"They've stuck feathers on a turd and are now sitting round wondering why it won't fly."
As a trade union rep and JNCC member, I have seen many of the destructive elements of TR start to present themselves over the last year. Firstly, the damage done to industrial relations; the almost total destruction of equality of opportunity and transparency in terms of the allocation of posts; the routine undermining of Senior and Middle management; the deceit implicit in the repackaging of existing material to 'create' Rehabilitation Activity Requirements; the routine lying to the courts regarding content and process; fraudulent practice in order to maintain the illusion that the CRCs (and NPS) are 'functioning'; the undermining of much of the integrity of Probation at all levels; the amateurism of Fast Delivery Reports to courts (compared to the previous practice of proper, fully researched PSRs); the 'assessments' that take place without anyone seeing anybody or having any of the information required to check the veracity of an offenders submissions, even if they have; the repeated reallocation of cases time and time again at the expense of effective supervision; the fraudulent counting of supervision sessions as part of an RAR's allocation of days.... the list goes on and on.
What we have seen is NOT the privatisation of Probation but the replacement of a world class service with a shallow pretence. We are on the verge of seeing offenders reporting to computer terminals, of 'one size fits all' supervision plans and programmes of intervention that everyone does, irrespective of identified need, of creaming and parking (despite being 'assured' (I wasn't) that it wouldn't happen), the marginalisation of hundreds of years of experience at all levels and the replacement of expertise with amateurism.
The 'rehabilitation' model we are seeing developing in the community is to become the same as the one that exists in the prisons; a shallow and ineffective pretence. Remember, the CRCs are still essentially the old Trusts operating under the umbrella of the new providers. The destruction is only just beginning and the wheels are already off. If you cannot see that, you are either astonishingly naive or complicit in that destruction.
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The bleak future?
NPS: Probation Officers remain the hidden arm of the CJS and have become the poor second cousin twice removed of the Civil Service. Working out of little cramped offices attached to Courts and other CJS buildings, we supervise high caseloads; continue to record on substandard IT systems; write multiple PSR's and make recommendations in accordance with government calls for increasing punishment and imprisonment.
The pressure is always on to downgrade risk assessments and assign cases to the CRC. This is easier for the abundance of new staff that joined with no previous experience and qualified in such a short time that the probation qualification is no longer recognised or ratified by higher education. Recruitment has become non existent because of government lies that CRC's are reducing reoffending and pressure is now on to privatise the NPS. Probation Officers can now be ranked as social work trained, probation studies trained, or post TR trained.
CRC: Offender Managers receive on the job training. Professional qualifications, relevant experience and university education are no longer required, and pay has decreased. Probation Officers trained in social work and probation studies have either retired or returned to the NPS or social work. CRC's are now detached from probation offices and heavily stripped back on management and support staff. Through the Gate never happened; supervision for under 12 month prisoners broke the system and contracts have changed hands and been subcontracted out numerous times.
The CRC model has become as notorious as the work programme, because crime is on the increase and the tabloids report that reoffending rates are falling because the figures are manipulated by the click of a button. Offender Managers are located in small hubs in offices and call centres. Clients phone in on an agreed basis to check in for their supervision, in some CRC's the call is automated. Clients that cannot phone in or need instructions in person, contact infrequently and are seen in their homes or at agreed places. Courts no longer value probation sentences if the case is to be assigned to a CRC.
There's no Napo for NPS and CRC staff to turn to for support, it has long disappeared. The Probation Institute has increased in importance and continues to erode probation by promoting anti-rehabilitation government messages and CRC corner-cutting as best practice. The 'professional register' of the Probation Institute is not recognised by the NPS and probation officers as it recognises non qualified probation staff as qualified practitioners.
Thanks to Chris and all the probation Chief Officers!
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Where are our new masters? Purple Futures has not updated its News page since 1st Feb and the last tweet was on 16th Feb.
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The notion of continuity of working with any individual case has been eroded to the point of non-existence. Firstly, the interruption to the flow of trained staff when training was stopped. Then NOMS's interference with the imposition of inappropriate/unnecessary process & monitoring, Then the shift to Trusts. Now TR. Add to this a change in the staff profile, where the increase in mobility & ambition (allied to a younger intake) has contributed to staff being able & willing to move between areas and roles as they move up the greasy pole. Then sprinkle with the growth of agency staff.
How many areas can now say they have staff who have been in post, let alone in one locality, for five years? For ten years? For twenty years? For thirty years? In the early 1990s I joined an office in an inner city area when there were 10 POs and 3 PSAs (aka PSOs). Of those POs, 2 were recently qualified but trained locally; 1 had relocated to the area about 2 years previous; the rest had been local POs for between 5 & 25 years. The PSAs had been there for 6 & 9 years.
Where I work now (different area & CRC team) there are 3 POs and 8 PSOs. One person has been there 17 years, not one of the remaining ten has been there longer than 5 years. Most haven't been there for more than 2 years.
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Can I point out that I have been informed by management at what was Hampshire Probation Trust in response to a complaint I made, that my OM repeatedly failed to respond to any communication I sent her before I was released, that an OM is allegedly only legally obliged to communicate with an offender once a year. Management maintained that as she had written to me a two paragraph letter at the instigation of her SPO, which didn't even answer a single issue I had raised or any of the questions I had asked, that she had done her duty and need not communicate with me further until the following year.
If this is in fact true and not some attempt to wriggle out of a failure to respond to letters from me this makes a complete mockery of what has been said. How on earth can you possibly effectively manage an offender or build up a relationship with them prior to release to enable you to do an accurate risk assessment if all you are required to do is send the offender one letter in any calendar year that can say absolutely nothing at all? No wonder most risk assessments don't appear to be worth the paper they are written on and why things do go so horribly wrong.
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When a prisoner is released and probation services take up their 'supervision' they are in fact at their final stage of engagement with their journey through the CJS. It's often the case that the supervisory period and those involved in it take the flack when things go wrong and SFOs occur. But isn't what's happened to the prisoner during their detention, their development whilst in custody, an even more important issue? If the issues that led to the offence originally are not addressed whilst the person is in custody, then surely they're being released into the world of probation 'supervision' still with the original offending issues unaddressed? I note today that there are a lot of newspaper reports about the prison population being so over crowded, and as such pretty ineffective with regard to any sort of rehabilitative function.
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Wales CRC asking staff to go into prisons to run TTG for 6 months. Wonderful secondment opportunity! I guess Working Links can put in whoever they want to.
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It feels as though I have woken up in a country I do not recognise. It is not a nice place, but it must have been creeping up on us, wordlessly, sneakily, for some time. I do not like what now seems to be everywhere - people suffering and struggling, starving and killing themselves. Homelessness, rip off jobs, ridiculous rents & artificially inflated property prices, permanent food collection point in the local supermarket, benefit sanctions, unkind policies and well fed, over paid politicians who break lives and let people die.
Politicians who begin sentences with "the truth is..." I am so ashamed of this country and what it is turning into. We are being forced down a horrible road. I feel extremely fortunate that I have employment in the traditional sense - a contract, some measure of security. But for how much longer? Nothing makes any sense any more. As a "hardworking taxpayer" I actually do not give a stuff if a very small minority are not looking for work. But a million people sanctioned? What a nasty, vindictive situation. But not only does that mean people cannot eat, it means they are not contributing to their local economy. Surely that does not make economic sense, let alone moral sense? So the knock on effect must be wider than a brutal punishment of an isolated individual.
I think the wealthy elite have washed their hands of any remaining sense of 'social responsibilty' of those in power. They are gathering up their ill gotten gains as fast as they can and pulling up the draw bridge. It's planned and deliberate, with 'austerity' the smokescreen. Is not taxpayers money used to pay for TR? Do we not see day in, day out examples of increasing cost of this farce, costs written off because some people will get even more wealthy? Cheers suckers! God help us if they are re-elected.
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If you speak to senior managers and consultants involved in CRCs then it's true. Anyone who thinks there are not going to be significant changes in the pay and staff structure in CRCs is very much mistaken.
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It's going to happen, already role titles are changing, role boundaries are changing and job evaluation training is again underway within my CRC. I would bet my pension on changes to terms, conditions and salaries within the next 12 months.
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1999 - Rural area office, large patch: 12 PO staff, 3 PSOs, 6 admin
2015 - same patch BEFORE any cuts, redundancies, etc:
CRC - 4 PO staff, 8 PSOs; NPS - 8 POs, 4 PSOs
Total: 12 POs, 12 PSOs, 4 admin
Everyone is at about 110% on the old WMT, and stressed to hell. CRC have hinted at "managing cost centres" (redundancy?) and NPS are no doubt set to be slashed in the Civil Service cuts to come. In advance of the swingeing cuts to come, I predict Grayling will offer NPS staff a pay deal to further his divisive approach to TR, based on the fact they "manage higher risk" or some such guff.
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I did a home visit today - isolated individual, his hip is crumbling and mobility is limited - I can not really spare the time out of the office but as he's not too far from the office I make the effort so at least I can get him through the order. As I was leaving I sensed something seemed a bit odd. When I asked him if everything was alright he said he'd got money but been unable to get out because of his hip and could I drop him off at the Asda so he could get some food in? My pleasure - love doing this sort of stuff for those that need it. This to me is what I love most about my job - I just wish people would not be so shy to ask for a helping hand as there's no shame in it.
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CRC in Manchester would never let you do this without charge. There is now a cost to everything.
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What a total Horlicks. PO staff shafted to CRC, threatened with job loss if they challenged their shafting, resources demolished by the split, staff leaving. NPS now desperate for staff while experienced POs fester in CRCs. There are more Civil Service management roles than ever before, all speaking in tongues, pocketing fat salaries & achieving fuck all. At a meeting last week someone mentioned the "new NPS NW regional court managers" - uh? More tools, roles and models and fuck knows what else, all being created to hide the TR fuck up.
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"Following the recent recruitment to CA and PO posts across the Division the WPC agreed to extend the PO recruitment exercise to Stage 4 (open competition). The advert will appear on Civil Service Jobs shortly and all CRC employees can apply."
As someone sifted into the CRC, despite a grievance being made and subsequently dismissed, I have one reply to anyone who wishes me to now help the NPS/NOMS out. FUCK RIGHT OFF.
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Me three and I echo the sentiments. I think they'll find many PO's will feel the same. It appears that they have not found the additional 500 PO's that Grayling claimed we had!
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I too was put into our CRC and all I can say to echo the other posts is that the prats at the top ought to go back to school and learn how to do maths. It didn't take a genius to work out the numbers! For me, and 16 years in the job, I'm staying put and taking my chances within our CRC. We never asked for any of this but please think carefully before jumping from one to another.
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I was allocated to the NPS during the shafting and if I'm being honest was, at the time, quite glad. I doubt I'd switch back to CRC, even if I could. However, it just does not work. My own feelings are that additional staff are needed as frontline staff are applying for fancy new 'non-jobs' in the belief that they are climbing the management pole. I fear that what they do not realise is that once things stabilise, these jobs will be dissolved, and them with it.
We need to remember that NOMS see us as Civil Servants first, and PO's second. If you are in the NPS, and are planning on applying for fancy new jobs, with great sounding titles, you need to ask yourself what will happen when these go! There was a lot a noise about CRC staff being sacked/laid off post TR. I think we are a lot more vulnerable, more so with the continual influx of TPO's who all want our job. Thinking on, rather than trying to climb that greasy pole for NOMS, why not just ask if there is another way of earning your 30 pieces of silver?
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Absolute chaos in our CRC. We have been in chaos for so long we no longer know what normal looks like. Told to choose which area of work we want to be in but no information how we will be working. We have one week to transfer caseloads within the CRC. If the PI is unable to state the fundamental shambles of TR it does not matter how professional it may appear it has nothing to offer anyone with any integrity. How can the PI hold values suggested when the Probation Service has been decimated? It will remain in the government pocket.
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Please be aware that the private organisations will do whatever they can to sidestep the rickety 'framework'. They have access to highly paid & 'creative' employment lawyers. Do not believe that terms & conditions are safe & secure. Just look at the 'creativity' applied to the tagging contracts, or the way Sodexo behaved when taking over HMP Northumberland, or the overt & covert flouting of rules relating to Work Programme contracts, the brazen & dismissive attitude to issues around conflicts of interest, or the tardy, lacklustre approach to JR by NAPO on behalf of members.
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I understand that JCP will be going into UPW to arrange work placements for offenders instead of going out on van. Sounds like a good idea but they can't find enough placements for current jobless without adding on UPW. Where will these employers come from? Still issues with 'van driving' in Wales. PO/PSOs being seconded to TTG for 6 mths. No mention of who will take their work load. Offenders being passed around to different officers to suit the scheme.
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CRCs processing own breaches here. NPS cannot cope.
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Attended a meeting in a Government building today with someone from the MOJ. A charity who's funding from Probation ends on 31st March said they had not been offered further contracts as yet and those around the table were aghast that no interim funding had been provided. The MOJ rep looked embarrassed and said all was in the hands of the private contractors now! I so had to bite my tongue in order to not get the sack!
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Can I be bloody angry too? Off topic but the IT system is an absolute disgrace. Today...
1. had to reboot NINE times
2. was unable to run multiple systems at the same time - everything froze
3. had to write a PSR with each narrative box reducing its size as I typed so had to press enter at end of each line of text to expand the box so I could read what I was typing, honestly
4. unable to use buttons in lotus notes so for example could open 'out of office' in tools but couldn't press the button to enable, it didn't work
5. the final defining moment was trying to use the new case allocation system instructions for the first time - whoever wrote the new instructions should be shot, yes really. IT IS AN ABUSE OF EVERY SINGLE PRACTITIONER THAT WE HAVE TO USE SUCH A POOR SYSTEM and proves that the MOJ understand NOTHING about efficient business delivery.
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Same problem doing an ISP in OASyS so frustrating and time consuming.
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Yes, every time the line wraps around it goes out of view so you can't see what you're typing on the new line - annoying and it's the little things that piss you off. I've also noticed offenders with 'concurrent' orders which is wrong as they are only on one - the mysterious concurrent order I had yesterday had 942 months custody. Bizarrely the ghost concurrent order vanished by the time I decided I had built up the energy to ring our IT department over it.
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Delius was playing up yesterday with it being unavailable at certain hours of the day.
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As ex IT (before I and the rest of the unit left or took VR) can I implore you not to take it out on the people on the helpdesks, please. Crams was described in the press as 'a crime against computing'. That we began to look back on it with longing, says all you need to know about the catastrophic procurement processes that all govt departments seem to employ. Aircraft carriers that can't carry our aircraft is the forces equivalent of NDelius and Eoasys. The help desk bod isn't responsible, and hates them as much as you, honestly!
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I did not even mention 'help desk bods' because I am NPS and we have some remote contact centre (for everything actually, not just IT). I really miss the great team we had on our old trust help desk. Based on the advice of numerous colleagues I do not even bother to contact the help desk as I was told it can take days to have issues resolved. I do though sometimes wish 'help desk bods' and others could understand the utter pressure practitioners are under delivering multiple tasks and owning the dead lines for all of this, oh and protecting the public too. Practitioner work is being obstructed by the IT not facilitated and I know the 'help desk bod' hates the system too.
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Have been waiting months for an IT issue to be resolved. Our pre TR support team provided a superb service.
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Does anyone know what happened to the VR money? Rumour is the companies that took over the CRCs get to keep the cash as an "incentive".
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CRC in Manchester in total fucking meltdown.
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2 CRC admin walked out yesterday, one wrote her notice out before she left and the other just walked out. Told on Tues they were being re-deployed and their last day would be today - both offices much further away - no notice; no warning just totally out of the blue.
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To my shame, I accept I've been drawn in & am guilty of "describing the water". I don't know what to do to effect any change anymore. I try to keep working in as effective way as I've ever done, but as a PO the CRC constrains me with its cuts & administrative stranglehold & its "wait & see" uncertainty and outrageous caseload of primarily DV bullies.
Is there a VR package? No-one will say. There are hundreds of emails weekly about operational this & that's, a threatening undercurrent to many. So perhaps navel gazing & describing the water is all that's left after an exhausting day? I have no energy. I'm depressed. I drink every night. I feel like I'm drowning too!
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Saturday, 7 March 2015
A Close Shave
Although I'm going off topic again, I hope I'm not the only one that can see the connection with a momentous event that happened in the US about a fortnight ago. An absolutely vital decision on the future of the entire internet was made by just one vote by a bureaucrat in the Federal Communication Commission. Had that vote gone the other way, it's no exaggeration to say that mankind could have been forced back into the dark ages where knowledge could be censored, history sanitised, democracy compromised and campaigning restricted.
The rapid development of the World Wide Web and internet has been as important to mankind as the invention of movable type and we all owe a great debt of gratitude to Tim Berners-Lee who resolutely fought for it to remain open access. We all know knowledge is power and this truism hasn't been lost on politicians who have made attempts at restricting its power, for example by the Lobbying Act here in the UK. But big business and the capitalist Corporate Giants had noticed as well and they had a cunning plan to gain control. I was alerted to this by the campaigning group SumOfUs.org:-
SumOfUs.org is a new world-wide movement for a better global economy.
Here’s what we stand for:
- Governments that answer to citizens – not corporations
- Fair treatment of workers and the right of every human being to make a living, safely and ethically, for themselves and their family;
- The right of ordinary consumers to products that are produced and marketed ethically, sustainably and transparently;
- The right of communities to manage and protect their own environment and natural resources;
- Business models that put people and the planet first instead of being driven by shortsighted greed.
The future of the Internet is being decided in the next two weeks, and big corporations are determined to kill it. The US Government is about to establish new rules on how the Internet is protected, with huge global ramifications. Big corporations are spending millions to wrest control of the Internet from the public. They want to decide which websites we can access at fast speeds, putting anyone they don’t like (or who won’t pay them millions) into new Internet slow lanes.
With so many websites based in the US, the future of the Internet itself is at stake. This decision will have a lasting impact on the fate of free speech and social movements across the globe. SumOfUs members in the US are already organizing to defeat this corporate attack on the Internet and save “Net Neutrality”. But around the world, we need to stand up and be counted too.
When hundreds of thousands of people have risen up in the name of democracy in recent years, like during the Arab Spring, a free Internet has been crucial to their fight. But imagine that instead of people organizing using technology to confront corrupt government, and instead of people around the world clinging to the edge of their seats, we were silent, isolated, and indifferent.
This is what could happen if we lose Net Neutrality. Big US corporations could decide whether or not we could easily and quickly access the sites we needed to -- or whether we get stuck with the corporate media they control.
The Federal Communication Commission -- the US Government agency responsible for regulating the Internet -- and the US Congress are making their decision on Net Neutrality this month. Because many of the world’s largest telecom giants and websites operate out of the United States, these rules have the potential to directly affect access to the free and open Internet around the world.
The good news is, that with SumOfUs members in the US joining with millions of others, we’re winning this fight. But we need to keep up the pressure to get us over the line and save the Internet -- which is why it’s crucial to hear from people around the world.
The momentum for Net Neutrality is on our side, and we’ve never had a better chance at winning. After massive public pressure President Obama has come out in favor of “the strongest possible rules” under what’s called “Title II” Net Neutrality -- exactly what we are demanding.
These rules would protect the Internet we all know and love. They would stop big corporations from requiring websites to pay them huge sums of money in order to get access to fast Internet lanes. If sites didn’t pay, corporations could effectively shut them down by making their sites super slow -- like a YouTube video that just won’t load.
The fight for a free Internet is too important to lose. Groups like SumOfUs only exist because of the open Internet of today. Under these new rules, new innovations would find it much harder to take off, because their superior design would be hidden behind an intentionally broken and slow connection.
Valuable resources like Wikipedia could disappear from public view or start plastering themselves in ads to pony up the cash needed to pay big US corporations like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon for the privilege of allowing us to access them. Crucial international moments, like the uprising in Tahrir Square could be censored. History could be hidden from view.
That was a month ago, but then this from 26th February:-
Big Cable TV and Internet companies have spent millions of dollars to push “Internet slow lanes” that would let them charge us more money to use the Internet, and control what we could access. But after millions of public comments, emails, phone calls, and demonstrations across the country -- loads of it driven by SumOfUs members -- the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has just said an emphatic “no” to a corporate-controlled Internet, and committed to protect Net Neutrality.
With so many websites based in the US, free and open Internet around the world was at stake. This victory will have a lasting impact towards protecting free speech and social movements across the globe. And that is worth celebrating.
Just six months ago, we were facing staggering odds. Big corporations like US cable TV giant Comcast had spent more than $750 million lobbying for a corporate-controlled Internet. Google, the biggest lobby in the industry, was refusing to speak up. The FCC chair Tom Wheeler, a former Big Cable lobbyist, was hostile to Net Neutrality.
But against all odds, we’ve pulled off one of the biggest victories in the history of the Internet, in what the New York Times called "the longest, most sustained campaign of Internet activism in history", won by "an army of Internet activists."
Together, here’s a snapshot of some of the amazing things we’ve done:
- Submitted tens and tens of thousands of comments to the FCC in support of Net Neutrality, making sure the agency received more comments than ever before on a public consultation.
- Flooded FCC offices with thousands of phone calls, to build internal pressure for the agency to do their job and protect the open Internet.
- Tied FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to his past as a former Big Cable lobbyist on social media and his personal Twitter account, forcing him to publicly choose a side.
- Helped turn out hundreds of people to emergency rallies and vigils across the country, including outside the White House.
- Organized tens of thousands of people to speak up online and on the phone to demand Google publicly support real Net Neutrality.
- Pulled off a creative protest to bring Internet slow lanes to life by literally putting private buses transporting Google employees to work in a SumOfUs-created “Slow Lane".
- Worked together with a huge coalition of amazing groups like Demand Progress, Free Press, Fight for the Future, and too many others to count.
But even though we’ve won this crucial fight, we must stay vigilant. Big telecom corporations like Verizon and Comcast are already working with conservatives in the US Congress to try and undermine our win. We need to be ready to put the pressure on again in the coming months to make sure we don’t lose an inch of our progress.
Up against corporate millions, this decision to protect Net Neutrality is a massive victory for citizen campaigning. Thanks to all of us, we can finally say 2015 was the year we won Net Neutrality. Let’s keep working together to make sure it stays that way.
This is how the BBC reported it:-
New rules on how the internet should be governed have been approved by the Federal Communications Commission. In what is seen as a victory for advocates of net neutrality, the commission voted in favour of changes proposed by chairman Tom Wheeler. Three commissioners voted in favour and two against.
The US Telecommunications Industry Association said that broadband providers would take "immediate" legal action over the rule changes.
The main changes for broadband providers are as follows:
New rules on how the internet should be governed have been approved by the Federal Communications Commission. In what is seen as a victory for advocates of net neutrality, the commission voted in favour of changes proposed by chairman Tom Wheeler. Three commissioners voted in favour and two against.
The US Telecommunications Industry Association said that broadband providers would take "immediate" legal action over the rule changes.
The main changes for broadband providers are as follows:
- Broadband access is being reclassified as a telecommunications service, meaning it will be subject to much heavier regulation
- Broadband providers cannot block or speed up connections for a fee
- Internet providers cannot strike deals with content firms, known as paid prioritisation, for smoother delivery of traffic to consumers
- Interconnection deals, where content companies pay broadband providers to connect to their networks, will also be regulated
- Firms which feel that unjust fees have been levied can complain to the FCC. Each one will be dealt with on a case by case basis
- All of the rules will also apply to mobile providers as well as fixed line providers
- The FCC won't apply some sections of the new rules, including price controls
"It is a historic day in the history of the internet," Prof Wu said. "Net neutrality, long in existence as a principle, has been codified in a way that will likely survive court scrutiny. More generally, this marks the beginning of an entirely new era of how communications are regulated in the United States."
"I think both the Obama Administration and the Federal Communications Commission can consider the rule a legacy achievement." But broadband provider Verizon said that the rules being adopted by the FCC were "written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph".
"Today's decision by the FCC to encumber broadband internet services with badly antiquated regulations is a radical step that presages a time of uncertainty for consumers, innovators and investors," it said in a statement. "History will judge today's actions as misguided".
Scott Belcher, chief executive of the Telecommunications Industry Association, said that the "onerous set of rules" was an "over-reaction from the FCC". He predicted a two-pronged response from the broadband providers. "They will take legal action right away and they will continue to work in Congress to get legislation to address these rules," he told the BBC.
US broadband providers are estimated to spend around $73bn (£47bn) a year on upgrading infrastructure. Net usage is expected to double over the next 10 years and data transmissions to increase eight-fold. "The internet is built on infrastructure. Even to keep at a steady state providers are going to have to invest in infrastructure but they need certainty that they can get a return on their investments," said Mr Belcher. He added that there were concerns that future administrations may use the rules to impose even more restrictions on broadband providers. "The next administration may want to introduce price controls or control infrastructure help where cables can be laid. They could drive the internet to a halt."
The need for new rules was a result of a legal action taken in January 2014 by broadband provider Verizon, which challenged existing net neutrality guidelines. The court found that the FCC had improperly regulated internet providers as if they were similar to a public utility when they were officially classified as information services. It spurred calls for the FCC to reclassify broadband as a utility, with content giant Netflix, one of the most vocal lobbyists.
Hints that the commission was planning on rewriting the rules to allow internet fast lanes was met with a volley of criticism. A record four million comments were sent to the regulator, campaigners protested outside its Washington headquarters and President Obama eventually intervened, urging the FCC to adopt the "strongest possible" rules.
Friday, 6 March 2015
PI - Jury Still Out
From where springeth Mike McClelland's mandate to seek a representative role on the PI? He is paid by the membership to represent their interests in a so-called 'member-led' union. Is he seeking this position for selfish reasons or on behalf of Napo? If elected, will he be 'representing' in his own time or paid Napo time?
There has been absolutely no attempt by the Napo leadership to engage on the PI. The PI membership has been bloated for political reasons through the corporate funding of membership fees, which would have included personal details being passed on to a third party without the consent of members. Napo's position on the PI is hypocritical and sneaky.
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There are two perspectives on the PI: one to ignore and boycott, the other to join and influence the direction it takes. I am boycotting it until I know what my future in Probation actually is (I am at a significant risk of redundancy). I would not criticise Mike or Keith for taking the alternative position. I know and trust them both and would feel better knowing they are in there rather than many others I could (but will not) name. NAPO cannot do right by many at the moment but I consider them to be in an invidious position at the moment. We cannot stop the train so need to decide whether we get on or watch it roll off into the distance without us. Both actions will draw criticism.
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The sadness is Napo have not developed a disengagement policy for the time being. Ultimately PI maybe the right organisation but the timing is too soon or too late & I am not clear where it leaves Napo's Professional Committee work. In view of there not being a definite motion from 'the floor' to disengage - I presume the NEC had to take some action to get Napo at the centre of the organisation.
What I find so despicable is the PIs complete public silence on the main issue of TR which makes what we have now more dangerous than what preceded - namely the split. I have had past contact with Mike and respected him, I am not so sure now. I think he is in an awful position. Meanwhile MOJ seem planning to bring Napo to their knees by ending the direct deductions from salary. That is at least one issue Labour could make a public stand about NOW - presumably they do still believe in Trades Unions being active in the workplaces?
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If the generic Mike's and Keith's of this world wish to take alternative positions, then it's a free country, but these particular namesakes are in positions of leadership in Napo and Napo is scared of actually consulting with it's membership about the PI. 'Member-led' is as nauseous a phrase as '£46 in your pocket'. If they haven't got a mandate then they are self-serving and are patronising the membership – and in the case of the funded Mike, at our expense. The PI is the condom with which the MoJ screwed Napo.
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The split has happened, it's about saving what we can. A nice bit of pragmatism here, unburdened by the principle of joining up in the first place. In what way will the PI contribute to the salvation effort? It is not a pressure group, so it will not campaign against TR which would, I suppose, be parricide as it's an offspring of TR.
The PI will be a cultist, networking chatterbox representing TR in all its public/private/third sector diversity - and an earner for some academics. The PI will validate and institutionalise the split. It will do its best to keep its multiplicity of providers happy. That's always easy when you stand for everything in general and nothing in particular.
*******
There have been calls for a Probation Institute for years. We have one now and Napo are now strongly represented within it. I have had some dealings with the PI and they are open to constructive engagement and are no doubt bemused at the continual raging of a handful of contributors to this website who, when not bashing Napo, bash the PI whenever it is mentioned.
Some of the most prominent academics in the probation world and others are now engaging with the PI and yes they are using its meetings and functions to network and build bridges to encourage professional practice. TR is often discussed critically as it has had a disastrous impact on professional practice. We are all trying to get to grip with the new organisations and structures and trying to make the best of things.
PI is not part of TR and has arguably fallen foul of Grayling's cynical attempts at PR manipulation that would have us believe that he dictates the terms of our professional status. Is it any wonder that several of those from Napo who were elected are the ones who have kept the professional light burning for our profession. Now is the time to support the PI and the values it stands for. Grayling wants it to limp along and fail so let's make sure he is disappointed.
*******
Napo is 'strongly represented' in the PI. Yet Napo has been so quiet in promoting PI. Why? To criticise either Napo or the PI is to be one of a handful of discontents, according to its stout defender. As complainants through the ages have heard: 'No one else has complained!'
The claim that PI is not part of TR is a new twist on the truth, but then so was the rhetoric about Brutus being a reasonable man. The PI was a £90k indulgence by the MoJ to demonstrate its pseudo commitment to professional practice and development - to give credence to its TR agenda. But now we must separate these two events and understand there is no connection, just one of life's coincidences. Yet we are told, all they talk about within the walls of the PI are the evils of TR!
The PI people are bridge-builders, busy building bridges, including toll bridges, I presume, that will, perhaps, bridge the spilt. In my jaundiced opinion the PI is a bridge too far. The PI is clearly enabling some tormented souls to 'move on' with their careers and you have to admire their powers of recovery in adapting to the new structures.
*******
I think there's a chance to use it positively. The TR mess will fall whichever way it will. We have little control over that but the PI can be built into something that continues to develop an alternative national voice and doesn't have to be an MOJ lapdog. I believe it will be independent if we support it and work within it.
*******
The PI perhaps represents what might be regarded as the remnants of the establishment within probation ie the bit Westminster really listens to. If you continue to ignore that fact then you are ignoring the realities of the world we live in which clearly suits some. The PI is the only credible connection we have at present to those in power and you are wishing it away. We need to engage more not less as Napo's thinkers and strategists know only too well.
*******
We are not apologising for the PI but rather defending its existence. It is growing and increasingly influential. It is also now attracting funding from a large variety of sources and tapping into funding streams that have long been available to similar institutes in the EU. There are some very smart and experienced people involved and they are in it for the long run. The smart money is on the PI.
*******
Any evidence that 'Westminster listens'? Any evidence it listened to the probation establishment over TR? Maybe it's time the Napo thinkers and strategists went public with their thinking and share it with their member-led union, as it all sounds a bit elitist, what with smart people and smart money.
*******
At AGM in 2013 I voted for an institute with the expectation that a licence to practice would follow which would ensure the future professional standing of my vocation. The half arsed kite mark it seems to be offering is the opposite, and to my mind an insult. Instead of defending our professionalism it will see it diluted.
PS - Another pedestrian blog by Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence and absolutely no mention of the Probation Institute.
There has been absolutely no attempt by the Napo leadership to engage on the PI. The PI membership has been bloated for political reasons through the corporate funding of membership fees, which would have included personal details being passed on to a third party without the consent of members. Napo's position on the PI is hypocritical and sneaky.
******
There are two perspectives on the PI: one to ignore and boycott, the other to join and influence the direction it takes. I am boycotting it until I know what my future in Probation actually is (I am at a significant risk of redundancy). I would not criticise Mike or Keith for taking the alternative position. I know and trust them both and would feel better knowing they are in there rather than many others I could (but will not) name. NAPO cannot do right by many at the moment but I consider them to be in an invidious position at the moment. We cannot stop the train so need to decide whether we get on or watch it roll off into the distance without us. Both actions will draw criticism.
*******
The sadness is Napo have not developed a disengagement policy for the time being. Ultimately PI maybe the right organisation but the timing is too soon or too late & I am not clear where it leaves Napo's Professional Committee work. In view of there not being a definite motion from 'the floor' to disengage - I presume the NEC had to take some action to get Napo at the centre of the organisation.
What I find so despicable is the PIs complete public silence on the main issue of TR which makes what we have now more dangerous than what preceded - namely the split. I have had past contact with Mike and respected him, I am not so sure now. I think he is in an awful position. Meanwhile MOJ seem planning to bring Napo to their knees by ending the direct deductions from salary. That is at least one issue Labour could make a public stand about NOW - presumably they do still believe in Trades Unions being active in the workplaces?
*******
If the generic Mike's and Keith's of this world wish to take alternative positions, then it's a free country, but these particular namesakes are in positions of leadership in Napo and Napo is scared of actually consulting with it's membership about the PI. 'Member-led' is as nauseous a phrase as '£46 in your pocket'. If they haven't got a mandate then they are self-serving and are patronising the membership – and in the case of the funded Mike, at our expense. The PI is the condom with which the MoJ screwed Napo.
*******
The split has happened, it's about saving what we can. A nice bit of pragmatism here, unburdened by the principle of joining up in the first place. In what way will the PI contribute to the salvation effort? It is not a pressure group, so it will not campaign against TR which would, I suppose, be parricide as it's an offspring of TR.
The PI will be a cultist, networking chatterbox representing TR in all its public/private/third sector diversity - and an earner for some academics. The PI will validate and institutionalise the split. It will do its best to keep its multiplicity of providers happy. That's always easy when you stand for everything in general and nothing in particular.
*******
There have been calls for a Probation Institute for years. We have one now and Napo are now strongly represented within it. I have had some dealings with the PI and they are open to constructive engagement and are no doubt bemused at the continual raging of a handful of contributors to this website who, when not bashing Napo, bash the PI whenever it is mentioned.
Some of the most prominent academics in the probation world and others are now engaging with the PI and yes they are using its meetings and functions to network and build bridges to encourage professional practice. TR is often discussed critically as it has had a disastrous impact on professional practice. We are all trying to get to grip with the new organisations and structures and trying to make the best of things.
PI is not part of TR and has arguably fallen foul of Grayling's cynical attempts at PR manipulation that would have us believe that he dictates the terms of our professional status. Is it any wonder that several of those from Napo who were elected are the ones who have kept the professional light burning for our profession. Now is the time to support the PI and the values it stands for. Grayling wants it to limp along and fail so let's make sure he is disappointed.
*******
Napo is 'strongly represented' in the PI. Yet Napo has been so quiet in promoting PI. Why? To criticise either Napo or the PI is to be one of a handful of discontents, according to its stout defender. As complainants through the ages have heard: 'No one else has complained!'
The claim that PI is not part of TR is a new twist on the truth, but then so was the rhetoric about Brutus being a reasonable man. The PI was a £90k indulgence by the MoJ to demonstrate its pseudo commitment to professional practice and development - to give credence to its TR agenda. But now we must separate these two events and understand there is no connection, just one of life's coincidences. Yet we are told, all they talk about within the walls of the PI are the evils of TR!
The PI people are bridge-builders, busy building bridges, including toll bridges, I presume, that will, perhaps, bridge the spilt. In my jaundiced opinion the PI is a bridge too far. The PI is clearly enabling some tormented souls to 'move on' with their careers and you have to admire their powers of recovery in adapting to the new structures.
*******
I think there's a chance to use it positively. The TR mess will fall whichever way it will. We have little control over that but the PI can be built into something that continues to develop an alternative national voice and doesn't have to be an MOJ lapdog. I believe it will be independent if we support it and work within it.
*******
The PI perhaps represents what might be regarded as the remnants of the establishment within probation ie the bit Westminster really listens to. If you continue to ignore that fact then you are ignoring the realities of the world we live in which clearly suits some. The PI is the only credible connection we have at present to those in power and you are wishing it away. We need to engage more not less as Napo's thinkers and strategists know only too well.
*******
We are not apologising for the PI but rather defending its existence. It is growing and increasingly influential. It is also now attracting funding from a large variety of sources and tapping into funding streams that have long been available to similar institutes in the EU. There are some very smart and experienced people involved and they are in it for the long run. The smart money is on the PI.
*******
Any evidence that 'Westminster listens'? Any evidence it listened to the probation establishment over TR? Maybe it's time the Napo thinkers and strategists went public with their thinking and share it with their member-led union, as it all sounds a bit elitist, what with smart people and smart money.
*******
At AGM in 2013 I voted for an institute with the expectation that a licence to practice would follow which would ensure the future professional standing of my vocation. The half arsed kite mark it seems to be offering is the opposite, and to my mind an insult. Instead of defending our professionalism it will see it diluted.
PS - Another pedestrian blog by Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence and absolutely no mention of the Probation Institute.
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Lets Reinvent the Wheel
Regular readers will be aware I long ago ceased being grumpy and now regularly become just plain angry. It happened a couple of days ago when 'Netnipper' highlighted an article in the Telegraph about 'Band of Brothers', suddenly flavour of the frigging month for their 'innovative' work with offenders:-
So when do boys become men in the UK? In the popular imagination it might be the moment you lose your virginity, or when you turn 18 and are legally allowed to order a drink in a bar. While some might be glad to miss out on the more brutal aspects of these tribal rites of passage, for others, the lack of any kind of initiation traps our males in a perpetual adolescence.
“The purpose of initiation is to align the individual with the tribe, or their society, and the fact is that we have lost that,” says psychotherapist Michael Boyle, who first started working on a modern version of this rite of passage 20 years ago. “The male movement from childhood to adulthood was something that had to be acknowledged.
“Boys had to leave their mothers and defend the place. If they’re not initiated, everyone’s out for themselves and we just have what Freud called the primal horde.”
To combat this, Boyle devised what has become called the Quest weekend – a couple of days for young men to spend in nature with a group of older volunteers, with a strong ritualistic and story-telling aspect. It is a central part of A Band of Brothers, the community-based men’s group he set up in Brighton, which matches up young men from difficult backgrounds – many of whom have criminal convictions – with mentors who have been through the rite-of-passage weekend themselves.
And while some modern men might baulk at the idea of a therapeutic weekend in the forest, there is no denying the group gets results. Only 20 per cent of the young offenders A Band of Brothers works with go on to reoffend (compared to the 68 per cent of young people who are released from custody and go on to offend within a year nationally), while 75 per cent of those who are unemployed when they join the group go on to find a job.
The men who have gone through the Quest process, mainly in their late teens and early 20s, talk of a growth in confidence, of having been taken off a different, more damaging path, or of something “having clicked” when they went on the weekend. One I spoke to said, when he joined A Band of Brothers, he was unable to make eye contact with other men; now he is happy to speak in front of large groups.
Until now only available to young men from the Brighton area, this year A Band of Brothers is expanding and going mainstream. Three new groups – or circles, as they are known – are being set up in the London and Thames Valley areas, while the organisation is now part of a consortium of public, private and third-sector companies who which has been established to provide rehabilitation services in the South East. They will start working with young men who have been sent to them through official channels this autumn.
So how does it work? After joining the group for a Quest weekend, along with adults either looking to become mentors or with a professional interest in the programme, it seems like much of the benefit comes from just having a couple of days entirely out of your everyday life.
Despite there being around 20 participants, each man gets a lot of individual attention – which is made possible by the fact that there are an equal number of “brothers” who have already been through the process and who are now there as facilitators. In the weekends for younger men, there are more facilitators than participants, making the course uniquely resource intensive.
There are exercises for the men to express their anger, group discussions of subjects such as love, sex and violence, elements of theatre and a focus on what Boyle calls “restorying” – inviting men to consider the narrative that has been imposed on their lives and change the aspects they are not happy with. For the young offenders who go through the process, this narrative will often include things like “feeling like a failure” or “knowing I’ll never get a job”.
Boyle adds: “From the beginning, the men feel like they’re in the centre of something that’s intriguing and weird, but also safe. The first thing from a psychological point of view is that they feel safe. It’s like introducing them to a TV channel they’ve never seen before. They’ll always have the option of going back to the other channels, but now they know this one is there.”
"The Band of Brothers programme is helping some individuals to stop reoffending. There are all sorts of figures bandied about regarding its effectiveness in reducing reoffending, that it can reduce it by 50 percentage points. At one time probation would take clients on excursions and work on softer skills, but this type of work became toxic following the reactionary clampdown in probation. It's good to see that these activities are now being quoted approvingly in the Telegraph. The only thing we now need is a bit of rigorous research to underpin this innovation. It is good to see volunteers back in fashion in probation work as well.
BoB is the acceptable face of TR – a cheerleader. Time will tell if it can bring home the bacon. In the meantime, it has political value: what a clever guy Grayling has been in transforming probation! In opening up probation to innovation..."
"At one time probation would take clients on excursions and work on softer skills, but this type of work became toxic following the reactionary clampdown in probation."
Yes, we did all this and shed-loads of other innovative stuff when I started as a Probation Officer. My Service had its own cottage in The Lakes, a purpose-built day centre with canoes, rock-climbing equipment, woodwork shop, canal narrowboats, crew bus etc etc. We had trained instructors and a small army of volunteers, but every last bit of this infrastructure and philosophy was disposed of by a compliant management wanting to curry favour with successive politicians like Michael Howard and Jack Straw.
It had all been developed from the enlightened and innovative Home Office Intermediate Treatment projects with youngsters who were deemed to be at risk of becoming problematic by following an offending path, but was swept away when the right wing press dubbed it 'treats for naughty boys'. Politicians were of course only too happy to jump on the band waggon of popularity with an increasingly 'tough on crime and the causes of crime' message and probation managers duly obliged by 'following orders'. Look where it got us.
Ironically it's some of the very same senior managers that are prospering under TR and a supposed return to 'innovation' by reinventing the wheel and it makes me very angry indeed. In effect we've been destroyed as a public service because of political interference in our work and now have to suffer the humiliation and indignity of being told the future lies in what we were forced to give up.
So when do boys become men in the UK? In the popular imagination it might be the moment you lose your virginity, or when you turn 18 and are legally allowed to order a drink in a bar. While some might be glad to miss out on the more brutal aspects of these tribal rites of passage, for others, the lack of any kind of initiation traps our males in a perpetual adolescence.
“The purpose of initiation is to align the individual with the tribe, or their society, and the fact is that we have lost that,” says psychotherapist Michael Boyle, who first started working on a modern version of this rite of passage 20 years ago. “The male movement from childhood to adulthood was something that had to be acknowledged.
“Boys had to leave their mothers and defend the place. If they’re not initiated, everyone’s out for themselves and we just have what Freud called the primal horde.”
To combat this, Boyle devised what has become called the Quest weekend – a couple of days for young men to spend in nature with a group of older volunteers, with a strong ritualistic and story-telling aspect. It is a central part of A Band of Brothers, the community-based men’s group he set up in Brighton, which matches up young men from difficult backgrounds – many of whom have criminal convictions – with mentors who have been through the rite-of-passage weekend themselves.
And while some modern men might baulk at the idea of a therapeutic weekend in the forest, there is no denying the group gets results. Only 20 per cent of the young offenders A Band of Brothers works with go on to reoffend (compared to the 68 per cent of young people who are released from custody and go on to offend within a year nationally), while 75 per cent of those who are unemployed when they join the group go on to find a job.
The men who have gone through the Quest process, mainly in their late teens and early 20s, talk of a growth in confidence, of having been taken off a different, more damaging path, or of something “having clicked” when they went on the weekend. One I spoke to said, when he joined A Band of Brothers, he was unable to make eye contact with other men; now he is happy to speak in front of large groups.
Until now only available to young men from the Brighton area, this year A Band of Brothers is expanding and going mainstream. Three new groups – or circles, as they are known – are being set up in the London and Thames Valley areas, while the organisation is now part of a consortium of public, private and third-sector companies who which has been established to provide rehabilitation services in the South East. They will start working with young men who have been sent to them through official channels this autumn.
So how does it work? After joining the group for a Quest weekend, along with adults either looking to become mentors or with a professional interest in the programme, it seems like much of the benefit comes from just having a couple of days entirely out of your everyday life.
Despite there being around 20 participants, each man gets a lot of individual attention – which is made possible by the fact that there are an equal number of “brothers” who have already been through the process and who are now there as facilitators. In the weekends for younger men, there are more facilitators than participants, making the course uniquely resource intensive.
There are exercises for the men to express their anger, group discussions of subjects such as love, sex and violence, elements of theatre and a focus on what Boyle calls “restorying” – inviting men to consider the narrative that has been imposed on their lives and change the aspects they are not happy with. For the young offenders who go through the process, this narrative will often include things like “feeling like a failure” or “knowing I’ll never get a job”.
Boyle adds: “From the beginning, the men feel like they’re in the centre of something that’s intriguing and weird, but also safe. The first thing from a psychological point of view is that they feel safe. It’s like introducing them to a TV channel they’ve never seen before. They’ll always have the option of going back to the other channels, but now they know this one is there.”
So why am I angry about this? I'll Netnipper explain:-
BoB is the acceptable face of TR – a cheerleader. Time will tell if it can bring home the bacon. In the meantime, it has political value: what a clever guy Grayling has been in transforming probation! In opening up probation to innovation..."
"At one time probation would take clients on excursions and work on softer skills, but this type of work became toxic following the reactionary clampdown in probation."
Yes, we did all this and shed-loads of other innovative stuff when I started as a Probation Officer. My Service had its own cottage in The Lakes, a purpose-built day centre with canoes, rock-climbing equipment, woodwork shop, canal narrowboats, crew bus etc etc. We had trained instructors and a small army of volunteers, but every last bit of this infrastructure and philosophy was disposed of by a compliant management wanting to curry favour with successive politicians like Michael Howard and Jack Straw.
It had all been developed from the enlightened and innovative Home Office Intermediate Treatment projects with youngsters who were deemed to be at risk of becoming problematic by following an offending path, but was swept away when the right wing press dubbed it 'treats for naughty boys'. Politicians were of course only too happy to jump on the band waggon of popularity with an increasingly 'tough on crime and the causes of crime' message and probation managers duly obliged by 'following orders'. Look where it got us.
Ironically it's some of the very same senior managers that are prospering under TR and a supposed return to 'innovation' by reinventing the wheel and it makes me very angry indeed. In effect we've been destroyed as a public service because of political interference in our work and now have to suffer the humiliation and indignity of being told the future lies in what we were forced to give up.
Wednesday, 4 March 2015
Latest MoJ Nonsense
Headline
Workforce Planning Committee 11th February 2015
New Business Case Template
Following the determination of the North East staffing establishment the Workforce Planning Committee (WPC) agreed a Business Case Template which will be piloted over the coming months.
A Business Case will be required by the WPC prior to any discussion on changing the agreed and devolved establishment for each Cluster. ACOs will be responsible for managing their Cluster within the given establishment, should they wish to change the staff/skill mix or exceed the given establishment they will need the prior approval of the WPC.
New NE Expression of Interest Form
Following the use of Expressions of Interest (EoI) to rebalance Divisional staffing resources the WPC have agreed to pilot the use of an agreed template which mirrors the use of competencies from the Civil Service recruitment processes but also requires the support and approval of both the local line manager and ACO to ensure the wider Cluster overview and stability is maintained.
EoI will be used in the first instance to allow existing staff to move within the Division prior to to advertisement on Civil Service Jobs website. EoI can only be used for level transfers and acting up arrangements and it will be at the discretion of the ACO as to how widely within the Division they are advertised (where surplus situations exists an ACO may decide to extend the EoI only to those Clusters to protect staff and minimise the use of mobility procedures).
New Workload Management Tools
The National Probation Service are in the process of launching a suite of tools to support Divisions in the determination of establishments and caseload levels. These tools will in time replace the North East Resource Model and tools and include a Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) to support the management of staffing caseloads, a Workforce Planning Tool (WPT) to track vacancies as well as the resource model Mat-Area Capacity Model (MACD) which determines the staffing establishment for OM and Court works.
PO Recruitment Campaign - Stage 4
Following the recent recruitment to CA and PO posts across the Division the WPC agreed to extend the PO recruitment exercise to Stage 4 (open competition). The advert will appear on Civil Service Jobs shortly and all CRC employees can apply.
(More examples of MoJ management speak crap always welcome - Ed)
PS - The results of the Probation Institute elections are in and amongst the successful are Paul Senior, Mike McClelland, Keith Stokeld and Neil Maloney.
Workforce Planning Committee 11th February 2015
New Business Case Template
Following the determination of the North East staffing establishment the Workforce Planning Committee (WPC) agreed a Business Case Template which will be piloted over the coming months.
A Business Case will be required by the WPC prior to any discussion on changing the agreed and devolved establishment for each Cluster. ACOs will be responsible for managing their Cluster within the given establishment, should they wish to change the staff/skill mix or exceed the given establishment they will need the prior approval of the WPC.
New NE Expression of Interest Form
Following the use of Expressions of Interest (EoI) to rebalance Divisional staffing resources the WPC have agreed to pilot the use of an agreed template which mirrors the use of competencies from the Civil Service recruitment processes but also requires the support and approval of both the local line manager and ACO to ensure the wider Cluster overview and stability is maintained.
EoI will be used in the first instance to allow existing staff to move within the Division prior to to advertisement on Civil Service Jobs website. EoI can only be used for level transfers and acting up arrangements and it will be at the discretion of the ACO as to how widely within the Division they are advertised (where surplus situations exists an ACO may decide to extend the EoI only to those Clusters to protect staff and minimise the use of mobility procedures).
New Workload Management Tools
The National Probation Service are in the process of launching a suite of tools to support Divisions in the determination of establishments and caseload levels. These tools will in time replace the North East Resource Model and tools and include a Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) to support the management of staffing caseloads, a Workforce Planning Tool (WPT) to track vacancies as well as the resource model Mat-Area Capacity Model (MACD) which determines the staffing establishment for OM and Court works.
PO Recruitment Campaign - Stage 4
Following the recent recruitment to CA and PO posts across the Division the WPC agreed to extend the PO recruitment exercise to Stage 4 (open competition). The advert will appear on Civil Service Jobs shortly and all CRC employees can apply.
(More examples of MoJ management speak crap always welcome - Ed)
PS - The results of the Probation Institute elections are in and amongst the successful are Paul Senior, Mike McClelland, Keith Stokeld and Neil Maloney.
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Guest Blog 29
Some Thoughts
I frequently meander around North Yorks, love the castles, canals and countryside, and Pocklington, near York, and its surroundings, is one place we return to regularly. I am reading a 'Pocklington Through Time' book as I speak, as we plan to return for a few days later this month, and I am aware of the independent boarding school in the small town, which had educated William Wilberforce, who did great things to abolish slavery.
Although he was a Hull lad, born in 1759, and initially attended Hull High School, in 1771, after becoming an evangelical Christian, he moved to Pocklington Grammar School, before going up to St John's College Cambridge in 1776. During his adult life, apart from his work as an abolitionist, for which he is mainly known, he was also heavily involved in other contemporary social issues. He supported legislation to improve the working conditions of chimney sweeps and textile workers, promoted education as a means of alleviating poverty, and he also helped found the world's first animal welfare organisation, later to be called the RSPCA. He also campaigned against dualling, which he called 'the disgrace of a Christian society'.
I frequently meander around North Yorks, love the castles, canals and countryside, and Pocklington, near York, and its surroundings, is one place we return to regularly. I am reading a 'Pocklington Through Time' book as I speak, as we plan to return for a few days later this month, and I am aware of the independent boarding school in the small town, which had educated William Wilberforce, who did great things to abolish slavery.
Although he was a Hull lad, born in 1759, and initially attended Hull High School, in 1771, after becoming an evangelical Christian, he moved to Pocklington Grammar School, before going up to St John's College Cambridge in 1776. During his adult life, apart from his work as an abolitionist, for which he is mainly known, he was also heavily involved in other contemporary social issues. He supported legislation to improve the working conditions of chimney sweeps and textile workers, promoted education as a means of alleviating poverty, and he also helped found the world's first animal welfare organisation, later to be called the RSPCA. He also campaigned against dualling, which he called 'the disgrace of a Christian society'.
I think of myself and thousands of others who are signing online petitions and making their impassioned comments on horrendous injustices, in a bid to make the world a bit more humane and caring. And it makes you feel as if you have done just a little bit to help. But this man was jumping in at the deep end to inform and rid the world of its badness in many diverse areas.
Indeed, as well as being instrumental in the above reforms, (the emancipation of slavery was formally achieved in 1807) he was also involved in prison reform and lent his support to limit capital punishment. And the philanthropic and social responsibility that characterised this man, lives on in the William Wilberforce Trust, an apparently effective charity, with strong religious motivation, which works on a number of issues to improve life generally for those affected by debt, addiction, homelessness, unemployment, trafficking, loneliness and vulnerability. This includes prisoners and ex-offenders as well as others in society. I have just checked their website, and as well as such programmes as debt advice, the Recovery Course, Building Community on Estates, they have a 'Caring for Ex-offenders' Programme, where
Indeed, as well as being instrumental in the above reforms, (the emancipation of slavery was formally achieved in 1807) he was also involved in prison reform and lent his support to limit capital punishment. And the philanthropic and social responsibility that characterised this man, lives on in the William Wilberforce Trust, an apparently effective charity, with strong religious motivation, which works on a number of issues to improve life generally for those affected by debt, addiction, homelessness, unemployment, trafficking, loneliness and vulnerability. This includes prisoners and ex-offenders as well as others in society. I have just checked their website, and as well as such programmes as debt advice, the Recovery Course, Building Community on Estates, they have a 'Caring for Ex-offenders' Programme, where
'the vision is to reduce re-offending by re-integrating ex-offenders into society through the local church. We equip churches, through training and advice, to enable them to support ex-offenders live transformed lives. Through the CFEO (Caring for Ex-Offenders) network, we support ex-offenders on their release from prison. We meet them at the gate, link them with a mentor, and support them as they re-integrate in the community, with practical and emotional support as appropriate'.
Where have we heard this before???
I know there has been criticism of the motivation and religious emphasis of some reforming charities, but if it works and provides succour to the isolated and desperate, does it matter? It has to be better than CG's plastic, watered-down copy, with ambitious, unrealistic and potentially dangerous plans. His idea is not even original, and indeed, had already been a part of Probation long before he got his filthy paws on it. Nothing is new ... except what has been forgotten. (Marie Antoinette)
A final note, the improvements to society, driven by individual philanthropists over the centuries, must be worthy of a PHD thesis. Nowadays, we are seeing the needy being driven into greater isolation and suffering, by politicians with over-sized egos and their bulging-pocketed mates, as the poorest of our forebears suffered. But philanthropy is still alive but modified - from successful people who want to give their money away to worthy causes, to the lowly public who do not hesitate to raise money to support those in worse situations than themselves, to help dying children to enjoy what is left of their lives, and to support fighting against injustice, while lying politicians, bankers and fox-hunting creeps continue to despise the have-nots.
I fear for the future of this country, of this planet, and those most vulnerable. While being warmed and inspired by those who understand that you only need so much money and give the rest away, as well as the good deeds of those who may not have money but have huge hearts and, like the good Samaritan, do not cross the road...
Clinging to hope..
ML
I know there has been criticism of the motivation and religious emphasis of some reforming charities, but if it works and provides succour to the isolated and desperate, does it matter? It has to be better than CG's plastic, watered-down copy, with ambitious, unrealistic and potentially dangerous plans. His idea is not even original, and indeed, had already been a part of Probation long before he got his filthy paws on it. Nothing is new ... except what has been forgotten. (Marie Antoinette)
A final note, the improvements to society, driven by individual philanthropists over the centuries, must be worthy of a PHD thesis. Nowadays, we are seeing the needy being driven into greater isolation and suffering, by politicians with over-sized egos and their bulging-pocketed mates, as the poorest of our forebears suffered. But philanthropy is still alive but modified - from successful people who want to give their money away to worthy causes, to the lowly public who do not hesitate to raise money to support those in worse situations than themselves, to help dying children to enjoy what is left of their lives, and to support fighting against injustice, while lying politicians, bankers and fox-hunting creeps continue to despise the have-nots.
I fear for the future of this country, of this planet, and those most vulnerable. While being warmed and inspired by those who understand that you only need so much money and give the rest away, as well as the good deeds of those who may not have money but have huge hearts and, like the good Samaritan, do not cross the road...
Clinging to hope..
ML
Monday, 2 March 2015
Sonnex Remembered
A number of commentators have mentioned how TR, and in particular the split between the CRCs and NPS, is very likely to lead to SFO's. It seems appropriate to revisit the infamous 'Sonnex' case from 2008, not least because Paul Wilson is now interim HM Chief Inspector of Probation and all the elements for a repetition appear to be present in spades.
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Previous SFO enquiries have highlighted issues with poor communication, information not being passed on to relevant staff, ridiculously high caseloads and unrealistic expectations of newly qualified staff. TR sticks two fingers up at those painstaking findings, at future potential victims, and the staff left trying to make sense of wave after wave of poor quality IT, lengthy new bureaucratic procedures, inadequate staffing all being driven, reconfigured and mobilised by the biggest load of pretend corporate bullshit bollocks ever, wasting time and delaying access to the information that matters.
It comes just three years after an official inquiry report into the murder of the Chelsea financier, John Monckton, found that there had been a "collective failure" and numerous blunders by probation and parole staff.
The internal Probation Service reviews into the Sonnex case led to the resignation of David Scott, the chief probation officer for London, at the end of February, after allegedly being told by the justice secretary, Jack Straw, that he did not want a repeat of the Haringey social services fiascos.
The official inquiry reports released today [after the verdicts] provide a damning catalogue of serious errors and management failings by the London Probation Service. They confirm that Lewisham probation – the office at the centre of the case – was severely unstaffed, with the supervision of Sonnex left to an inexperienced probation officer with a caseload of 127 other offenders.
At the time of Sonnex's release, Lewisham probation office appears to have been in meltdown. The officer who was supervising him had a caseload of 127 offenders and had only been qualified for nine months, although she was an experienced probation assistant. She was seeing 12 to 15 people a day. Her senior probation officer was "acting up". She was just one of 22 probation officers in Lewisham, only one of whom had more than two years experience.
Details of the key failings in the case include:
"the ignored failure of Sonnex was he'd been held in virtual solitary for 8 years since he was 17, yet prison not blamed"
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Previous SFO enquiries have highlighted issues with poor communication, information not being passed on to relevant staff, ridiculously high caseloads and unrealistic expectations of newly qualified staff. TR sticks two fingers up at those painstaking findings, at future potential victims, and the staff left trying to make sense of wave after wave of poor quality IT, lengthy new bureaucratic procedures, inadequate staffing all being driven, reconfigured and mobilised by the biggest load of pretend corporate bullshit bollocks ever, wasting time and delaying access to the information that matters.
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Just catching up on the blog from the last few days. Important to remember with Sonnex that a lack of information sharing contributed to the SFO. Scary given the lack of information sharing now between CRCs and NPS:
In 2008 Danno Sonnex was released on licence as part of an 8 year sentence for violence and robbery. The Youth Offending Institute did not share a report that highlighted that Dano Sonnex had the potential to kill: The medical report completed at the Youth Offending Institute did not transfer to the central file.
A meeting between probation, police and prison to clarify confusion over risk level was arranged but did not take place: The multi-agency meeting did not go ahead because relevant documents could not be printed out. When charged and remanded for handling stolen goods it took 33 days instead of 5 to issue a recall warrant: The recall was delayed because probation required more detailed information from the police about the nature of the charges.
When presented from remand prison to Court, Magistrates granted Sonnex technical bail. He was released from Court on 16th May 2008 and absconded: Magistrates provided technical bail because they believed that the licence had been revoked which would have meant a return to custody from court.
Probation were not made aware that bail had been granted and Sonnex had been released: Probation took a further 4 weeks to formally revoke the licence. Police delayed execution of the warrant while they gathered information about whether a firearms team was required: Police were then delayed in executing the warrant.
On 29th June 2008 Dano Sonnex tortured and murdered two French students living in London. Each agency only had a partial view of the case and better information sharing could have given all of the agencies a whole view, providing an opportunity for better risk management.
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If Mr. Wilson (and I'm not being critical of him), really believes and stands by the 'errors' he identified in the Sonnex case, then surely a quick glance around and he has to say the current situation in probation must indicate that another 'disaster' of similar magnitude is possible at any moment, and TR is proving dangerous!
"It emerged Sonnex was supervised by a probation officer in Lewisham with just nine months experience and who was responsible for 127 case files at the time. The new acting chief probation officer for London, Paul Wilson, said the case was a "wake up call" for London probation but that frontline staff should not be blamed.It also emerged the probation watchdog was aware of problems in services in London as early as March last year - three months before the murders. An inspection of London Probation Service found there were "fundamental problems with the timely completion of basic tasks to a high standard" adding that a third of risk assessments were not completed on time.
It is the second serious failure by the capital's probation service which faced a scathing attach by watchdogs and ministers following the murder of city financier John Monckton in 2004 by two offenders under its supervision.In 2008, the female probation officer who took on Sonnex had only been qualified for nine months and joined the Lewisham team at a time of staff shortages so immediately inherited the workload of a sick colleague as well as her own cases. It meant she could see Sonnex for no more than 20 minutes a week. Two senior officers in the area were also doing the work of five. Since the scandal some 60 additional staff have already been employed across London and another 80 are to be recruited. Mr Wilson accepted that "serious errors were made by London Probation", including management failings, central resource allocation and workload pressures. But he added: "It comes down every time to a young offender manager overwhelmed by an unfair workload and not experienced enough to grasp the risk posed by Sonnex."
This from the Guardian:-
The disclosure that Dano Sonnex was out on a parole licence after serving an eight-year sentence for violence and robbery at the time he committed the murders is a devastating blow to the London Probation Service.
Just catching up on the blog from the last few days. Important to remember with Sonnex that a lack of information sharing contributed to the SFO. Scary given the lack of information sharing now between CRCs and NPS:
In 2008 Danno Sonnex was released on licence as part of an 8 year sentence for violence and robbery. The Youth Offending Institute did not share a report that highlighted that Dano Sonnex had the potential to kill: The medical report completed at the Youth Offending Institute did not transfer to the central file.
A meeting between probation, police and prison to clarify confusion over risk level was arranged but did not take place: The multi-agency meeting did not go ahead because relevant documents could not be printed out. When charged and remanded for handling stolen goods it took 33 days instead of 5 to issue a recall warrant: The recall was delayed because probation required more detailed information from the police about the nature of the charges.
When presented from remand prison to Court, Magistrates granted Sonnex technical bail. He was released from Court on 16th May 2008 and absconded: Magistrates provided technical bail because they believed that the licence had been revoked which would have meant a return to custody from court.
Probation were not made aware that bail had been granted and Sonnex had been released: Probation took a further 4 weeks to formally revoke the licence. Police delayed execution of the warrant while they gathered information about whether a firearms team was required: Police were then delayed in executing the warrant.
On 29th June 2008 Dano Sonnex tortured and murdered two French students living in London. Each agency only had a partial view of the case and better information sharing could have given all of the agencies a whole view, providing an opportunity for better risk management.
*******
If Mr. Wilson (and I'm not being critical of him), really believes and stands by the 'errors' he identified in the Sonnex case, then surely a quick glance around and he has to say the current situation in probation must indicate that another 'disaster' of similar magnitude is possible at any moment, and TR is proving dangerous!
"It emerged Sonnex was supervised by a probation officer in Lewisham with just nine months experience and who was responsible for 127 case files at the time. The new acting chief probation officer for London, Paul Wilson, said the case was a "wake up call" for London probation but that frontline staff should not be blamed.It also emerged the probation watchdog was aware of problems in services in London as early as March last year - three months before the murders. An inspection of London Probation Service found there were "fundamental problems with the timely completion of basic tasks to a high standard" adding that a third of risk assessments were not completed on time.
It is the second serious failure by the capital's probation service which faced a scathing attach by watchdogs and ministers following the murder of city financier John Monckton in 2004 by two offenders under its supervision.In 2008, the female probation officer who took on Sonnex had only been qualified for nine months and joined the Lewisham team at a time of staff shortages so immediately inherited the workload of a sick colleague as well as her own cases. It meant she could see Sonnex for no more than 20 minutes a week. Two senior officers in the area were also doing the work of five. Since the scandal some 60 additional staff have already been employed across London and another 80 are to be recruited. Mr Wilson accepted that "serious errors were made by London Probation", including management failings, central resource allocation and workload pressures. But he added: "It comes down every time to a young offender manager overwhelmed by an unfair workload and not experienced enough to grasp the risk posed by Sonnex."
This from the Guardian:-
The disclosure that Dano Sonnex was out on a parole licence after serving an eight-year sentence for violence and robbery at the time he committed the murders is a devastating blow to the London Probation Service.
It comes just three years after an official inquiry report into the murder of the Chelsea financier, John Monckton, found that there had been a "collective failure" and numerous blunders by probation and parole staff.
The internal Probation Service reviews into the Sonnex case led to the resignation of David Scott, the chief probation officer for London, at the end of February, after allegedly being told by the justice secretary, Jack Straw, that he did not want a repeat of the Haringey social services fiascos.
The official inquiry reports released today [after the verdicts] provide a damning catalogue of serious errors and management failings by the London Probation Service. They confirm that Lewisham probation – the office at the centre of the case – was severely unstaffed, with the supervision of Sonnex left to an inexperienced probation officer with a caseload of 127 other offenders.
At the time of Sonnex's release, Lewisham probation office appears to have been in meltdown. The officer who was supervising him had a caseload of 127 offenders and had only been qualified for nine months, although she was an experienced probation assistant. She was seeing 12 to 15 people a day. Her senior probation officer was "acting up". She was just one of 22 probation officers in Lewisham, only one of whom had more than two years experience.
According to Napo, the probation union, it appears to have been management by crisis in Lewisham, with high sickness levels averaging 27 days a year and with no proper risk assessments on 650 of the 2,500 offenders they were responsible for. "This was an office under pressure with a very high caseload," says the official verdict. Because Sonnex arrived for his probation appointments on time or even early, and was polite, co-operative and smartly dressed, he may not have seemed a priority case.
Details of the key failings in the case include:
- Prison doctor's report that Sonnex was a potential killer was not shared: In May 2004, a doctor at Portland young offenders' institution reported that Sonnex had said he "feared that his reaction to events meant he could kill". But this was not shared with prison staff.
- Confusion over his dangerousness: Sonnex was deemed a tier three or medium-risk offender when he should have been tier four or high-risk offender. There was confusion over this, with Sonnex listed high-risk on one probation and prison database, but medium on another. The prison service saw him as a drug-free, much-improved inmate, but the probation union claims that there was pressure to "tier-down" offenders. A key multi-agency meeting with probation, prison and police staff which would have clarified his statement was scheduled but never took place because staff could not print out the documents they needed for it.
- No recall after an attack on a five-months' pregnant woman and her boyfriend two days after his release in February: The police did not charge Sonnex because the two victims feared repercussions and despite repeated police visits were not willing to make witness statements. The probation office heard about the incident from social services and from Sonnex as an unsubstantiated allegation. Sonnex claimed he had left the flat when an argument started. He was given only a verbal warning.
- It took 33 days, instead of five, to issue the warrant to recall Sonnex to prison: His probation officer started the process when he was charged with handling stolen goods and remanded in custody on 3 May but there was a delay in signing off the papers as managers sought more detail on the seriousness of the charges. Lewisham was already the "top recaller" in London at time at time of prison overcrowding crisis.
- There was also confusion between Greenwich magistrates court and Lewisham probation office which resulted in Sonnex being granted bail despite the recall application. Court officials appear to have assumed he was already on remand on another charge, and granted him technical bail. The effect was that the licence was not revoked until 16 days before the murders. He disappeared as soon as he was bailed on 16 May.
- Police failed to act on the recall warrant for 16 days until after the murders had happened: The Independent Police Complaints Commission say "grave errors" were made by the police who failed to deal with it as a matter of urgency. At one point the arrest was delayed as police debated whether a firearms team should be sent to arrest him. Emergency recalls are supposed to happen within 24 hours. One police sergeant has received a disciplinary warning as a result.
PS Comment by Frances Crook, Howard League via twitter:-
Sunday, 1 March 2015
Bleak Futures Week 9
This blog makes interesting reading when we see practitioners experiences post TR, take for example ISPs. This is a target for both CRCs and NPS and more importantly starts the supervision process by defining what work will be done to address identified issues and also is the baseline risk assessment.
Given CRCs are now up and running as separate entities, we could perhaps expect some divergence of practice so eg the targets date for ISPs may vary in different CRCs. What is really concerning is that the NPS, one unified organisation, seems to have very different target dates for staff to complete ISPs varying between 5 and 15 days - how can that be? Does that means staff in the 5 day area could be placed in capability for missing a target which is 15 days somewhere else in that one organisation? It is absolute nonsense.
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No account is taken of pending prison releases when Community cases are allocated - but then N-Delius do not show prison cases due for release - another flaw in an overall piss-poor IT system.
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It is my understanding that ALL CRCs have same targets and for ISPs it is 10 days - some like my CRC are imposing 8 day as a safeguard since missing a target costs money. In relation to NPS - is it not 5 day for high risk and 15 for those in CRC which are deemed medium risk but due to nature of offence, RSR score or whatever the reason are in NPS? Just a thought - if NAPO is going to investigate it has to be across the board - they represent both sections of this ideological divide.
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The writing's on the wall. Each week it's getting bleaker and bleaker and the blogs are getting longer, staff are leaving gaping holes that remaining staff simply cannot fill. I cant see Sodemexo or Burple Futures bringing anything to the table that will reverse the mess we are in.
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I am NPS in the South West and our target is for terminations, so they get prioritised over ISPs, start custody OASys. I've got ISPs still waiting to be done as I've also had parole reports addendum, part B and C to all do at the same time. Casenotes written needing to be typed up. Been over WMT since Oct and when management retiered to be in line with rest of NPS, WMT went up to 48% over. Now the WMT is London model not so easy to see. Yet management looking at sample of my cases to see where I am at as if it is totally my fault (it feels like).
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My reading is that community ISP's for the NPS are 15 days. The 5 day ISP is for custody cases; the OM has to get into prison and complete this within 5 days. I have a feeling that whoever is stupid enough to apply for TTG will get the honour of seeing all of the new receptions and completing the ISP. This will be between sorting out accommodation/licences and the 1001 other issues that new receptionists in prison AND those leaving will have.
Looking at the work that needs doing in the reception/discharge prisons, I have a feeling that most of the CRC will need to be in the prison to cope. My own view is that I would have absolutely nothing to do with TTG, and if you are directed just claim you have claustrophobia and cannot work in such an environment! It's for them to prove otherwise and they would not have a leg to stand on if they subsequently directed you and then you went immediately on the sick! As you will no longer have a caseload by this time, you might as well take the whole six month off on full pay.
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I work in Wales and I can assure you that the 5 day target is for all cases in the community whether they have attended or not (we are pretending custody are still done the old fashioned way until directed otherwise). Other priority targets are terminations, parole, part B and C's and home visits. Of course reviews and recording contacts are suffering and there are rumbles of steps being taken to rectify this.
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How can there be such confusion in NPS, the national organisation? Most areas within NPS do not appear to be doing the same thing....surely it defeats the whole object of being the NATIONAL NPS??
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A Plea. I have just returned to work after 5 months sickness absence and have to tell you it was the worst period of my life and sometimes, in the response of managers, staff and yes, occasionally on this blog I have been made to feel a sense of shame. We really need to have care when making statements that imply colleagues who are certified as unfit for work by their GP and Occupational Health (in my case) are somehow not honestly too ill to work.
When colleagues, perhaps tongue in cheek, refer to "going sick" and "you might as well take the whole six months off on full pay" they clearly have no experience of how ill you have to be to be signed off for so long. It is not something to be spoken of lightly and it is devastating to think that some think of 'the long term sick' as avoiding work. I was ill not dishonest. So please don't suggest colleagues could do this to cause disruption to TR, it just feeds the very worst attitudes of some HR and some Managers.
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I'm the author of that comment. It was not an implication of anything, rather an instruction, albeit tongue in cheek. I hope you are feeling much better though and welcome back into the (significantly changed) fold.
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Sick leave a doddle hey. Threatening meetings with the overtones of being sacked. Being off ill is no joke. Come on colleagues where has your humility gone......
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This rings true with me - I was a nervous wreck at work due to the manager taking a dislike to me and ended up going off and almost every week there was a phonecall trying to entice me back with reduced caseload etc etc. Being off was just as stressful but in a different way to actually being in work.
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Because of the current crap and job uncertainty I have decided to sell my house, I do not want to be jobless with a mortgage and face the inevitable re-possession. I will rent somewhere so if I go off sick or sleepwalk into a mistake that could lead to disciplinary I do not have to worry about finding somewhere to live. I have a few debts but all under 1k and will be paid off as soon as possible. Hopefully this will improve my approach to work - at the moment I work over and above cos I'm terrified about the house, but once my plans are in place I can see my mood lifting and feeling much better.
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How sad am I? To get myself to work I have written my daily salary in my diary and when it all gets too much I look at it and tell myself that's why I have to stay for another day. Honestly, I used to love my job.
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Well at least you got phone calls. I was off for 10 weeks, not one phone call, one letter, nothing. Not until I called in and said I was coming back to work. Then they asked me for a back to work meeting. At the meeting I was to be on phased return. Only to find because they are short staffed I was full time on my third day back. It felt no different, nothing has changed for me. They totally ignored why I was off. I said I nearly had a breakdown with the work, their reply, 'lucky you caught it in time'. What the hell does that mean?
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I'm in a prison and there is a review by NOMS of the OMU process. Do I stay or do I go because as we stand no one has the foggiest what's going to happen in the next twelve months.
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Stay in HMP. The field is a NIGHTMARE.
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I am fortunate in that being over 60 I have made the decision to take early retirement & leave at the end of March (PO in a CRC) - I just felt I no longer have the mental energy to take on board all the new changes ie not only the split but also ORA & TTG. Interestingly, just 2 days after I sent my email requesting early retirement, my SPO (a thoroughly nice & decent chap by the way) came to me following a senior management meeting saying would I consider returning after the end of March as agency staff on £24 per hour! I am not interested in this, it wasn't about the money for me, but it makes you wonder how much is sloshing around to pay for agency staff? Best wishes to all.
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At a Staff Roadshow for London CRC, MTCNovo said they made their bid for the contract with no knowledge of exactly what state the office buildings were in or what were the terms and conditions of the leases. This is why the "transition period" from 01/02/15 to 30/04/15 will allow due diligence to be carried out so that they know exactly what they have bought!
Reminds me of that TV programme "Storage Wars" where professional buyers bid in an auction for the contents of a storage locker that has been requisitioned when 3 months rent is owing. The buyers only have 5 minutes to peek at the contents and most of the content is kept under cover so he buyer needs to trust their judgement and experience. So now I understand why it it currently "business as usual" in London CRC.
This would definitely not happen in the takeover of a private business. Any take over without due diligence would be regarded as reckless. Why is it thought acceptable when bidding for London CRC? Clearly London CRC is so big and inefficient that any economies of scale will be well rewarded. I agree though that some of the smaller CRC areas will fail but I can see MTCNovo hoovering those CRC areas up - for a price of course! Welcome to Grayling's brave new world!
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Comment overheard today in CRC. "Our job should be reducing reoffending rates, not dealing with all the regions f***ing social problems". Methinks reality is dawning.
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As another many, many years in, I too have worked through many types of change and up to this point have always been able to find a way through whilst carrying on without really changing the core. However, this is the biggest and worst mess of them all. The abusive way the so called management are prepared to behave whilst deluding themselves, their sycophants and those 'above' them that they are actually achieving anything is slick/slimy management speak and the ability to present the Emperors New Clothes seems to be their only skill.
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"While Aegis is a good system, it doesn't fully meet all of our business requirements. There are also some technical limitations to it as a system which mean we need to plan now to put in place a more strategic solution. The NPS has therefore commissioned the development of a full set of business requirements. This is the first step towards creating a new victims database."
So it's not that good after all? Or maybe, just maybe, there is another opportunity to line the pockets of friends and old school pals, whilst continuing to sit around doing nothing of any use to anyone.
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Good-Christing-Hell. I don't know what terrifies me more: The fact that not only does this twaddle pass muster at High Command, or that someone thought it just the thing to pep up an already demoralised workforce. Want to know something really scary? This represents the best plan they've got for hammering a square peg into a round hole. Charts. Systems. Whisper on the grapevine has it that phone scripts are being considered to ensure continuity of supervision as workloads rotate around staff. This, to be fair, wasn't Grayling's big idea behind restructuring Probation - it's just one of the real world consequences of it. The Cocktrumpet.
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A direct result of TR in our area is that high risk (or schedule 15 offences) DRR/OMU cases come to NPS and get less intensive supervision than before the split. Whose bright idea was that then?..also..ooops - a significant number of people I supervise have come out of prison with a drug problem they didn't have before they went in.
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I am not as bleak as some about the future because I was always unhappy with being a slave to NOMS and its ridiculous need for control. I have taken the opportunity to drop some hours and am trying to fill the gap with my own creative ideas as to how to make things better. But I am clear that I need to be mercenary to a degree - no giving my ideas to my employers or other parties. It's not been an easy thing to do and so far there has been little reward.
Having a young family means there are risks, but there are risks involved in not taking the risks - risks of regret and a low level depression of staying and sticking to a routine, risks of not being a good example to my children. Under full-on NOMS control, as the Trusts were, there was a risk of just rusting away in front of a computer. For those in the NPS there is a risk of becoming moribund under ridiculous bureaucracy and terrible Civil Service speak - it seems that yesterday's blog shows how our new directors are already lapsing or fully immersing themselves in this. In my office people have left to start businesses and follow dreams. If you have a dream or an unfulfilled ambition outside of Probation, then this is as good a time as any to follow it.
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The wheels have already come off... it just remains to see how long before the momentum of the combined NOMS & CRC mass eventually grinds to a disastrous halt. There will always be some sort of service provision for those sentenced to supervision or released from prison - because that's what probation staff do, regardless of allocation. The courts won't stop making sentences. What is likely is that something terrible will happen and it will be evident that the disruption per the TR agenda was the cause. However... the disconnect of the MoJ/NOMS/CRC management structures from the reality of day-to-day practice is palpable; I would submit the argument that it is evident that they are making themselves ultra-distant from practitioners in order to distance themselves from any imminent disaster.
The CRC decision was made to enable profit for global enterprise - hence the budget & recruitment freeze & the apparent lack of CRC ownership activity (they ain't stoopid). The NPS decision was a Tory General Election smokescreen regarding high risk offenders & sentencing. Sad to say I fear that it will be NPS who fall foul of something dreadful first...and I suspect CRCs are hoping for this, so they can dodge any bullets & respond with some clever PR of their own. But some poor bastard somewhere is going to have to be the unnecessary victim in all of this.
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Lots and lots of overtime is going to be announced soon as they realise that OASys completions are up the Swanee and emergency measures will have to be put in place to give the impression that everything is all going well. The train is so huge that it has now left the rails and is careering into the public that have gathered to see what all the fuss is about. It might not have ground to a halt but it has certainly caused damage and those that can't see it are either on the outside looking in, on the inside with their eyes shut hoping it's not them that gets the 4am knock, apologists for TR (well it's happened now lets just get on with quietly slitting our own throats), or the three or four who really believe that TR will bring them great opportunities...usually CEOs and ACEs....
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Oasys means nothing, whats the problem? Just fudge them quickly, they'll be just as useful as before.
Given CRCs are now up and running as separate entities, we could perhaps expect some divergence of practice so eg the targets date for ISPs may vary in different CRCs. What is really concerning is that the NPS, one unified organisation, seems to have very different target dates for staff to complete ISPs varying between 5 and 15 days - how can that be? Does that means staff in the 5 day area could be placed in capability for missing a target which is 15 days somewhere else in that one organisation? It is absolute nonsense.
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No account is taken of pending prison releases when Community cases are allocated - but then N-Delius do not show prison cases due for release - another flaw in an overall piss-poor IT system.
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It is my understanding that ALL CRCs have same targets and for ISPs it is 10 days - some like my CRC are imposing 8 day as a safeguard since missing a target costs money. In relation to NPS - is it not 5 day for high risk and 15 for those in CRC which are deemed medium risk but due to nature of offence, RSR score or whatever the reason are in NPS? Just a thought - if NAPO is going to investigate it has to be across the board - they represent both sections of this ideological divide.
******
The writing's on the wall. Each week it's getting bleaker and bleaker and the blogs are getting longer, staff are leaving gaping holes that remaining staff simply cannot fill. I cant see Sodemexo or Burple Futures bringing anything to the table that will reverse the mess we are in.
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I am NPS in the South West and our target is for terminations, so they get prioritised over ISPs, start custody OASys. I've got ISPs still waiting to be done as I've also had parole reports addendum, part B and C to all do at the same time. Casenotes written needing to be typed up. Been over WMT since Oct and when management retiered to be in line with rest of NPS, WMT went up to 48% over. Now the WMT is London model not so easy to see. Yet management looking at sample of my cases to see where I am at as if it is totally my fault (it feels like).
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My reading is that community ISP's for the NPS are 15 days. The 5 day ISP is for custody cases; the OM has to get into prison and complete this within 5 days. I have a feeling that whoever is stupid enough to apply for TTG will get the honour of seeing all of the new receptions and completing the ISP. This will be between sorting out accommodation/licences and the 1001 other issues that new receptionists in prison AND those leaving will have.
Looking at the work that needs doing in the reception/discharge prisons, I have a feeling that most of the CRC will need to be in the prison to cope. My own view is that I would have absolutely nothing to do with TTG, and if you are directed just claim you have claustrophobia and cannot work in such an environment! It's for them to prove otherwise and they would not have a leg to stand on if they subsequently directed you and then you went immediately on the sick! As you will no longer have a caseload by this time, you might as well take the whole six month off on full pay.
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I work in Wales and I can assure you that the 5 day target is for all cases in the community whether they have attended or not (we are pretending custody are still done the old fashioned way until directed otherwise). Other priority targets are terminations, parole, part B and C's and home visits. Of course reviews and recording contacts are suffering and there are rumbles of steps being taken to rectify this.
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How can there be such confusion in NPS, the national organisation? Most areas within NPS do not appear to be doing the same thing....surely it defeats the whole object of being the NATIONAL NPS??
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A Plea. I have just returned to work after 5 months sickness absence and have to tell you it was the worst period of my life and sometimes, in the response of managers, staff and yes, occasionally on this blog I have been made to feel a sense of shame. We really need to have care when making statements that imply colleagues who are certified as unfit for work by their GP and Occupational Health (in my case) are somehow not honestly too ill to work.
When colleagues, perhaps tongue in cheek, refer to "going sick" and "you might as well take the whole six months off on full pay" they clearly have no experience of how ill you have to be to be signed off for so long. It is not something to be spoken of lightly and it is devastating to think that some think of 'the long term sick' as avoiding work. I was ill not dishonest. So please don't suggest colleagues could do this to cause disruption to TR, it just feeds the very worst attitudes of some HR and some Managers.
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I'm the author of that comment. It was not an implication of anything, rather an instruction, albeit tongue in cheek. I hope you are feeling much better though and welcome back into the (significantly changed) fold.
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Sick leave a doddle hey. Threatening meetings with the overtones of being sacked. Being off ill is no joke. Come on colleagues where has your humility gone......
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This rings true with me - I was a nervous wreck at work due to the manager taking a dislike to me and ended up going off and almost every week there was a phonecall trying to entice me back with reduced caseload etc etc. Being off was just as stressful but in a different way to actually being in work.
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Because of the current crap and job uncertainty I have decided to sell my house, I do not want to be jobless with a mortgage and face the inevitable re-possession. I will rent somewhere so if I go off sick or sleepwalk into a mistake that could lead to disciplinary I do not have to worry about finding somewhere to live. I have a few debts but all under 1k and will be paid off as soon as possible. Hopefully this will improve my approach to work - at the moment I work over and above cos I'm terrified about the house, but once my plans are in place I can see my mood lifting and feeling much better.
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How sad am I? To get myself to work I have written my daily salary in my diary and when it all gets too much I look at it and tell myself that's why I have to stay for another day. Honestly, I used to love my job.
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Well at least you got phone calls. I was off for 10 weeks, not one phone call, one letter, nothing. Not until I called in and said I was coming back to work. Then they asked me for a back to work meeting. At the meeting I was to be on phased return. Only to find because they are short staffed I was full time on my third day back. It felt no different, nothing has changed for me. They totally ignored why I was off. I said I nearly had a breakdown with the work, their reply, 'lucky you caught it in time'. What the hell does that mean?
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I'm in a prison and there is a review by NOMS of the OMU process. Do I stay or do I go because as we stand no one has the foggiest what's going to happen in the next twelve months.
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Stay in HMP. The field is a NIGHTMARE.
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I am fortunate in that being over 60 I have made the decision to take early retirement & leave at the end of March (PO in a CRC) - I just felt I no longer have the mental energy to take on board all the new changes ie not only the split but also ORA & TTG. Interestingly, just 2 days after I sent my email requesting early retirement, my SPO (a thoroughly nice & decent chap by the way) came to me following a senior management meeting saying would I consider returning after the end of March as agency staff on £24 per hour! I am not interested in this, it wasn't about the money for me, but it makes you wonder how much is sloshing around to pay for agency staff? Best wishes to all.
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At a Staff Roadshow for London CRC, MTCNovo said they made their bid for the contract with no knowledge of exactly what state the office buildings were in or what were the terms and conditions of the leases. This is why the "transition period" from 01/02/15 to 30/04/15 will allow due diligence to be carried out so that they know exactly what they have bought!
Reminds me of that TV programme "Storage Wars" where professional buyers bid in an auction for the contents of a storage locker that has been requisitioned when 3 months rent is owing. The buyers only have 5 minutes to peek at the contents and most of the content is kept under cover so he buyer needs to trust their judgement and experience. So now I understand why it it currently "business as usual" in London CRC.
This would definitely not happen in the takeover of a private business. Any take over without due diligence would be regarded as reckless. Why is it thought acceptable when bidding for London CRC? Clearly London CRC is so big and inefficient that any economies of scale will be well rewarded. I agree though that some of the smaller CRC areas will fail but I can see MTCNovo hoovering those CRC areas up - for a price of course! Welcome to Grayling's brave new world!
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Comment overheard today in CRC. "Our job should be reducing reoffending rates, not dealing with all the regions f***ing social problems". Methinks reality is dawning.
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As another many, many years in, I too have worked through many types of change and up to this point have always been able to find a way through whilst carrying on without really changing the core. However, this is the biggest and worst mess of them all. The abusive way the so called management are prepared to behave whilst deluding themselves, their sycophants and those 'above' them that they are actually achieving anything is slick/slimy management speak and the ability to present the Emperors New Clothes seems to be their only skill.
They achieve nothing. Their job is to resource and manage the worker to produce. They do neither. They produce nothing. They do not protect the public, reduce crime or victims. Yet they have the gall to sit around in meetings, oh so important, best frocks and suits and think they can come up with processes, solutions, when they could not, had no interest in or did not, do the job of protecting the public by reducing crime, they now seem able to persuade those who know no better that they actually know what they are talking about.
Consult they say, utter rubbish they wouldn't and don't know how to consult. No wonder it's a mess, cobbled together, ridiculously lengthy and ineffective...they don't even have the decency to proof read the stuff, amendment after amendment. Now, having given themselves plenty of time to get their dishonest self affirming, haven't I done well, stuff to send up the line. What manager tells their manager they are actually hopeless at their job? They forgot all about the 'bottom up' appraisal process conveniently and quickly didn't they! Now they reckon we have had enough time to have been able to work through their mire and let's pretend the months since June just didn't happen.
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I consider myself lucky to have a job I love and a reasonable income, although no pay rises anymore as I've been in a while, however a colleague pointed out, no payrise is actually a reduction in my pension. So for anyone who begrudges us payment, it's not all its cracked up to be especially as I now have to work until I'm 67! I've never been scared of hard work and will keep going, although I will do so with the same attitude expressed by today's guest blogger!
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I have tried to close my ears and eyes to all the bull shit speak that people seem to think they need to spew to sound as though they have something to say: "driving the..." "mobilisation..." "reconfiguration..." I try to remember why I chose to do this work, but I notice that, increasingly, those who come before the courts, are utterly irrelevant to the new and unnecessarily complex systems and processes dumped on us.
CG has set out to destroy the CJS - and the notion of 'justice seen to be done' - by replacing it with a production line set at such a pace we will all be too busy with our faces stuck in yet another shitty IT tool that doesn't work to notice exactly who is passing through the doors of the court. Once an error has occurred, it tends to be compounded as it travels along what is now an increasingly bureaucratic journey. The excellent reviews coming out of Hanson & White and others, all now counts for nothing, because all that matters now is the market, the volume, and process. I mourn the simplicity and efficiency of what has been destroyed.
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Everything that has ever come out of any serious case review has been completely ignored and abolished. Lets remember this when the Serious Case Reviews start pouring out in the future - and when they do lets bombard the MOJ and the media with the reasons for the failings, reminding them how we repeatedly said what would happen. The more pipes you put into a system, the greater the risk of leaks - that's the only thing I remember being said by a previous ACO - the very one who as a CEO was known for the 'JFDI' quote.
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Had to do a double take reading this, I could have written today's guest blog myself, and wondered if I'd been sleep blogging. I'm one of the people in line to be directed to a new LDU so have decided to volunteer in the vague hope I might get a little bit of a say in where I go. There will be no time to handover any of my existing clients. I don't know what will happen to them, some will be moving to their third PO in less than 9 months. The new LDU is in an area I am unfamiliar with. I don't know what services are available, who the partnership agencies are or even how to get around. I'm supposed to hit the ground running, it feels more like I'm hurtling to earth without a parachute.
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This just can't go on, and I sense a further split in the service around the corner. One where there will be those who do all the paper work, inputting, collection of information, referrals, recalls etc etc, and never see a client, and allocate cases to officers who's job will be 'only' to see clients all day and pass information back to those chained to their desk to update and take action.
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I am so glad I got VR. I could see, normally unflappable, colleagues starting to unravel with the atrophying effect of TR last year. There are few worse sensations than starting a new job, feeling completely overawed. You know though, it will soon start to ease off as you settle in and your new workmates rally as they don't want you to fail. When you've been there years and you spend every other day doing conference calls where the only crumb of comfort is that your managers and 'The Centre' or 'The Hub' are just as fucking clueless as you, you know that knot in your stomach is not going away any time soon.
I remember one of those calls where 2 admin managers reported experienced staff crying at the pace of the changes. The ACO listening in said that it was important that management had that kind of feedback to feed upwards. I suppose he had to say something but we all knew it was whistling in the dark. What a complete fuck up. Great blog today despite the subject matter, thanks for sharing.
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Really enjoyed today's blog - like somebody else said, it could have been written by any casemanager. We all seem to be experiencing the same problems up and down the country. The loss of staff is the most mindboggling of all - I've spoken to someone today who'd have stayed till 65 as they love their job and have no personal commitments per see but TR has put paid to that and they are going in the coming months aged 61 - that will be the 5th PO left from that office in the last 12 months.
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It's all gobbledegook - I've no idea what the NPS newsletter is saying. It seems we're getting processes for processes and guides to tell us when we're too stressed to read them. Nobody reads or uses process maps, audits and databases are of no benefit to probation officers, and IT upgrades are pointless when the IT is shite. My view can be summed up as Believe It Or Not I DON'T Care.
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We are all getting ridiculous numbers of briefings on updates on our email. If they get opened at all, they usually get discarded after reading the first paragraph, or more likely two sentences. Yesterday we got an urgent update on a briefing paper that no-one remembered or ever opened. It was written in a language no-one could understand. The next update might include a dictionary that no-one will ever look at! The fact that a 'Deputy Director' or whatever she is, could seriously think that this communication would be welcomed is unreal. The disconnect is now staggering. We need things that matter and make sense.
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Where are the offenders in this management speak, the people NPS are supposed to be working with to rehabilitate or protect the community from? This is someone who know nothing but wants to pretend what they are doing is important. Its a case of read and weep or laugh.
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I agree, it took same dep director 15 minutes to mention clients at recent engagement shots! Its all bollocks!
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Probation officers (and some clients too) are generally pretty good at stringing words together as evidenced by the posts on this blog. I agree there must be a course where managers are trained how to forget this and instead adopt this new business speak - a way of masking content that doesn't amount to much it seems to me. They are also given delusional pills that make them think everything is OK bar a few hiccoughs. I try to read stuff, I really do, but I get 'brain fail' (see today's guardian) when I try. I have however created a nice file in 'My Documents' where I'm dumping all of this garbage.
Consult they say, utter rubbish they wouldn't and don't know how to consult. No wonder it's a mess, cobbled together, ridiculously lengthy and ineffective...they don't even have the decency to proof read the stuff, amendment after amendment. Now, having given themselves plenty of time to get their dishonest self affirming, haven't I done well, stuff to send up the line. What manager tells their manager they are actually hopeless at their job? They forgot all about the 'bottom up' appraisal process conveniently and quickly didn't they! Now they reckon we have had enough time to have been able to work through their mire and let's pretend the months since June just didn't happen.
******
I consider myself lucky to have a job I love and a reasonable income, although no pay rises anymore as I've been in a while, however a colleague pointed out, no payrise is actually a reduction in my pension. So for anyone who begrudges us payment, it's not all its cracked up to be especially as I now have to work until I'm 67! I've never been scared of hard work and will keep going, although I will do so with the same attitude expressed by today's guest blogger!
******
I have tried to close my ears and eyes to all the bull shit speak that people seem to think they need to spew to sound as though they have something to say: "driving the..." "mobilisation..." "reconfiguration..." I try to remember why I chose to do this work, but I notice that, increasingly, those who come before the courts, are utterly irrelevant to the new and unnecessarily complex systems and processes dumped on us.
CG has set out to destroy the CJS - and the notion of 'justice seen to be done' - by replacing it with a production line set at such a pace we will all be too busy with our faces stuck in yet another shitty IT tool that doesn't work to notice exactly who is passing through the doors of the court. Once an error has occurred, it tends to be compounded as it travels along what is now an increasingly bureaucratic journey. The excellent reviews coming out of Hanson & White and others, all now counts for nothing, because all that matters now is the market, the volume, and process. I mourn the simplicity and efficiency of what has been destroyed.
******
Everything that has ever come out of any serious case review has been completely ignored and abolished. Lets remember this when the Serious Case Reviews start pouring out in the future - and when they do lets bombard the MOJ and the media with the reasons for the failings, reminding them how we repeatedly said what would happen. The more pipes you put into a system, the greater the risk of leaks - that's the only thing I remember being said by a previous ACO - the very one who as a CEO was known for the 'JFDI' quote.
******
Had to do a double take reading this, I could have written today's guest blog myself, and wondered if I'd been sleep blogging. I'm one of the people in line to be directed to a new LDU so have decided to volunteer in the vague hope I might get a little bit of a say in where I go. There will be no time to handover any of my existing clients. I don't know what will happen to them, some will be moving to their third PO in less than 9 months. The new LDU is in an area I am unfamiliar with. I don't know what services are available, who the partnership agencies are or even how to get around. I'm supposed to hit the ground running, it feels more like I'm hurtling to earth without a parachute.
******
This just can't go on, and I sense a further split in the service around the corner. One where there will be those who do all the paper work, inputting, collection of information, referrals, recalls etc etc, and never see a client, and allocate cases to officers who's job will be 'only' to see clients all day and pass information back to those chained to their desk to update and take action.
******
I am so glad I got VR. I could see, normally unflappable, colleagues starting to unravel with the atrophying effect of TR last year. There are few worse sensations than starting a new job, feeling completely overawed. You know though, it will soon start to ease off as you settle in and your new workmates rally as they don't want you to fail. When you've been there years and you spend every other day doing conference calls where the only crumb of comfort is that your managers and 'The Centre' or 'The Hub' are just as fucking clueless as you, you know that knot in your stomach is not going away any time soon.
I remember one of those calls where 2 admin managers reported experienced staff crying at the pace of the changes. The ACO listening in said that it was important that management had that kind of feedback to feed upwards. I suppose he had to say something but we all knew it was whistling in the dark. What a complete fuck up. Great blog today despite the subject matter, thanks for sharing.
******
Really enjoyed today's blog - like somebody else said, it could have been written by any casemanager. We all seem to be experiencing the same problems up and down the country. The loss of staff is the most mindboggling of all - I've spoken to someone today who'd have stayed till 65 as they love their job and have no personal commitments per see but TR has put paid to that and they are going in the coming months aged 61 - that will be the 5th PO left from that office in the last 12 months.
******
It's all gobbledegook - I've no idea what the NPS newsletter is saying. It seems we're getting processes for processes and guides to tell us when we're too stressed to read them. Nobody reads or uses process maps, audits and databases are of no benefit to probation officers, and IT upgrades are pointless when the IT is shite. My view can be summed up as Believe It Or Not I DON'T Care.
******
We are all getting ridiculous numbers of briefings on updates on our email. If they get opened at all, they usually get discarded after reading the first paragraph, or more likely two sentences. Yesterday we got an urgent update on a briefing paper that no-one remembered or ever opened. It was written in a language no-one could understand. The next update might include a dictionary that no-one will ever look at! The fact that a 'Deputy Director' or whatever she is, could seriously think that this communication would be welcomed is unreal. The disconnect is now staggering. We need things that matter and make sense.
******
Where are the offenders in this management speak, the people NPS are supposed to be working with to rehabilitate or protect the community from? This is someone who know nothing but wants to pretend what they are doing is important. Its a case of read and weep or laugh.
******
I agree, it took same dep director 15 minutes to mention clients at recent engagement shots! Its all bollocks!
******
Probation officers (and some clients too) are generally pretty good at stringing words together as evidenced by the posts on this blog. I agree there must be a course where managers are trained how to forget this and instead adopt this new business speak - a way of masking content that doesn't amount to much it seems to me. They are also given delusional pills that make them think everything is OK bar a few hiccoughs. I try to read stuff, I really do, but I get 'brain fail' (see today's guardian) when I try. I have however created a nice file in 'My Documents' where I'm dumping all of this garbage.
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"While Aegis is a good system, it doesn't fully meet all of our business requirements. There are also some technical limitations to it as a system which mean we need to plan now to put in place a more strategic solution. The NPS has therefore commissioned the development of a full set of business requirements. This is the first step towards creating a new victims database."
So it's not that good after all? Or maybe, just maybe, there is another opportunity to line the pockets of friends and old school pals, whilst continuing to sit around doing nothing of any use to anyone.
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Good-Christing-Hell. I don't know what terrifies me more: The fact that not only does this twaddle pass muster at High Command, or that someone thought it just the thing to pep up an already demoralised workforce. Want to know something really scary? This represents the best plan they've got for hammering a square peg into a round hole. Charts. Systems. Whisper on the grapevine has it that phone scripts are being considered to ensure continuity of supervision as workloads rotate around staff. This, to be fair, wasn't Grayling's big idea behind restructuring Probation - it's just one of the real world consequences of it. The Cocktrumpet.
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A direct result of TR in our area is that high risk (or schedule 15 offences) DRR/OMU cases come to NPS and get less intensive supervision than before the split. Whose bright idea was that then?..also..ooops - a significant number of people I supervise have come out of prison with a drug problem they didn't have before they went in.
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I am not as bleak as some about the future because I was always unhappy with being a slave to NOMS and its ridiculous need for control. I have taken the opportunity to drop some hours and am trying to fill the gap with my own creative ideas as to how to make things better. But I am clear that I need to be mercenary to a degree - no giving my ideas to my employers or other parties. It's not been an easy thing to do and so far there has been little reward.
Having a young family means there are risks, but there are risks involved in not taking the risks - risks of regret and a low level depression of staying and sticking to a routine, risks of not being a good example to my children. Under full-on NOMS control, as the Trusts were, there was a risk of just rusting away in front of a computer. For those in the NPS there is a risk of becoming moribund under ridiculous bureaucracy and terrible Civil Service speak - it seems that yesterday's blog shows how our new directors are already lapsing or fully immersing themselves in this. In my office people have left to start businesses and follow dreams. If you have a dream or an unfulfilled ambition outside of Probation, then this is as good a time as any to follow it.
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The wheels have already come off... it just remains to see how long before the momentum of the combined NOMS & CRC mass eventually grinds to a disastrous halt. There will always be some sort of service provision for those sentenced to supervision or released from prison - because that's what probation staff do, regardless of allocation. The courts won't stop making sentences. What is likely is that something terrible will happen and it will be evident that the disruption per the TR agenda was the cause. However... the disconnect of the MoJ/NOMS/CRC management structures from the reality of day-to-day practice is palpable; I would submit the argument that it is evident that they are making themselves ultra-distant from practitioners in order to distance themselves from any imminent disaster.
The CRC decision was made to enable profit for global enterprise - hence the budget & recruitment freeze & the apparent lack of CRC ownership activity (they ain't stoopid). The NPS decision was a Tory General Election smokescreen regarding high risk offenders & sentencing. Sad to say I fear that it will be NPS who fall foul of something dreadful first...and I suspect CRCs are hoping for this, so they can dodge any bullets & respond with some clever PR of their own. But some poor bastard somewhere is going to have to be the unnecessary victim in all of this.
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Lots and lots of overtime is going to be announced soon as they realise that OASys completions are up the Swanee and emergency measures will have to be put in place to give the impression that everything is all going well. The train is so huge that it has now left the rails and is careering into the public that have gathered to see what all the fuss is about. It might not have ground to a halt but it has certainly caused damage and those that can't see it are either on the outside looking in, on the inside with their eyes shut hoping it's not them that gets the 4am knock, apologists for TR (well it's happened now lets just get on with quietly slitting our own throats), or the three or four who really believe that TR will bring them great opportunities...usually CEOs and ACEs....
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Oasys means nothing, whats the problem? Just fudge them quickly, they'll be just as useful as before.
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