Guest Blog 54

Long Haul and New Beginnings

It's been quite a journey with many new beginnings, including this guest piece. The title reflects my twitter journey @iangould5 which began in December 2013. Alongside 100's of others I too entered the affray to do whatever I could to defend against the indefensible. Whilst concerned this piece is 'off piste' from Jim's usual blogs, I'd like to share a little of my journey and MY take on Paul Seniors BJCJ retirement lecture at Hallam University (@yorkhull) and share whether or not it has inspired me going forward to be more robust.

This piece is devoted to all those who Probation work alongside daily, its Partners and friends that provide hope, purpose and opportunity and to all Probation staff (CRC/NPS) who take great pride in doing a job where making a difference, protecting the public, managing/reducing risk and getting the job done are all part of their hopes/aspirations.

Never a strong Napo person, I paid my dues for 33 years prior to early retirement in July 2015. Like many, retirement wasn't chosen lightly. Rather, aged 60, I did so for my personal health and well-being. I too took part in Industrial Action and stood proudly amongst managers and probation staff and went down to the House of Commons rally and subsequently attended Napo's Birmingham EGM. At the time I believed anything was possible and never gave up hope.

Prayerfully considered, my twitter campaign has taken many forms. Almost daily reading/RT of Jims blog/comments. Many will remember Joe Kuipers series on TR which I passionately RT, updating followers of correspondence outcomes with ministers, my own MP and yes 313 other MP's, RTs of Fridays Napo bulletin and not least RT/Fav so many staunchly loyal Probation protagonists/supporters/friends. Indeed, promoting everything worthy of Probation/Good news. Alongside, reading Facebook's Keep Probation Public Not Private. Indeed you could say Probation is in MY blood.

In the early days I wore my heart on my sleeve and shared much of my life history as a careleaver/survivor probation officer and SPO. With hindsight, this was all part of my own journey of self discovery and it was whilst on the twitter journey my path crossed with Paul Senior when the British Journal for Community Justice called for 'Thought Pieces/Letters' in 2012. Having left care/school at 14 and having plagiarised books through college/university, putting pen to paper has never been my forte. You can imagine how chuffed I was when my Dear Mr Grayling letter was published in Dec 2013.

Vocationally driven, it felt like a natural progression from being a careleaver/survivor to becoming a Probation Lifer. I'm immensely proud to have worked for the Probation Service and post retirement my Love of Probation hasn't waned.

Prior to celebrating/sharing another Probation Lifers Service I want to plug Every Child Leaving Care Matters. Indeed the long haul has sometimes been a lonely journey and I have often drawn strength from positively focusing with efforts on ECLCM. Feel free to visit the website at elclm.org and significantly consider and hopefully sign the petition.

So, it was just over a week ago when I started out on my long drive to Hallam University, Sheffield. I wasn't sure what to expect, although twitter exchanges suggested that I wouldn't be disappointed. In response to one commentator Paul tweeted 'he was going to give an evidence based appraisal before firing on ALL cylinders about TR'.

Arriving early it quickly became apparent that Paul is a highly respected and much loved Probation champion, evidenced by all the accolades. A whistle stop tour of 41 years service included, being a probation officer, a member of Napo's practice committee, member of CCETSW, Editor of Jarvis, helping develop the Diploma in Probation and creating the Hallam Centre for Criminal Justice and the Criminal Justice Portal. Significantly, for promoting evidence based practice which Paul boosted, as being Probation's greatest legacy. Through-out the TR debacle Paul remained resolute that Probation should remain Public. It was clear Paul was immensely proud of being invited to the Chair of the Probation Institute. So you could say that Paul is worth 'Listening' to. Very sad that the Government chose not too.

Possibly Paul's greatest tribute came from his biggest critic, Sir Martin Narey, who acknowledged that Paul was Probation through and through, had consistently demonstrated great capacity to defend against the indefensible, had a huge talent and whilst they had not always agreed, had healthy debates

I'm not proposing to go through the whole lecture as I believe that it will shortly be posted onto YouTube. Further, I would commend you purchase a copy of the BLCJ Spring edition 'Imagine Probation in 2020' which covers much of what Paul shared. However I do want to share what had the most impact on me.

Far from a gentle introduction Paul starts his lecture with a quote from Gramsci:

'I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who really live cannot help being a citizen and a partisan. Indifference and apathy are parasitism, perversion, not life. That is why I hate the indifferent.' (Gramsci : Prison Notebook) 

Through-out my long haul I've been very clear about what side I'm on. So this was very much to my liking, a hugely passionate start. I'm often struck by those who fundamentally believe that TR is working and have to accept that they too have chosen to take a different side.

The lecture coincided with the publication of the National Audit Office Report and whilst Paul had yet to fully digest its contents, you sense Paul was unconvinced by its opening gambit 'restructuring had been successful'. Rather, as the Independent/other Commentators subsequently reveal, the real impact of TR is to be found in the finer detail. Paul reflected on the vagaries of the report and was concerned there is no way to measure the success or otherwise for a number of years. As Paul went through the headlines his 'really' comment struck home.

Whilst addressing fears/concerns, Paul affirmed my own thoughts/beliefs which are also likely to be shared by many of you. The very heartbreak of a fragmented service, issues around communication and IT, the moral waste of talent and loss of experience, expertise and staff, staff feeling deskilled. Paul echoed your concerns about McDonald-style Intervention booths and later would mention the possibility of the privatisation of the NPS.

Through-out, Paul's pride in Probation was palpable, sharing how Probation had always been under attack and yet remain resolute and steadfast in all its efforts. There was a sense of great pride that despite everything, good practice continues. Further, TR was being driven like so many other privatisations, by economic pressure and political ideology. Certainly, all music to my ears. This is what I got out of bed early for every work day for 33 years. Only then for probation to be decimated, all for a political ideology and 26 votes. Paul's words were empowering, adding to a sense of being on the same wavelength.

Struck by Paul's view about 'historical perspectives', I valued his quote 'historical amnesia serves only those who wish to destroy/remove from the past'. I felt proud when he proclaimed 'the past is a cupboard FULL of light and all we have to do is find the keys to open up the door.' Further, history enables us to understand the Achilles heel of those parts that have caused us problems. Through-out this long haul I've been struck by efforts to 'snuff out' Probation's light. Yet we were always innovative, increasingly successful, positively role modelling pro-social behaviour alongside other Partners, assessing/managing risk, influencing changing lives and evidentially year on year, reducing re-offending rates.   Far from airbrushing out Probation, Paul made clear Probation must be at the heart of the future of the Criminal Justice profession.

Paul's pride in probation staff also shone 'Probation is an invaluable organisation and one which is worth giving your heart and soul to. Probation practice has never been so strong.' He explained how it was that whilst dismantling a Public Sector Probation service its legacy was being showcased across Europe. Despite everything, staff remained resilient and innovative, creatively adapting to an ever changing horizon with fewer resources. You could feel a deep sense of pride toward OUR Probation family. How could you not be inspired.

Possibly, and not by coincidence given last weeks blog on Surveillance, this was one of Paul's biggest fears as well as focusing too much on the American Way. Paul expressed concerns about the continued de-professionalization of Probation and significantly as Chair of the Probation Institute, what he referred to as politics of ignorance and despair.

Many will recall the recent Guardian article about 'Neo Liberalism' and Paul referred to 'holding onto the politics of paradox, believing that outcomes do not have to be inevitable'. For example Serco and G4S. In recent days we have seen NOMS take over Medway. During my Journey, I have always thought/prayed about Probation positively and actually have not wanted to see Probation staff fail. I actively tweet good news story's feeling that I didn't want to heap burning coals on a fiery inferno. However Paul referred to the very real possibility, despite sterling efforts, an outcome of failure.

It felt good when Paul mentioned how language is still resistant and like Jim Brown and many others who contribute to this blog that of NOT letting the 'Light' go out on either TR or the Probation ideal.

Sharing how Probation's essence is most effective when driven by strong values, ethics, diversity and occupational culture, Paul spoke of the emerging core practice elements of Desistance, Reflective Practice and the development of emotionally literate practitioner's. Paul strongly believes the Probation Institute can develop as a Centre of Excellence, a repository for evidence based practice, provide an environment in which Probation voice is spoken and heard and that the worst excesses of change are resisted in Partnership with others. Whilst I suspect that his worse fear is that the Probation Institute goes out of business. It is unsurprising that the Lecture finished with another quote:

'Standing back and seeing how it goes will result in the PI failing. The danger is that too many people will only realise that it might have been worth getting involved when it is too late to do so.' (Ann Worrell).

I've never been sure about the Probation Institute. Certainly, they have never RT any of my tweets, but perhaps that's not surprising. I often wonder if they read this blog. I suspect Paul does. Whilst 'trust' can be very costly and knowing of my naivety, I left with wanting to entrust faith in Paul's integrity and his LOVE of Probation and work alongside both his and indeed others efforts to keep the Probation Ideal very much in focus.

So what of my journey home? Well, I was very clear about what side of the fence I sat and this had been further inspired by what I had heard. Significantly, it was OK to believe in MY VOCATION and Public Service and proudly say the word Probation. Certainly I wasn't disappointed and would commend everyone who reads this to watch the YouTube footage and make up their own minds

I for one will be going nowhere soon. I still have 49 quotes from Deering/Feilzer Privatising Probation to tweet, 126 miles to swim and who knows maybe a further 107 quotes from BJCJ and that would be yet another New Beginning. That should keep me going for another 12 months. So, a Very big YES about this experience being a New Beginning for me to be more Robust. I have always said it's not finished until it's not over YET.

Indeed, Jim and Paul will know that just finishing this piece has been a remarkable Journey in itself.

Ian Gould

Napo at Work in the South West

Thanks to the reader for sending me the following which gives some insight into what's going on behind the scenes, I assume all over the country.

Branch report redundancies update 8

Date 27/04/16
Dear Napo members,

CRC Issues

It has been over a month since the last report and the continued deconstruction of the work we know moves at a pace. The offer of redundancies for the selected group of administration staff has seen management talk of around 30 staff being offered exit through the voluntarily redundancy scheme, in the Working Links Way. This figure is under serious revision partly from the learning management are doing, the recent NAPO PR you may have read and seen on TV and the challenges to the organisation by cutting so many staff. This will place unmanageable pressure on the rest of the operation. These cuts however many are finalised and we understand that there will now be fewer than originally stated.

Reductions to staffing will take place over the summer period. The volunteers applying for the EVR have been somewhat upset at the lack of news and actual decisions being managed in the promised timescale. This is something we are not commenting on at this stage. In terms of the applicants, we were surprised the vast majority of all administrators expressed an interest in the opportunity. What is clear and remains on JNCC record is that NAPO have at no time agreed redundancies are acceptable in the current situation voluntary or otherwise. The JNCC records are often argued over and can become disjointed in the way information is shared. Meetings are often rescheduled and the minutes fall out of sequence; nevertheless, we continue to remind NAPO members your JNCC has not had opportunity to provide alternative proposals to challenge the reductions as yet, or seek alternative process. In this regard that may seem appropriate as we are talking about voluntary exits at this time.

It is not just a simple matter to claim these are voluntary reductions in staffing. The key facts are the Unions were not consulted adequately or properly in order to ensure the employers provide a written response as to why they reject alternative proposals to save jobs. Members will realise this means it is likely the Working Links Way will force a similar structure on the remaining groups or grades of staff. Many of you will also understand that any roles that rely on administration will now automatically be affected. This means work will be displaced or lost or stopped. In any scenario without this group of staff the complexion of the working practices will change for all. The senior manager in fairness, has been resolute in his position that as the hubs and planned changes get more established the need in divisions for these key worker will naturally reduce. We do not agree but the process of many staff exiting voluntarily will determine what happens next; however, if and when the management mood changes based on budget forecasting and confirmation the legal process will be all the more critical in the protection of your interests. While we are held at arm’s length over staffing reductions this is not the same as staffing cuts through compulsory measures and if this becomes an eventuality then the cordial if not frosty relationship with senior management will no doubt harden.

The employers are not yet free from an appropriate level of dispute being registered as the need arises. Our key and central supporter from Napo Mike McClelland, who would normally be on guard to help us manage, is to retire at the end of May. Our link officer of many years Mike McClelland. Mike, our Link Officer has a long Probation and NAPO career, having been a national Chair and moving into the national officials role under the then General Secretary Judy McKnight. Mike’s talents for diplomacy and cool head, often reconciling all with his style and relaxed manner has been a central pin for NAPO and members interest. Of course it will be with great loss to the branch as Mike has a way of managing the pressures we exert as a strong JNCC group. We are well experienced and adequately qualified, willing to construct full challenges to the Working Links employers, yet we all realise and appreciate we have to maintain the important link to central office.

We thank Mike in solidarity and recognise his departure will almost certainly put the Pan or Joint union meetings at The Worle in difficulty and may falter as it offers little value to our local bargaining arrangements. Mike is within our divisional area and up to speed while reductions are taking place. How he can be replaced at this crucial time is yet to be seen but our group have to ask some critical questions about timing. We wish Mike well and thank him for his great efforts and commitments to the trade union NAPO.

In our last branch report dated the 09/0316 we mentioned in paragraph 7 

In-between all this and running parallel I have written to Thompson the lawyers through the General Secretary. This is a lengthy complex complaint that illustrates the failings and subversion tactics of the Working links management style and implementation of redundancy consultations. We have a right albeit time limited to get issues raised at the Central Arbitration Committee whereby process are not conducted properly, amongst a range of other serious and potential complaints can be heard and a ruling made. I will be releasing these as we receive legal advice and after Napo has had appropriate time to consider the implications and directions in our collective best interest.

Our position as NAPO JNCC reps issues are at a point whereby, internal process and consultative requirements upon us had become difficult. We felt we had to check a range of technical and legal positioning. For obvious reasons I am unable to share the legal advice as this remains a matter for the ongoing situation. The Reps face local level continual change and unclear status of where we are in process of consultation and the timescales. The voluntary process for redundancies is ongoing. These are not the same thing or require the same procedures as compulsory redundancies. I am able to share with members the letter that we wrote to Napo central as part of this report and keep you informed that we have not exhausted all avenues. We continually consider any prospects that we may have to engage, against the cuts to staffing position. Please keep in mind and to be fair our commentary in the attached letter to Mike McClelland and the General Secretary is not agreed by the DDC Chief Officer Mr Wiseman. 

While we argue about detail and nuance he has been consistent on some issues and these include a need to ensure all cuts are through a voluntary reduction process, EVR, although this has seen the words affordability mentioned of late. In fact Mr Wiseman appears to us at least genuine in his desire to ensure all other process to reduce staffing including, redeployment, retraining, early retirement, relocation, alternative working practices and possibly later on no doubt terms and conditions. Whether any of this holds water remains to be seen.

The letter dated the 17th Feb 2016 is attached for your information. I am sure the temptation will be to pass onward into media sites for other members information and ideas. Of course this is inevitable and we hope NAPO members might benefit from the information. Locally in the CRC relations with senior management continue although always strained given the agenda this is hardly a surprise. Most issues are diluted across the Joint unions meeting now and as Mike McCllelland has written a report on this already there seems little point repeating it.

NPS Issues

NPS have seen the release of the E3 finalised version which has gone out to local and national representative for consultation. NAPO locally circulated it to all members. We await the national response on the issues contained across the board and of course wonder in which direction this consultation will take members morale and wellbeing. The idea to reorganise NPS than to make any redundancies as noted by Mr C. Allars in his opening introduction on first read is a laudable one. However, the questions have already been raised as many staff in the NPS have actually stated they want to find a voluntary exit route out of the civil service, similar to the CRC. 

Attacks on terms and conditions are inevitable for members in the NPS and the disintegration of national collective bargaining are all reasons to look elsewhere as the employer is looking to run the NPS on dictate rather than collaboration between the employer and the workforce. It is incredible how backward this step appears on first thought yet it was so predictable. In some parts of the country already the blame for sickness absence is placed upon the staff with incredible criticisms for absenteeism whilst failing to acknowledge any reasons for the absence or indeed management failings to support the staff workforce. We have not seen anything as poor as this in our region and under the current Deputy Director I don’t think it likely thank goodness. 

Back to E3 and the canvassing of views especially the ongoing national dispute for the VLO’s here is a classic example of the flawed E3 agenda to reduce pay move officer from roles and then place them in a new structure or job. This leads to total disaffection. Staff placed in roles they did not apply for de professionalization through the back door and yet the benefit is no one is in fear of compulsory redundancy. Some would welcome that however yet lets not argue for any worse changes of direction.

All Staff

Coming up shortly in June is the NAPO branch AGM, this is a real chance for you the members to have a real say in what you need and want from the union activists. This year we are inviting and he will be attending, the National General Secretary Ian Lawrence. We are canvassing for members interest in attending. Please email any of the Napo reps so we can collate numbers and lunch arrangements We will also try and secure the elections process is out of the way as fast as possible so you can enjoy maximum time talking and questioning the direction and position of Napo leadership. The future potentials and where are to be in a few years time. Also and as yet not confirmed we are to invite another guest speaker with Ian Lawrence GS who will be able to balance the needs of the NPS as an organisation. All coming out in May so get the date booked into your diary for what we hope to ensure is an exciting and challenging AGM.

In the meantime we will continue to record all matters that have a bearing upon the posts in both organisations. And keep you posted.

Dino Peros Napo SSW Branch Chair JNCC Rep.
Helen Coley JNCC Rep. Denice James JNCC Rep.

--oo00oo--

17th February 2016

Mike McClelland, Ian Lawrence, 

REF CAC Complaint Central arbitration committee. 

Dear Mike,

1. It has been an interesting week or so and after having attended the latest DDCCRC shortsides JNCC today, myself and Denise had arrived at a point where we do not want to continue to be used as a part of a flawed and disingenuous consultation process. The elected roles that we hold are serious. We both agree the employer has not genuinely attempted open or reasonable consultation exchanges. There is no provision of accurate timely and appropriate information. This relates to all matters that directly impacting our members jobs. We as representative do not have the full information nor is there a clear acceptance that information is free to be consulted on as legally entitled. Currently we have several references from the employers that it requires detail to remain confidential. The figures are constantly subject to change, but that does not make them a secret.

2. At the Meeting of the Pan group on the 29 1 16 Mr Hindson released documents to the Unions since then in e-mail evidence has stated discussions are confidential. This is re-enforced by similar e-mail from Mr Wiseman. Also in a document he claims that early severance of Administration staff will not be delayed and it would go ahead as planned. This has now happened and at no point have the trade unions on our side had opportunity to respond to the proposals. Not seen the blueprint or checked to analyse any structures. We have not been able, other than, to object in writing and state the reasons of a lack of time and consultation process. There is no proper regard to the Unions that, has been honest and meaningful.

3. In the guidance below, we are as Union side able to lodge a formal complaint with the Central Arbitration committee. I am sure you will have already considered this as a direction for all three Working links controlled areas.

4. Myself and Denice James raised this issue in our JNCC of the 17 2 16. It was a simple of matter, of asking MR Wiseman 3 direct questions, of which he agreed to all. I record the exchange here because we have no doubt after Mr Wiseman started to understand the implications of what was exchanged there may well be an heavily amended sequence in the minutes. It will most likely be turned into something not so clear cut.

5. I put it to Mr Wiseman, “does he not accept, that we in the trade unions side are unable to consult properly given the Working links confidentiality requirement direction” . Mr Wiseman replied he “wholeheartedly” agreed on this point and understood the frustration for the unions.

6. We then put it to Mr Wiseman, does he not consider that the restriction has prevented in the main and is a limitation that makes meaningful consultation a failure. On this point Mr Wiseman replied that he absolutely agreed with our point and that it was unfortunate. It was matter that will need to be addressed in the Terms of reference conversation due on Friday with Mike McClelland. I had no idea as chair this was happening. I have to say having not been consulted as to what this branch requires. Something I do not think is acceptable or good enough for me or our members locally.

7. In our third point directly to Mr Wiseman we put it to him that the consultation process has therefore been a failure in terms of cooperation trust and mutual respect for our organisations duties. That the figures are unreliable and have increased since the Full time Equivalent figures have been amended. Also the poorly timed release of yet another and all new S188 that shows an additional burden applied to the DDCCRC. In fact the new figures equate to more than 40% more likely 50%. In reply Mr Wiseman although initially agreeing this point by stating he agreed he then went onto try and qualify the matter. It was a fair attempt but in effect he made no real inroads to addressing the failures, other than, to deny that he was aware of the revised figures of the 3rd February. When we met on the 4th of February Mr Wiseman asserts he did not know himself. On this matter it was not hard to accept Mr Wiseman was not aware of the figures as he claims he would have told us. While we accept Mr Wisemans assurance on this point alone, he was lost without appropriate details to many issues and his HR advisor offered nothing of any use than to question the dates we actually received the new S188. 

8. These were released to the unions late on the 10th Feb. This delay is simply a tactic to burn time in our opinion. The revised numbers were an increase and I have written of their impact in my letter to Mr Wiseman on the 10 2 16. The figures remain restricted and Mr Wiseman agrees this restriction inhibits legitimate duties for the Unions to consult. Ms Diane Powell offers the figures were offered in good faith. Yet the fudging and delay and secretive nature of their position suggest there is nothing we can accept as good faith. This was rejected Napo stated that information is not a matter of best guess or good faith. It is about accuracy and honest consultation something we have not experienced. It was these unrealistic expectations, I then notified Mr Wiseman of the Trade Union position. We are to seek to make a formal complaint to the Central Arbitration Committee. The seriousness was understood and Mr Wiseman argued gently for an opportunity to discuss the matters on Friday with Mike McClelland in their terms of reference conversation. It made little difference to our local position and regard to the matters as they currently stand. Except to say that I made it clear since the confidential embargo and the latest figures of the 10th of February the consultation period of the clock in consultation has effectively stalled and should be ceased because we are not able to consult appropriately under the requirements upon us all.

9. We now have to put the employer to scrutiny for its negligence, due diligence, or conduct. In order to insist they take notice to act properly. It is not as if Working links are poorly resourced or can claim they are not properly and legally advised. They employ HR experts and consultants who are working on the figures and use a lawyer to fill in the B.I.S. submission and HR1 forms. Therefore, we have to ask has their conduct been a deliberate choice in frustration of the unions position? This catalogue of mistakes process, errors, restrictions and delay, to open consultation have made this process a complete farce.

10. We should now ask for appropriate formal intervention to encourage this employer and its agents to act properly. We need appropriate legal advice on the situation having drastically altered since the announcement on figures from the 10th and the implications of the continued employment process of working Links without any released planning or honesty.

11. If Napo central do not want to call a sub action team together to draft the complaint under the headings I have included below please consider carefully that in the DDCCRC, myself, and a group will most likely issue a complaint in the absence of national support. Below are the documents I quoted to Mr Wiseman and have sent for inclusion in the minutes.

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION
UNION RECOGNITION

• The Recognition Agreement – identifies recognition of a trade union for the purposes of collective bargaining and individual representation. The right to disclosure of information for the purposes of collective bargaining is enjoyed only by recognised trade unions.
• Recognition is defined as meaning ‘recognition of the union by an employer, or two or more associated employers, to any extent, for the purpose of collective bargaining’. 
• Collective bargaining means ‘negotiations relating to or connected with one or more’ of the matters specified, namely: 

1. terms and conditions of employment or physical working conditions
2. engagement, non-engagement, termination or suspension of employment or duties of one or more workers
3. allocation of work or duties
4. matters of discipline
5. trade union membership or non-membership
6. facilities for union official
7. negotiation or consultation machinery, and other procedures, relating to any of the above matters, including recognition of the right of a trade union to represent employees in such procedures.

Section 181 Trade Union (Labour Relations) Consolidation Act provides that an employer is under a duty to disclose, on request, information relating to an independent recognised trade union where that information is both:

• information without which the trade union representative would be to a material extent impeded in carrying out collective bargaining – S181 (2)(a), and 
• information which it would be in accordance with good industrial relations practice to disclose for the purposes of collective bargaining

Employer’s defence
Even where a union has the right to disclosure under S181, the employer may still be able to refuse under S182 where:

• the disclosure would be against the interests of national security
• it would contravene other laws
• it would breach confidentiality
• it concerns information which relates specifically to an individual, unless they have consented
• it would cause substantial injury to the employer’s undertaking for reasons not related to collective bargaining
• it concerns information which has been obtained by the employer for the purposes of bringing, prosecuting or defending any legal proceedings

Remedy for failing to provide information

• The Central Arbitration Committee 

Hyperlink to recent outcomes all union led please take a look.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cac-outcome-unite-the-union-serco

These are the complaints heads that we are able to evidence and ask for the CAC to make a decision on.

Appendix 1

ISSUES UNDER THE INFORMATION AND CONSULTATION REGULATIONS ON
WHICH APPLICATIONS OR COMPLAINTS CAN BE MADE TO THE CAC

EMPLOYER’S OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE INFORMATION ON NUMBERS

1. Regulation 6(1)
Complaint by an employee or an employees’ representative that the employer has failed to provide information to determine the number of people employed by the undertaking in the UK or the number of employees that constitutes 10% of employees in the undertaking, or that information provided is false or incomplete. Complaint can be submitted no earlier than one month after the complainant requested the information. CAC can make an order specifying:

- the data to be disclosed;
- the date on which the employer refused to supply the data or disclosed false or incomplete information;
- the date (no earlier than one week from the date of the order) by which the employer must disclose the data.

VALIDITY OF EMPLOYER NOTIFICATION

7. Regulation 13(2)
Application by an employee or employees’ representative (within one month of the notification) that an employer notification to initiate negotiations under Regulation 11 is not valid because it did not conform with the requirements of Regulation 11(2):

- the notification should state that it is made for the purpose of the Regulations
- it should state the date on which it is issued
- it should be brought to the attention of all employees in the undertaking or was covered by the restriction in Regulation 12 (see paragraph 6 above).CAC can make a declaration as to whether the notification was valid

EMPLOYER’S FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH AGREEMENT/PROVISIONS

12. Regulation 22(1)
Where a negotiated agreement has been agreed or the standard provisions apply, a complaint may be made to the CAC by a relevant applicant, within three months of the alleged failure, that an employer has failed to comply with the terms of the agreement or one or more of the standard provisions. CAC can make an order requiring the employer to take steps to comply. The relevant applicant can apply to the EAT for a penalty notice. If the standard provisions apply, complaints may, for example, cover the following issues:

- not providing information under Regulation 20(1)(a), (b) and (c)
- not providing the information within the time, fashion and content

requirements under Regulation 20(2)
- not consulting on the issues described in Regulation 20(1)(b) and (c) under

Regulation 20(3)
- not consulting in accordance with the requirements in Regulation 20(4)

(See Appendix 2 for further information)

REQUIREMENT TO HOLD INFORMATION IN CONFIDENCE

13. Regulation 25(6)
Application by a recipient of information as to whether it is reasonable for the employer to require him or her to hold the information in confidence. CAC can make a declaration. Applies where there is a negotiated agreement or the standard provisions apply.

I have selected these as our most likely areas of complaint that are easily evidenced in the current record and we need to action a way that members see that we are taking the employer to task for the total and continued failure to engage properly.

Thanks

Dino Peros Branch Chair SSW
Cc mmc IL GS HC DJ

Latest From Napo 104

Here's the latest blog from Napo General Secretary:-

Napo secures significant protections in E3 negotiations

The E3 operational model is one of three key issues on which Napo negotiators have been involved over these past five months, the others being Pay (and future pay) and the shape of the National Negotiating Council and how a structure for engagement with NPS and CRC employers can best work in our members interests. There will be more news on the latter once we have dealt with the immediate issues around E3 that I am summarising below.

On E3, Napo has submitted the views of our members before and during the negotiations and of course there have been, and still are, a multitude of questions about what the programme will mean for each individual member of staff. These are being fed through to the E3 architects and I expect answers will be forthcoming by way of further communications and FAQs over the coming weeks.

Your Officers and Officials have been doing our level best to answer these as best we can, but I hope that our members will appreciate that it’s just not possible for us to have instantaneous answers to everything, especially as we have been engaged in what have been highly detailed negotiations. Everyone in the Napo leadership group acknowledges that much of what E3 proposes does not sit comfortably with our members, following the trauma caused by the implementation of TR.

No redundancy pledge

At the time of writing we are due to receive the near final version of an implementation agreement from NOMS. I will be reporting to the Probation Negotiating Committee and your National Executive Committee that the Officers and myself believe that the offers from the employer around job security and pay protection should be recommended to Napo members. The formal consultation ends on May 8th and NOMS will then be considering the representations that we have been submitting during our discussions. This does not mean that we will stop trying to influence the way in which the E3 blueprint is enacted and developed over the next two years. This is made clear in the wording in the agreement that we expect to be able to issue to Napo members next week in its entirety, before NOMS publish it to all staff afterwards.

I have been around the trade union world long enough to realise that for every success there are often tenfold disappointments. Nevertheless, I certainly won't be apologising for having helped to achieve what is the nearest thing to a no redundancy agreement that I have seen in the current climate.

Of course that won't mask the inescapable fact that E3 will impact differently on each individual especially in terms of possible relocation, and potential role changes, and that the longer term staffing projections (which we do not agree with) show that less people will be needed than now due to natural wastage; but this assurance is a major result for our members.

Pay protection

I wrote a few weeks back that none of us here are happy at all the outcomes of the job evaluation exercises that have been undertaken as part of E3. Many of you have made it clear how you share that view in no uncertain terms, but remember that the unions do not own this process and are not able to simply demand the results that we would all like to see. Our representations on this continue (as can be seen below).

Our overall approach here has been straightforward enough, in that the unions have said: if the employer wishes to undertake a business re-engineering exercise of this magnitude then it needs to do everything to protect staff from the consequences. I am pleased to say that our exhortations in this respect have also been successful, and any member of staff who falls the wrong side of the re-banding exercise will receive three years pay protection from the date on which an individual commences their duties in the new job description. NOMS have said that this will not include portable allowances such as Market Forces Supplements, but we are still in discussion about exactly how many staff may be affected by this.

A guaranteed future job role

Whilst the pay protection offer is no less than we all would have expected, we live in a different world from that of 18 months ago, and this achievement has required sign off at a high level in the NOMS/ MOJ food chain. But we have not stopped there, as the implementation agreement will make it clear that individuals in receipt of pay protection will, by the time that the three year term concludes, be moved to a role within their protected grade.

Again, I won’t pretend that this prospect will be comfortable for everyone as many of our members are quite content with (and take massive personal pride) in what they deliver and how they go about it, but notwithstanding, these are important protections that have been brought about by Napo's hard work and tenacity.

Training and developmental support

We have received a fair amount of enquiries from members on how this crucial issue is going to be progressed under the E3 programme. These vary between the need to ensure the maintenance of professional standards in the face of the 'more for less' strategy that has been imposed by the government, and serious concerns around the quality of what will be on offer and the longer term potential impact on public safety.

Exactly how this aspect of E3 will be put in place is still at large, but Napo will be wanting to see early evidence of the employers plans in this respect.

Job Evaluation review under way

As I have previously reported, the unions have agreed a process which will be applied to future job evaluation as part of organisational change together with an appeals process. This is already being utilised in respect of the AP Manager, AP Area Manager, AP Residential Worker and Victim Liaison Officer and we are in touch with specialist members to ensure consistency on the soon to be resubmitted job descriptions and job description questionnaires.

Last week after seeing some highly misleading communications around the VLO situation, I had reason to issue confirmation that individual appeals on these and the above Job Evaluation outcomes are not required. Please contact your Napo Link Officer if in any doubt.

This is important work that we intend to do properly, so an appeal for patience please to those understandably anxious members who have been pressing us for more news.

Consultation with Napo

We are pressing NOMS about the unanswered questions arising from the E3 negotiations and we will issue more news about this shortly. I also want to take this opportunity to again thank those Napo members who have stepped up to the plate for the E3 engagement events and those who have been involved in the JE process.

Whilst there are a number of areas (listed below) where work is still in progress, the view from the centre is that the job security and pay protection aspects represent the best that can be achieved by negotiation.

So what's not so good?

As I have said on more than one occasion, an operating model for the NPS should have been in place at the time that the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies were sold off, but it wasn't. Given that the NPS, as set up, was always going to be unsustainable financially and operationally, it was inevitable that major change of this nature would have to happen.

It would be wonderful if Napo and the other unions could simply say 'no' and make it all go away, but that's never going to happen unless we get ourselves into a position to wage an effective campaign of industrial action. That leaves us with the route of negotiation and the difficult task of getting answers to a number of important questions which our members are not unreasonably expecting.

The following is not exhaustive, but there is evident concern about the plan to rotate staff to different roles every few years. Some PSO members currently working with victims, managing enforcement or other specialist roles have been telling us that they do not want an OM role and would not welcome such a change especially without a pay increase that recognises the increase in their responsibilities.

Members have asked who will be responsible for developing the training that has been promised and how will it compare with that of POs who have spent between 15 months and 2 years qualifying with a dedicated practice tutor to coach them?

We, along with our members who work across the prison estate, eagerly await the outcome of the Offender Management in Custody Review and how this squares with Ministerial and Prime Ministerial statements about prison reform and the interface with E3.

On workload measurement, there is undoubtedly a lot still to do and Napo has robustly challenged NOMS on its initial calculations under E3. We will be entering into detailed discussions over the coming weeks to try and secure some realistic outcomes that take account of issues such as the impact on Victim workers who have told us that their work will be made harder because of the new IT system which requires manual input of all old and existing cases.

Similarly on ARMS administration, where caseworkers say that the E3 timings fail to take account of the actual time required to complete data input meaning that things can get missed.

On the proposed delivery regime for short format reports there is major concern amongst members. We have this high on our agenda for our forthcoming meeting with Michael Gove where we intend to explain how the delivery of more 'on the day' PSR reports (mainly by PSO's) has shifted the balance of work and responsibility in a way that is simply not safe. In advance of this, and as you would expect, we have also made it clear to senior NOMS management that this issue needs a major rethink, and in itself could be the catalyst for a specific campaign.

At this week’s engagement meeting we indicated our dissatisfaction about the late receipt of the equality analysis for E3 and its lack of detail. We have said that our members will expect to have time to examine this along with all of the component parts of E3.

Sticking with Napo

It's obvious that E3 represents another huge challenge for your union. That does not mean that we have accepted E3 in its totality, but it does mean that we have the chance to continue trying to reshape elements of the programme and influence the outcomes as best we can.

It’s what we have always done, but I recognise as much as anyone that we have come through the most turbulent time in Napo's long history and that victories however small, have been hard to come by. What I hope I have demonstrated is that we can still deliver when we have the involvement and professional input, from our members.

The protections under E3 have not just appeared out of thin air; they have come about because this union has worked hard to secure them. It’s another illustration of why it’s worth sticking with Napo, why existing members should make that switch to direct debit, why those who believe in the myth that we never achieve anything might at least think again, and why members should get involved and help shape our approach to these and the other important negotiations where are working hard on your behalf.

Please encourage your colleagues to read this post and to look out for more news which will follow in a members’ mail out next week.

Prison Musings 3

I suppose we should have realised what Wednesday night's ITV documentary on HMP Norwich was going to be like given the enthusiasm with which it was plugged by Andrew Selous and the MoJ publicity machine. I couldn't help noticing that there appeared to be a healthy number of staff present at all times and a twitter comment drew attention to the new clothing that seemed to be available from stores. 

Surely it would be far too cynical to suggest that the whole programme was stage-managed by NOMS, including the police raid on the visitors car park, in order to highlight the problems of drug-smuggling? Any casual viewer might be forgiven for appreciating that in fact there is a massive issue with prison staff bringing drugs, phones and simcards in. Anyway, as prison documentaries go, I found it pretty dull and as a bit of MoJ spin to convince us there's no crisis - well, it was unconvincing. There's a report here in the Daily Mail. 

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Despite the impression created by the film in HMP Norwich, here's yet another article on our prison problem in the Guardian yesterday:- 

Tough talk on crime has led to a crisis in Britain’s prisons

Britain’s prison population has gone beyond 90,000. This is a massive increase since Margaret Thatcher was prime minister three decades ago. In fact, in the 45-year period 1950 to 1995, the numbers in prison doubled, before doubling again in less than half that time. Meanwhile, over the last 15 years, Britain has increased the lengths of its prison stays by 33%. Now, one in seven prisoners serves more than 10 years, while the number of lifers and other long termers has doubled to 18% of all prisoners. Lifers’ and other long termers’ average lengths of stay have risen from 13 to 17 years in little more than a decade.

These are familiar problems to me: I used to run the New York City jail system. The United States incarcerates a larger proportion of its residents than any country on Earth. Almost 2.2 million people are locked up today, an almost eightfold increase from the 295,000 who were in jails in 1970. That’s almost 700 per 100,000 people. At the opposite pole are Finland and Sweden, with rates of 57 and 55 per 100,000.

How did we get here? We “got tough” on crime. So tough that over the last four decades sentences were dramatically increased and long prison terms required for hundreds of crimes; discretion was removed from judges; “second” or “three-strike” laws were mandated, so that decades or life in prison had to be served for second or third convictions, even non-violent ones. But we also got here by ignoring every piece of evidence about what did and didn’t work to reduce crime.

I recognise that some people pose a threat and need to be removed from society. But in the US we default to prison for terms so long we now have geriatric prisons for people who cannot go to the bathroom by themselves, much less pose a safety risk.

Today an almost universal academic and expert consensus has been reached that our policies regarding “mass incarceration” have failed. And it is not just progressives who have come to that conclusion but conservatives too.

So what can Britain, or any country for that matter, learn from us? Above all: don’t even think of doing what we did. It is wasteful, unjust, hugely expensive, inefficient and diverts funds from other essential areas of government such as social services, health and education – all of which can have a far greater public safety benefit than more prisons. But, sadly, Britain is repeating our disastrous, harmful and failed experiment.

Britain now incarcerates growing numbers of people at a cost of almost £3bn annually. No good can come of it – neither for public safety nor for crime control. Indeed, 46% of those who leave British prisons are reconvicted within a year of their release because incarceration has not remotely addressed issues that got them there in the first place – and in all likelihood made them worse.

Yet there is no “easy” solution to downsizing. British prisons will not get back to Thatcher-era population levels without tackling the issue of sentencing reform and length of stays head on: prison numbers cannot be meaningfully reduced merely via simple, politically safe policies such as diverting low-level offenders (who stay only briefly and take up little space).

In addition, the Ministry of Justice’s plan to significantly reduce the prison population by a reduction in reoffending has almost no chance of success. Most research indicates that even the best designed and implemented re-entry and rehabilitation programmes achieve only 10-15% reductions. This is important and worthwhile but would only reduce the reoffending rate to 41%. In the face of the rapid prison growth and increased sentence lengths, such a reduction will not have a large impact on numbers.

British prisons are now seriously overcrowded, operating at 111% of certified normal capacity on average – some at over 160%. Alongside this there have been huge cuts in prison officer staffing and, most disturbingly, suicides in prisons in England and Wales have skyrocketed, along with rates of in-prison homicides and assaults.

The number of suicides is a hugely important indicator of the health of any prison system. One with a high rate of suicides invariably manifests problems that go beyond the suicides. And suicides in English and Welsh prisons have almost doubled in just three years.

These statistics are shocking. Both the size of the increase in such a short period and the number itself – there were 100 suicides during the 12 months ending March 2016, compared with 52 for the 12 months ending March 2013 – means that there is a suicide rate of 117 per 100,000 prisoners, one of the highest rates in the world. The comparable rate in the US – hardly known for its progressive prisons nor for its low number of mentally ill prisoners – is 15 per 100,000. India’s rate is 18 per 100,000, and Canada’s 22. The number in England and Wales suggests a system in massive distress, and conditions of confinement that are badly deteriorating.

I am sure Britain’s prison governors and staff are valiantly trying to deal with all of this: but the Ministry of Justice’s plan to build prisons to ease overcrowding will not happen fast enough. As we in the US well know, you simply cannot build your way out of this problem. The US tried that and failed miserably.

In one way, it is too late: Britain has started down this road. But in another, the scale of imprisonment is geometrically lower in Britain than the US and, in a broad historical sense, you are just at the beginning of the failed journey we started over 40 years ago. If there is to be a course correction in Britain, now is the time.

Michael P Jacobson is a former NYC corrections and probation director and currently a professor at the City University of New York. He is the author of Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration.

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Alan Travis in the Guardian reveals that things have been so bad at the Medway Secure Training Centre that the MoJ will take direct control:-

Justice ministry to take over Medway child jail from G4S

The Ministry of Justice is to take over the management of a G4S-run child jail in Kent that has been at the centre of allegations of abuse and use of excessive force by staff, the Guardian has learned. The Medway secure training centre, which has been run by G4S since it opened in 1998, is to be taken over by the National Offender Management Service, which runs public sector prisons and probation services.

The decision, due to be announced next week, comes in advance of publication of an improvement board report for justice ministers that was expected to be published later this month detailing the future options for the child jail. Four members of staff were arrested on charges of child neglect after undercover filming exposed staff appearing to use excessive force to restrain youngsters, children being bullied by staff and officers lying when reporting incidents.

The private security firm announced in February in the wake of the allegations that it was selling its UK children’s services business including two secure training centres, at Medway and Oakhill, and 13 children’s homes. G4S’s existing contract to run Medway had been extended to July while the improvement board reported to justice ministers. The Ministry of Justice confirmed in April that G4S would not be taking on the new contract to run Medway that it had previously been awarded.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Our priority will always be the safety and welfare of young people in custody – that is why the justice secretary set up an independent improvement board to examine the running of Medway STC. This sits alongside a wider review of youth justice, led by Charlie Taylor. We are considering a range of options and will announce the next steps in due course.”

A G4S spokesman said: “The behaviour of some of our staff at Medway revealed in January was completely unacceptable. We have given our full support to the review being conducted by the ministry’s improvement board and will consider their findings carefully when they are published.”

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Finally, but off the topic of prison, I notice that the MoJ still have a major problem with the interpreter contract. This from the Guardian:- 

Thousands of court cases adjourned due to failures in interpreting services

More than 2,600 court cases have been adjourned over the past five years because of failures in the interpreting service, according to figures released by the Ministry of Justice. The extent of the problem was confirmed as doubts emerged about the viability of the troubled contract for interpreting services after the outsourcing firm Capita declined to bid for its renewal in October.

A war crimes trial at the Old Bailey collapsed last year and has had to be rescheduled because of problems over the quality of interpreting offered to the defendant, a Nepalese army officer. The figures for the number of cases rescheduled since 2011, when the new contract paying lower rates came into effect, have been provided by the justice minister Lord Faulks.

In the magistrates courts, 2,524 trials have had to be adjourned because of the lack of an interpreter over the past five years. In the crown court, where costs are far greater, 137 trials have had to be adjourned because of interpreter difficulties. The cumulative expense of the adjournments was not recorded.

Commenting on the failures, the Liberal Democrats’ justice spokesman, Lord Marks QC, said: “It goes without saying that every time an interpreter fails to turn up, either injustice is done, because the case goes on without one, or the case has to be adjourned, leading to delays and a waste of everyone’s time and costs.

“Even with improvement against targets, the number of court cases adjourned owing to the lack of interpreters has remained stubbornly high. As one judge put it, the only just target is 100% attendance. With the next contract the government must ensure effective and efficient attendance of high-quality interpreters at court to enable justice to be delivered.”

Capita, which has held the contract to provide interpreters in England and Wales for the past four years, has been heavily criticised in the past. Last year it was ordered to pay £16,000 by the most senior judge in the family courts for its “lamentable” failure to provide interpreters seven times in the course of a single adoption case. In 2013, the justice select committee described the manner in which the court interpreting service was privatised as shambolic.

Asked why it had decided not to bid for the main contract after being shortlisted, a Capita spokesperson said: “We took the decision to bid solely for Lot 2 [the more predictable ‘written translation and transcription’ service]. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”

Geoffrey Buckingham, an executive member of the European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association, said: “The available pool of interpreters is already limited, and the word is that many now have enough experience to move on to better-paid work. If borne out, then quality will continue to fall.

“The MoJ has not learned any lessons. The team names have changed, but the process is so flawed that one of those shortlisted in December has walked away. Capita Translation and Interpreting recently wrote to their interpreters saying they had taken the ‘strategic decision’ to withdraw from the procurement [process].”

Following Capita’s withdrawal, the two remaining bidders for the main contract are the Leeds-based translation company thebigword and the US firm TransPerfect. Earlier this week, thebigword won a £15m contract to provide telephone and face-to-face interpreting and translation services to UK central government organisations.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We are absolutely committed to improving performance and ensuring the highest standard of language services for those who need them. “Our latest figures show a 98% success rate in 2015 – the highest since the interpreting contract began – with complaints about the service at a record low, down 30% on last year. Since this contract was introduced, we have also spent £38m less on language service fees.”

Interpreters are self-employed and under no obligation to accept job requests. A boycott by interpreters three years ago, in protest at low pay rates, failed to persuade the government to abandon the contract.

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Stop Press 10.25am Photo from Howard League - staff at HMP Wormwood Scrubs have walked out over safety concerns at the prison.

What's Probation Like Today?

I don't know if I'm imagining things, but there seems to be an awful lot more being written about probation and its plight just lately, including this in the Guardian yesterday by a former ACPO in London:-  

I became a probation officer again – after 30 years

Never go back, so they say, no matter how enjoyable the past. Nevertheless, for a few months last year, I decided to do just that. More than three decades after starting life at the coalface of the probation service as a raw 25-year-old in Tottenham, north London, I began work again as a probation officer for one of the 21 newly formed private community rehabilitation companies (CRCs).

Plenty had happened in the intervening decades. The last time I had a caseload was in 1986. My speedy elevation to the ranks of probation management had been driven in part by financial considerations, as well as seeking approval from my father. He had never understood why I might want to help people who had offended, but found much more to celebrate when I became, in his words, a “gaffer”. Years later, I yearned to connect again with the passion I had felt as I had driven my old minivan to work, wearing a full beard to make me look older and wiser for those children, young people and old lags I was soon to meet.

So what did I find as I sought to relearn the ropes in the wake of the government’s recent reforms of the probation service?

A slimmed down public sector National Probation Service (NPS) now undertakes all court reports and manages those assessed as posing a high or very high risk of serious harm. It also supervises registered sex offenders and those subject to multi-agency public protection arrangements. CRCs handle the rest, including those at the highest risk of reoffending (rather than posing the highest risk of serious harm), community payback (formerly community service), and most group work programmes. They must also deliver something worthwhile to many thousands of highly needy short sentence prisoners who have had little or no attention from probation until now. Both organisations now coexist in the same buildings, but now there are two plaques outside each door and separate organisations inside, creating a sense of perverse disintegration of a previously integrated whole.

A National Audit Office report last week found that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) had successfully restructured probation without major disruption to services. However, it did find friction between staff working in the different organisations. Assessing risk of serious harm is an art rather than a science, and can quickly change, depending on what is happening in an offender’s life. The administrative demands of managing the transfer of complex cases across public/private sector organisational boundaries when risk has changed are substantial. This represents a major fault line in the new arrangements.

The split has major implications for staff and service users. All court reports must be undertaken by the NPS, including those on offenders already being supervised by the CRCs. Compare this to probation officers of the 1980s who used to do pretty much everything in relation to those they supervised. This elaborately constructed separation and specialisation creates a sense of fragmentation for staff and results in service users having to repeat their stories to many different people, which the NAO found to be a major source of dissatisfaction.

It is through having opportunities to establish and sustain constructive, purposeful relationships that we are all able to change and develop, whether an offender or not. Back in 2002, however, this had become disregarded and an obsessive emphasis placed instead on cognitive behavioural group work programmes.

On my return I saw some welcome indications that the value of relationships as the vehicle for human change had been recognised, with training in place to support practitioners’ skills in this vital area. Groups still played their part, for example in helping offenders with thinking skills or to move away from patterns of violent abuse of female partners, but the world is no longer besotted with them.

The challenge for overstretched probation staff is to find the time to provide what is so desperately needed, in the face of high caseloads (as was always the case) and major bureaucratic demands (a more recent phenomenon).

Cellular offices, secretaries and card index systems have long gone and been replaced by open-plan accommodation, administrators and a national electronic case management system. The latter is fiendishly clever in allowing users to create and access case records previously held in dusty filing cabinets. But it is staggeringly cumbersome, demanding a disproportionate amount of professional time be spent in routine desk-bound IT tasks instead of nurturing those relationships that we know make a difference. The NAO report highlights severe inefficiencies in relation to IT which confirms my impression that the problems are systemic.

Assessments of offenders, previously completed on a blank sheet of paper (occasionally brilliant but over-reliant on probations officers’ intuition) are no longer acceptable. Now a much-needed structure is provided through the offender assessment system (OASys). But this has the feel of a laborious tool for technicians, rather than an aid for professionals. It can run to 40 pages in length and it is easy to forget what has been written at the start when the end is finally reached.

On my return, I met many fine people. Some had stuck with probation through thick and thin, while others were just starting out on their careers, where training is employer, rather than university-led, and the old links with the social work training I undertook are sadly long since severed.

Despite the frustrations, I found a sense of exhilaration at suddenly having nothing between me and the person who walks through the probation service’s doors. I was reminded of how hard it is to always do the right thing under the pressure of day-to-day practice, and how in this role it is not possible to have the luxury of looking at things with hindsight, as I had so often been able to do as a manager. I was also reminded of my passion for working with troubled youth. Whereas at least half my caseload in the 1980s was made up of children, probation has long since passed this group to multi-agency youth offending teams (YOTs). So now it has an exclusively adult focus. This means that change is much harder to achieve among mostly adult men, for whom difficulties related to mental health, frequently combined with drug and alcohol misuse, employment and accommodation are both commonplace and deeply entrenched.

This led me to my next decision to remain on the frontline, but as a practitioner for a YOT where I now work where it is possible to help change the lives of tomorrow’s adults for the better.

In probation, so much has changed in the last 30 years – and yet maybe not. At the heart of the endeavour, though so much harder to spot than previously, lurks the prize of working to uncover potential which has remained hidden from view, often buried beneath unimaginable disappointment, despair and disadvantage. Today’s frontline workers, wherever they may be in the fragmented and divided world of probation, deserve our admiration and respect.

David Monk joined the probation service in north London in 1986. He became a senior manager and left the service in 2002 to head up a local Citizens Advice bureau. In 2015, he rejoined probation working on the frontline for one of the newly formed community rehabilitation companies. He now works in a youth offending team.

Such is the public's general disinterest, the article only seems to have attracted a handful of comments, including:-   

What he missed is the massive demoralisation in the Probation Service. I suppose he did get it because he decided to get out and go into youth justice.

A business operating in the interests of shareholders will presumably be expected to categorise as many difficult (but not necessarily dangerous) offenders as possible as high risk to get them off their books and as many easy (but potentially dangerous) offenders as possible into their offices.

Yep, there used to be a thing called IOM. Police, social services, mental health and probation working together to help really persistent but not dangerous people change. It was expensive and change was gradual (robbers to thieves to shoplifters to benefit fraudsters to ex offenders) The payment is based on re-offending (so OFF/ON) IOM is now dead in the water.

IOM is not totally dead and still very much supported, but sadly only internally and not by the purse string holders. The multi-agency working is still part of where I work and very much respected. A shame the breaking up of the service de-skilled so many highly proficient staff.

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I confess I haven't looked at the prisoners newspaper InsideTimes for a while, but despite what it says in the recent NAO report about most service users 'not noticing any difference' this letter clearly demonstrates another view:- 

‘Probation – a national disgrace’

I came back to prison in 2014 after an 11 year break and I must admit that when I listened to the vast number of inmates telling me how they had been recalled for the tiniest infringements, I did so with a fair amount of suspicion that I wasn’t hearing the full story. But, after hearing similar stories day in and day out from literally dozens of inmates I soon realised that these guys were telling the truth. The number of men here on recall is staggering. However, even this realisation did not prepare for my own experience with Probation.

“And so, come Christmas Eve I was duly despatched onto the streets of Exeter, with my £46 discharge grant, for my first ever experience of homelessness”

I was quite rightly convicted and sentenced in 2014 with a release date of Christmas Eve 2015. From day one I told Probation that my plan on release was to go and live with my brother for a few months until I got back on my feet with my own place. My Offender Manager wasn’t enthusiastic about this because my brother has a conviction from 9 years previous but it wasn’t until 18 days before my release date that Probation decided to inform me that they considered his address unsuitable. Owing to the time of year no other housing options were available and it was decided I was less likely to reoffend whilst homeless on the streets than I was with close support and a roof over my head.

And so, come Christmas Eve I was duly despatched onto the streets of Exeter, with my £46 discharge grant, for my first ever experience of homelessness. Interestingly, during my first few days I met 2 other lads in exactly the same predicament as me.

For myself, the option of either committing crime in order to feed myself or starving on the streets in late December was not really a choice. I lasted just 2 weeks before I was recalled to prison where I am now serving that recall.

What we do not deserve is to be failed by a system that is supposedly designed to rehabilitate and help us to rebuild our lives, but so often does nothing except help to destroy us.

No civilised society should ever put making profits alongside or ahead of rehabilitating those who break its laws, yet, here we are, in the 21st century, doing just that. Having spent just one 40 minute visit with my Offender Manager since my conviction in 2014, I speak from experience when I say that a Probation Officer’s workload makes it all but impossible for them to be effective. We need to get rid of all the government-imposed targets and tick-boxes, the red tape and paper-filling exercises, the one-size-fits-all courses, but most of all we need to eradicate the potential for ANYONE to turn a profit from something as essential and life-changing as our Probation Service. Only then will it cease to be an unfit for purpose national disgrace.

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On a completely different subject, given the growing need for foodbanks here in the UK, I find it somewhat surprising that our domestic media seem to have ignored this recent court decision from Italy, but is reported on this US website:- 

An Italian court just ruled that stealing food if you’re starving and homeless is not a crime

America could learn something from an Italian court’s decision that could help people who are homeless and starving avoid jail time and criminal convictions. Italy’s highest court of appeals ruled this week that stealing food is not a crime if it’s a minimal amount of food taken just to stave off extreme hunger.

The case revolved around a homeless man, Roman Ostriakov, who in 2011 was caught stealing around $4.50 worth of sausages and cheese from a supermarket in Genoa, the BBC reported. Last year, he was convicted of theft and sentenced to six months in jail, plus a $115 fine. The court of appeals decided on Monday that Ostriakov was trying to feed himself to survive, and overturned the conviction.

“The condition of the defendant and the circumstances in which the seizure of merchandise took place prove that he took possession of that small amount of food in the face of an immediate and essential need for nourishment, acting therefore in a state of necessity,” the ruling reads. “People should not be punished if, forced by need, they steal small quantities of food in order to meet the basic requirement of feeding themselves.”

In the U.S., according to the latest federal data from 2014, 48.1 million people were “food-insecure,” meaning they did not have enough to eat.

No Shit Sherlock!

Here we have a fascinating piece in Civil Service World highlighting how the third sector were shafted during the TR bidding process and were used as "bid candy!"  Why, if this carries on, there could be accusations of 'fiddling the figures'.

Transforming Rehabilitation: The MoJ's probation shake-up must not treat charities as "bid candy"

The National Audit Office (NAO) has delivered its verdict on the early days of Transforming Rehabilitation, the Ministry of Justice’s ambitious attempt to shake-up the probation system. As watchdog reports go, the MoJ will probably be pretty relieved.

Transforming Rehabilitation doesn’t get a clean bill of health — probation staff raised with the NAO concerns about workload and professional relationships, as CSW reported — but the report’s tone is generally positive. Amid substantial changes, with responsibility for managing ex-offenders split between new community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) and the national probation service, services were found to have been sustained successfully. Officials are praised for its handling of the 21 CRC contracts.

The NAO also refer, briefly, to the charities which bid for prime contracts. "Voluntary bodies were largely unsuccessful," its report concedes, "due to their more limited resources and appetite for risk". But this account feel partial at best.

Here at New Philanthropy Capital we know, from work we have done with rehabilitation charities over the last two years, that there was significant disquiet in the voluntary sector about how this process unfolded for them. Charities had been directly encouraged to apply to act as prime providers, including a senior MoJ official speaking at NPC’s annual conference in 2013 to emphasise how keen the department was to have some not-for-profit organisations in those roles.

Ultimately, though, 20 of the 21 prime contracts went to private providers, and one to a mutual led by probation staff. Some charities have been sub-contracted by the prime providers, but the involvement is far more limited than anticipated. NPC published a short account of those frustrations after we convened a discussion with major rehabilitation charities to reflect on what had gone wrong. All of the charities who bid to run CRCs were well-established, successful, and experienced in managing large public sector contracts.

In talking with us, the charities identified two broad reasons why they thought those bids hadn’t been successful. Firstly, there was a strong feeling that charities had been undone by key, eleventh-hour changes to the bidding process, which left voluntary organisations at a particular disadvantage.

Crucial details of a "parent company guarantee" were only refined after the first bidding rounds had been completed, which required bidders to have a parent company willing to stake assets equivalent to the size of the annual CRC contract. Working with far less capital than private companies, this meant charities needed to scramble to find a third party which would provide the guarantee and carry the risk. Not surprisingly, this created substantial extra work, and many would-be charity providers simply couldn’t find anyone willing to do so. The whole thing, explained one charity involved, was "chaotic and confused".

Secondly, there was a fear that charities’ involvement was merely cosmetic. Voluntary bodies came to suspect they were "bid candy", there only to give an appearance of balance to a process stacked against them: it was politically expedient for MoJ officials to engage them, but little more. These were major players in rehabilitation work, but some admitted to worrying that they had been naïve.

The charities have every right to be frustrated. Government officials shouldn’t play fast and loose with the charity sector. The frustrations we heard didn’t just turn on their failure to get contracts (although they were naturally unhappy about that, too). There was also a lot of annoyance about the amount of time wasted putting together bids which weren’t then taken seriously enough, and about the sacrifices made to meet conditions which shifted very late in the process. The MoJ "had behaved irresponsibility with charity resources", we were told.

This is no small deal for charities. Voluntary organisations must justify how they use their resources to their donors, and are required by law to make sure that their time is committed to achieving their charitable goals. When we met with the charities involved, they felt used. And that isn’t good enough.

In 2015, Transforming Rehabilitation won a Civil Service Award for, among other things, "building a diverse market". To be honest, this feels a bit rich. The charity sector brings diverse expertise to civil society, quite distinct from what would be found in public bodies and private companies. At its best, it can deliver lasting impact for society as a whole.

We think charities should have had the chance to head-up some of this work, with civil society organisations leading the way in a new system — but that chance has been lost.

About the author - James Noble is deputy head of measurement and evaluation at NPC, the charity think tank and consultancy​.

That NAO Report Explained 2

This from The Independent goes into a bit more detail and clearly confirms that TR is indeed quite an omnishambles:-

Watchdog savages Government's 'disastrous' privatisation of probation services

Serious failings in the Government’s privatisation of the probation services have been exposed in a damning report amid warnings that David Cameron’s “half-baked and reckless” policies have left the criminal justice system in a mess. The report by the independent Parliamentary spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, warns the Government has no way of knowing how well companies responsible for running the country’s probation services are performing due to a failure to collect accurate information.

It also says some of the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) may be manipulating or withholding data from government agencies while others are putting financial profit above public safety by ignoring difficult offenders who require the most help because it costs them too much money to treat them. The disclosures have sparked fears that companies are not subject to adequate oversight or scrutiny and led to calls for an urgent investigation into the rushed policy of selling off parts of the probation service en masse.

Andrew Neilson, from the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the report raises serious questions of whether companies were protecting financial profits rather than public safety. He told The Independent: 

“This clearly is not safe. A lack of reliable data means this report stops short of entirely condemning [the privatisation scheme], but the major problems it identifies suggests that the programme is a mess. This is an inauspicious start for untested reforms that could have disastrous consequences if they fail.”

Shadow Justice Secretary Charlie Falconer called for an immediate inquiry into the report’s findings: 

“This important independent report from the National Audit Office adds to the growing criticism of David Cameron’s half-baked and reckless privatisation of the probation service. With prisons in crisis and now the probation system seemingly failing to effectively rehabilitate offenders, we need a serious study of how private companies running prisons or probation reports their success or failure to the public. They should be open, transparent and should publish fully accurate and reliable data on reoffending whenever possible. Any suggestion that CRCs are withholding information from the National Probation Service should be investigated thoroughly.”

The report itself states that the Ministry [of Justice] should “as a matter of urgency ensure data are available to support the contract”, noting that under current provisions no data will emerge until late 2017, meaning there will be no accurate way of assessing the private companies’ performance until then.

Privatisation of probation services began in 2014, with responsibility for low- and medium-risk cases being outsourced to CRCs held in public ownership, before the scheme suddenly extended shortly before the general election in February 2015 to apply to commercial companies in the private sector. But the sudden rolling out of the proposals means the Government did not wait to find out the results of its own pilot scheme to test whether privatisation was appropriate for the probation service.

The rushed nature of the scheme also meant that Ministry of Justice staff struggled to cope with the demands: “Ministry teams appeared stretched in dealing with so many bidders with relatively junior staff sometimes fielding complex commercial, operational or legal questions,” the report outlines. A number of the companies that were awarded contracts had no experience of the sector at all and a number of others were set up shortly before being awarded contracts, meaning that they had no track record from which they could be assessed for their suitability.

The report also states that the Government has no way of knowing how well the CRCs are performing after failing to collect accurate data required to assess them. It adds that the Government has “no data” or “insufficiently robust data” in a variety of assessment criteria, concluding: “Performance of CRCs remains unclear given limitations around data quality and availability.” The report’s authors also express concerns that the private companies may be manipulating data, warning: “In the four CRCs we visited only three provided initial caseload data and these were presented as an average, which masks any variation within and across CRCs.”

It also notes that “many junior staff in the National Probation Service thought that their CRC contracts were often not providing them with necessary information”. These revelations led to accusations that the CRCs are putting commercial profit above quality of services and public safety, as “many junior staff in the National Probation Service thought their CRC contacts… had become too focused on their commercial interests as opposed to the best interests of the offenders”. The report also describes how the companies are paid per task they perform rather than whether reoffending rates go down, raising concerns that they are engaged in a box-ticking exercise rather than producing real results which reduce reoffending and protect the public.

Concerns have been raised that privatisation carries “an inherent risk” that private companies may avoid working with some offenders who need the most support because this could cost them more money and carry the risk that they will miss performance targets and subsequently incur financial penalties, despite the fact that working with difficult cases is necessary for public safety.

Probation services are responsible for monitoring and engaging with offenders once they are released from prison in order to reduce reoffending rates and ensure public safety. In February of last year, a privatisation scheme introduced under the coalition government saw responsibility for low- and medium-risk offenders sold off to CRCs, while responsibility for high risk offenders remains in state control through the National Probation Service (NPS). Around 80 per cent of probation work is now the responsibility of CRCs, costing the taxpayer some £450m per year.

Serious concerns have also been revealed regarding the NPS, which remains a state agency and manages high-risk offenders. The NPS has been found to have little awareness of how it operates or what contracts it holds. “It only has copies of around 30 per cent of its contracts and does not know exactly what it spends on good and services – its best estimate being £60m.” The NPS has been described as having no proper storage of records, instead using a chaotic system relying on information on older cases coming from staff who had been working there for long periods remembering the case details. The system has been described as having “extensive miscalculation and mis-recording of allocation decisions” about offenders.

The Ministry of Justice did not comment when approached by The Indepedent.

Lets Go Dutch

Regular readers will be aware of the work undertaken by Napo member David Raho, especially in the field of electronic monitoring, and I hope he will not mind my bringing his latest thoughts, published on Facebook, to as wide an audience as possible:-  

I have long been fascinated by the criminal justice system in the Netherlands and was really happy to see so many representatives from their three probation organisations at a recent conference I attended. It was obvious that those I spoke to had been tracking the progress of TR and were well informed. They told me they had learned a lot from our experience and would not wish to see a similar development that they described in apocalyptic terms.

The Dutch have much to talk about positively. Whilst we were bureaucratising our probation service and embarking on a huge cognitive behavioural experiment (without a corresponding investment in evaluation and research) whilst simultaneously pursuing a retributive and punitive criminal justice policy including a huge increase in the use of prison the Dutch were thinking about what society needs to do to tackle offending i.e. More investment in and commitment to reoffending and the use of custody in most cases as a last resort. They looked in disbelief as England and Wales ignored what had been proven to work on their doorstep and in fact told them their approach was better. Despite what was said to generations of probation trainees the approach taken in England and Wales was not an approach that meta analysis of old research had proven was likely to succeed in reducing reoffending or the number of people being sent to prison but rather a modified version of a system that had failed and been largely abandoned by every jurisdiction in which it had been tried except England and Wales until TR came along and we were transported back to the Dark Ages - be cautious about what you are told by government officials bearing gifts.

By contrast in the Netherlands they were focusing on rehabilitation and decarceration and the creation of a system that would ultimately lead to the closure of prisons and reductions in reoffending. I have always thought the Dutch model was far more likely to succeed.

Interestingly their concerns are not about deciding centrally controlled diktats from faceless NOMS/NPS bean counters or the tail spin trajectories of failing privatisation experiments but rather the large numbers of staff now being made redundant from prison closures because so many prisons are now empty. One Dutch official joked to me that the UK should cease building prisons as they could lease at least 30 ready built well designed prisons for a knock down rate in the Netherlands that could easily be fully staffed by highly trained bilingual Dutch prison staff. He pointed out that foreign multinationals already run prisons badly in the UK the difference would be to use a well run prison system that has a track record of helping to rehabilitate and reduce repeat offending. Of course it would also need a highly motivated and well resourced probation service to complete the job but unfortunately that no longer exists in England and Wales because the present government has decided that they want to keep building more prisons, understaffing them, and stuffing them full of people to bursting point having decimated the formerly well regarded probation service and deprofessionalising rehabilitation.

The government continue to see locking people up as an expensive but as far as they are concerned a good use of taxpayers money as it consistently wins votes as a popular move for dealing with those who offend (especially with those who naively think prison as the ultimate expression of retribution and punishment actually works) and the policy also conveniently lines the pockets of their corporate friends and supporters making the Conservative Party even more wealthy.

What is clear from the Dutch model is that the criminal justice system in England and Wales needs a great deal of transforming and more enlightened leadership that acts independently of party politics and political ideology and corporate interests and is instead based instead on what the research indicates is the approach most likely to succeed and therefore offers the best value to the whole of society. If for instance the probation service is to succeed again it needs to be reformed as one integrated service with well trained and motivated staff that is responsive to local needs. The rest of the criminal justice system needs to be taken in almost the opposite direction than it is going with better integration and a total rejection of privatisation with very strictly governed use of outsourcing in exceptional cases where expertise or technical services cannot be provided in-house.

As I have said before there is much that we can learn from jurisdictions that are a little bit closer to home who aim to rehabilitate and reintegrate their citizens and address the underlying causes of those who have offended rather than just locking them up, doing little to rehabilitate them, and chucking them out again without much support with few options. We need our criminal justice system to function for the good of society not simply for the political interests of whichever government happens to be in power.

David A Raho

--oo00oo--

Background to the above piece can be found here:-

Dutch prisons are closing because the country is so safe

In 2013, 19 prisons in the Netherlands closed because the country didn't have enough criminals to fill them. Now, five more are slated to close their doors by the end of the summer, according to internal documents obtained by The Telegraaf. While these closures will result in the loss of nearly 2,000 jobs, only 700 of which will transition into other unknown roles within Dutch law enforcement, the trend of closing prisons follows a steady drop in crime since 2004.

The problem of empty jail cells has even gotten to the point where, last September, the country imported 240 prisoners from Norway just to keep the facilities full. Still, according to The Telegraaf's report, Justice Minister Ard van der Steur announced to parliament that the cost of maintaining sparsely-filled prisons was cost-prohibitive for the small country.

A number of factors underlie the Netherlands' ability to keep its crime rate so low, namely, relaxed drug laws, a focus on rehabilitation over punishment, and an electronic ankle monitoring system that allows people to re-enter the workforce. A study published in 2008 found the ankle monitoring system reduced the recidivism rate by up to half compared to traditional incarceration. Instead of wasting away in a jail cell, eating up federal dollars, convicted criminals are given the opportunity to contribute to society.

These measures all add up to an unbelievably low incarceration rate: Although the Netherlands has a population of 17 million, only 11,600 people are locked up. That's a rate of 69 incarcerations per 100,000 people. The US, meanwhile, has a rate of 716 per 100,000 — the highest in the world. It's marked largely by its lack of attention to social services and rehabilitation programs once prisoners finish their sentences. Without a safety net to give them any other options, many fall back into their old habits.

Seeing as how the Netherlands is literally importing prisoners to keep jails full, larger countries like the US could learn a thing or two from the Dutch model.