professional status. I have been fortunate to have had my work in group programmes and my work in the training room peer and tutor reviewed and feedback for the purposes of professional development provided and it has been in these instances that I have made notable learning and development in my practice. It is plainly wrong in my view that the many years working one to one with service users beyond my initial training and qualification period has never been officially observed, not once. This is a huge missed opportunity for anyone who wants to call themselves a Probation Professional in my view. If like me you hold the belief that the relationship between the Probation Professional and Service User is fundamental to Probation Practice then a mixture of self, peer lead reflection and professional supervision is the answer I would suggest.

I am confident that many will agree with my ideas but equally will quickly point out that the current workload is relentless to allow for such ‘luxuries’ and systematically ‘no one’ really seems interested in meaningful one to one work with our service users. I believe these issues need to be addressed or at the very least clarified.

It has become apparent to me that the split of Probation Services between NPS and CRC has limited Probation Professionals career opportunities in the sense that their career terms and conditions are not as portable. I would suggest that this impacts on retention of Probation Professionals and makes the profession less attractive. I believe this is typically more the case for CRC than NPS staff but in the future there may be new, innovative and exciting ways of working in the CRC that NPS staff may want to access and bring their skills towards. Probation Professionals and Probation as a whole can benefit in my view if there is greater freedom to move between different parts of the Probation set up but I would also say between different parts of the Criminal Justice System. I do not accept that there are insurmountable technical reasons why this cannot be facilitated.

A final point here, Probation Professionals need to have their profession fully represented throughout their organisations and beyond, their expertise and views taken into account. I heard someone once say that the Probation Service has had its head chopped off, the body then disembowelled and hacked apart. A little dramatic maybe, but who are our Probation champions? If these champions are not easily identified what does it say of the profession? Surely a healthy profession has its professionals views represented and enthusiastically received at all levels and across the system.

Service User

In my view a genesis for new growth can arise when there is a working relationship between the Service User and a Probation professional. The Probation professional in my view brings their knowledge, understanding, skill set (based on all the evidence of what works and effective practice) and something else which I will call human compassion and mindfulness to the relationship. And the Service user brings his or her self with all that that entails. If I were tasked with designing a Probation Service and I wanted to have the means to deliver all that a modern Probation Service is tasked to deliver, for all its various stakeholders but very importantly the Service User, this relationship would be at its core and all else would support and connect with it. At the heart of this idea is a focus on the individual needs of the Service User which will necessarily shape the relationship, a working relationship that is not without prescription but equally which is adaptable to the needs of the individual.

Much has been made of the Service User voice, taking their feedback to help us tailor our approach to the work we complete with them. I believe it is an important part of the relationship as is society’s voice which seeks many things but primarily a reduction in the harm that these individuals are causing. The Service User needs a voice alongside others, the relationship between the Probation professional and Service Users can be central to this.

When I referred to making Probation simpler it was essentially about allowing in large part for the relationship between Probation Professional and Service User to be its own unique creation and not necessarily appended with anything else. This is a point I know needs thinking about from the Service User, Probation professional and others viewpoints. I imagine for some it provides for great potential and opportunity and others I imagine will be afraid of its consequences.

Community

The relationship I have referred to is not the only genesis for new growth and should not in my mind be considered as somehow exclusive, ultimately it should seek to support other meaningful and supportive relationships. Many have said something akin to, ‘life or very little of it happens in our offices, it happens out there in our communities in a myriad of ways.’ There is much that can be achieved in our offices, hearing people, engaging them in thoughtful reflection, providing for self - motivation and direction, offering hope, fleshing out ideas, developing new skills, offering insightful challenge, developing perspective and greater understanding about the needs of others, signposting and engaging others in support, addressing risk and matters of public protection and much, much more. That Probation is so poorly understood by the general public is one of our greatest failings, we have very largely failed to engage our communities beyond what might be called the professional communities in our work (and even here?). Restorative Justice seemed to offer much in this respect for victims and others but beyond this how we engage with partners, families, friends and associates, neighbourhoods, the parish council, community centres, faith organisations, employers, the charitable and voluntary sector and more has been poor in my view. The consequences are missed understandings, opportunities and I think a sense that Probation work is remote and, therefore, frankly would not be missed. I believe that one way of addressing this is having Probation professionals allocated to communities and their cases resident in those communities, a Probation patch as I have heard it referred to previously. Again I imagine it needs fleshing out as an idea as some again will be aghast at the notion and others keen to make a start tomorrow.

I also believe that Probation professionals need to be better connected to the Department of Work and Pensions’ organisations in their communities, to Social Services and Family Services, Housing generally, Health Services, Citizen’s Advice and so on. The reason is to better support our Service Users with their needs, to better understand our professional communities and to make better use of our limited resources.

Criminal Justice System

In this blog piece I am essentially asking that the Criminal Justice System and all that that means to puts its faith in the idea of a productive relationship between a Probation professional and the Service User as being something of fundamental value to its aims and ambitions. I have always believed that we need to be accountable in this respect. I believe that when a Court passes such a sentence the challenge for the Service User and Probation professional is to return to the Court (or body of community representatives under the auspices of the Court) periodically across the sentence duration and account for the progress that has been made. I think this idea will promote progress and the relationship. It will develop a dialogue between Probation professionals, Probation professionals and the Service Users, between Probation Professionals and the Courts, and between the Courts and those who come before them around their successes.

Does anyone remember the Carter Report, a decade or more ago at least? Do you remember his sentiment that the silos of Prison and Probation need to be broken? It has not happened has it? At least I do not think that much progress has been made. I think the information flows between Prison and Probation are poor, I very often only had a sense of what someone had or had not done as part of their plan whilst in custody by asking the Service User themselves. Resettlement services often appear as too little, too late. My view is that Prison and Probation services need to co – operate and do better. In finding a Prison Service and Probation Service settlement that works better for Service Users I would ask for ways of enhancing the Probation professional and Service User relationship whilst that Service User is still in custody and long before they are released. The risk otherwise is that we just think of progress as something that commences on release from custody and miss much that has preceded it. We miss out on how the Service Users own community outside has interacted with them during this period and how the Prison community has panned out for them (and much more).

I have enjoyed working with the Police and others on multi – agency teams. The benefits have far outweighed any costs in my view. It is clear that there are Service Users whose offending is of greater concern than others in terms of the damage and harm they cause. Police, Probation and others can come together usefully to better address these concerns in my view. There are instances where local communities face particular offending issues and they along with the Police, Probation and others can usefully make a difference to those communities and together engage with the Service User around their rehabilitation as part of that joint work. I would argue for continued investment in this type of joint working.

Political Domain

I have avoided specifically mentioning the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) Revolution that has impacted on the Probation Services in recent years so far. I need to be upfront and say I was genuinely shocked by the scale and nature of the changes that TR brought with it, limited I think in its public appreciation and support that did, against huge swathes and a spectrum of professional advice, rush this act through in what many perceived was a risky and reckless venture based on flimsy evidence. Here I will stop as this blog has done sufficient to highlight those concerns then and on-going. My fundamental point is that this is no way to treat a Probation service or any part of the Criminal Justice System. I would advocate a circumspect approach to changes in the Criminal Justice System that are tested thoroughly and where the unintended negative consequences are similarly assessed before proceeding. TR is not the only example of politically lead changes that have resulted in unintended consequences that have arguably negated any potential advantage they may have sought. I would advocate some Political maturity, politics that truly engages with the professions it has responsibility for and seeks general consensus and consults widely, tests and trials changes and proceeds judiciously with them. On the whole we need evolution not revolution if we are to avoid trying to constantly mitigate and adapt to ill thought out changes; in a busy working life trying to adapt to well - thought out changes is testing enough.

In Summary

I believe that the core task of a Probation Service and Probation professionals is to develop a working relationship with Service Users. I think this is fundamental and all activity should seek to support this relationship as it provides the basis on which much that we aspire to can happen. I am concerned that the profession of Probation is slipping away from this very important part of our work and becoming impersonal, machine like. Probation work and the ‘relationship’ that I have referred to throughout needs explaining so that it is better understood by all so that the relationship between the Probation professional and the Service User is better supported. This means continued investment in Probation as a profession and on-going professional development a key feature of that profession. By explaining our work better we become, I believe, more able to engage with the communities that we live in, draw on their support, the resources available and they on us. I see such relationships as providing for a source of recruitment to the Probation profession. 

My concern is that for many Probation professionals the scope for career variation within the Probation and Criminal Justice System has been narrowed by the fragmentation of those services. To make the profession more attractive, less of a cul-de-sac, Probation professionals need to be able to move around the system with greater fluidity. Beyond enhancing retention and career longevity this is also the means by which Probation services and professionals can work alongside partner organisations within and without the Criminal Justice system with greater ease for the benefit of those we work directly with, our communities and I would say to make best use of our limited resources. With regard to the Political domain that I have referred to I would say bring along your ideas / mandate and work steadfastly (if needs) but carefully through and with all, particularly grass root professionals, to shape them to best effect; evolution not revolution.

This is my third guest blog piece. I do feel, as the months go by since I left, that I am now becoming too distant from Probation work and so I will make it my last. I have found that writing my ideas down in this way has been personally productive and I hope sharing them has been useful too. I remember my Father, in a seemingly casual moment, relating to me as a young person the importance of relationships. He asked me to imagine being stranded on a deserted island, devoid of other humans, week after week, month after month, year after year. He asserted that at some point a form of madness would set in and it would be very likely that such a person would start to doubt their very existence. Relationships he explained are fundamental to our sense of who we are and who we become. In the comments that follow I would be delighted if they sought to flesh out the importance of the relationship I refer to and if possible provide some narrative account to demonstrate its impact (for better or for worse).

Author wishes to remain anonymous.

The Shrinking State

I noticed the following on Facebook, triggered by Polly Toynbee's recent article regarding the closure of Crown Post Offices:- 

The probation service I remember has always been run on a shoestring and has always felt like a Cinderella service compared with the rest of the criminal justice system. However I have always felt proud to be a probation officer and part of that big family that is probation. At least in the past there were offices scattered around that were reasonably accessible and in many cases were an integral part of the their local communities. 

For the first time in 30 years I am beginning to feel disconnected from my colleagues who work either for other CRCs and for the NPS not least because the ludicrous split that was imposed upon us seems to have become a divide and may eventually become a complete separation. We are entering a time when commercial considerations seem to take precedence over anything else and those working across the public sector must be feeling that their days are numbered and they too will eventually be privatised and sold down the river. 

The closure of local probation offices for instance places a cost on offenders financially and in terms of travelling time, increases risk to staff who are forced to interview in less secure/confidential environments and isolates staff from one another. It also fragments services in a very physical way that is difficult to reverse and rebuild once this has occurred. 

This came home to me recently when I was invited to an office closure reunion in Croydon. I could not help but feel a twinge of emotion regarding the closure of my old office where I had spent many an hour struggling together with colleagues to overcome IT problems, shared highs and lows, incidents and hilarious happenings, working as a team to deliver what was an award winning service to the community. The use of call centre reporting, open reporting booths, or even biometric reporting dehumanises the very human reporting experience and are a complete anathema to what we managed to achieve in that admittedly ramshackle old office day in day out. 

Everything we know about building effective and constructive relationships that seek to gently persuade and steer those we work with to make better choices and to learn the skills that will help them to do so are undermined when bean counters and profiteers take over who know the cost but forget the real value of working with someone over time human to human getting alongside someone and sticking with them on their journey towards a better life. 

Someone will always argue that what is happening to probation now is necessary progress whilst others, myself included, view what is really happening as a steady decline, deprofessionalisation, or downgrading of the essential quality of what we do and an attack on how and where we do it.

David Raho

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Britain is dehumanising – Post Office closures are just the latest symptom

Polly Toynbee

Post Office staff are on strike today, protesting at the rolling closure of crown post offices. Some 60 are scheduled to go now, with many more expected to follow. More than 2,000 experienced counter staff will go too. The fine, 100-year-old crown post office I know well in Lewes always has long queues, where people talk as they wait – but now it’s to be replaced with a counter crammed into the back of a small branch of WH Smith. The CWU says that trained Post Office staff will be replaced by lower-paid shop workers.

Here’s why it matters. Post offices are a precious public face of the state, the front door to myriad things the state does. Penny-pinching and lack of imagination means they have never been well developed commercially, even as the mass sending and returning of parcels has become essential to internet shopping. Think what else these prime sites could do.

But above all, think what they are: the welcoming providers of help, information and support. However much we do online we still need a human face: someone to ask, someone to explain. Royal Mail has gone, and the Queen’s head with it, shockingly undersold at a knockdown price. Watch the Post Office ebb away too.

The human face of the state is everywhere in retreat, no longer speaking to its citizens. HMRC has closed all its public counters, where people often came for help with paying their taxes. Libraries, that great fount of civic knowledge, are closing everywhere, occasionally replaced by well-meaning volunteers without the information people need on everything from benefit applications to local planning consultations.

Even schools are no longer plainly part of our public heritage, with academy chains run and branded by business. As for “free” schools, what are they “free” of? Of us, of our councils, of public ownership.

Pools and leisure centres are privatised, costing more, while half of all parks, says the Heritage Lottery Fund, have hired out or sold off chunks of their estate to private enterprises, making hiring pitches or other resources more expensive.

Bus services have been savagely cut back in rural areas as public subsidy is slashed. Ticket inspectors are replaced by machines, stations denuded of reassuring staff in uniforms. Local museums are closing or sharply reducing their opening hours.

Deep police cuts means less presence on the street as daily reminders of a sense of order and security. Local magistrates courts are shutting, so justice is taken a further remove from everyday life.

As the armed forces shrink rapidly, local bases close – bases that used to link many communities to the life of the services. Even our air search and rescue is now privatised, run by the Bristow Group – its pilots (Prince William included) parasitically trained, of course, by the RAF, not by the company.

Public space is replaced by the growing world of shopping malls: private spaces patrolled by private guards, with limited public rights. In that private sector, the human face is vanishing too, friendly supermarket checkout staff replaced by those damned self-checkouts.

Local banks are closing, leaving just an ATM and online banking. Britain is “advanced” in dehumanised services, but it may help explain why polls show we are becoming one of the European nations least trusting of each other, suspicious and alienated.

By 2020 the plan is to shrink the state to 33% of GDP. Even if, as before, it misses that target and is 35% of GDP, it will become American-sized, far from the average of 45% in the EU, where social democratic traditions persist.

The headcount of public employees has already shrunk to just one in five. Good, say those who think the state a wastrel and the enemy of enterprise. How absurd to resist cuts. What next, bring back the lamp-lighters?

But when does the moment come when the functions of the state are worn too thin, too invisible, too impersonal? The veneer of civilisation is perilously thin. One by one, they might justify cutting a rural bus with too few passengers, a library or post office with low footfall, a museum or pool not used enough at certain times. But take it all together, and we lose communal space, owned by us all, run for our benefit alone.

Knowing something is there in our community is a reassurance. There is a warmth about something being public, for all of us. Even for those who can afford to pay, the emotional sense of civic pride is lost when a service becomes a privatised transaction. A sense of order and safety depends on plenty of public servants behind public counters or in uniforms, comfortingly visible, from park keepers to station masters, street cleaners to CSOs. A bouncer in a borrowed G4S uniform working for a temp agency, here today and gone tomorrow, is no substitute for a civic presence employed by us, working for us.

Goodbye, crown post offices. With you goes a great symbol of what we pay our taxes for: who we are, how we access the faceless state, with a friendly chat and explanation across the post office counter. The vanishing public realm diminishes us all.

Polly Toynbee