Omnishambles Update 32

It's time for one of those roundups of bits and pieces that don't seem to fit neatly together and to start things off, here's a Napo branch memo indicating that some Trusts are rather more keen to get moving on TR than others:-

Members may be aware that on  22nd January a meeting has been called by the Head of Operations to commence splitting the workloads. The Branch challenged this at a meeting yesterday. The Trust now appears to be moving even quicker than the Secretary is demanding in implementing TR. Just prior to Christmas we were told that nothing would really change on 1st April and things would carry on as "normal" until June/July and possibly later. Why has this position changed and who is driving this change?

The local risk register shares a common factor with the MOJ's risk register. That risk factor is time-scales. We stated yesterday that splitting the work in itself needs a risk assessment which the Head of Operations acknowledged. A split in the caseload means not just cases but PSR's, parole reports, attending MAPPA in other words everything. Will members have to undertake reviews on all the cases that are being handed over? We assume that prior to 31st March management staff will have to undertake all outstanding appraisals? No job descriptions are available for members being transferred into the CRC. We are utterly manacled to process.

The Branch Executive met last night and we agreed to:

1. Send an email to members regarding this issue.

2. Seek guidance from Napo HQ and clarify  what is happening in other Trusts.

3. Consider lodging a dispute with the Trust following the Branch meeting on 23rd January.

4. As we believe this is a matter of public interest (risk register) we clearly have to consider a press release.

5. MP's need to be informed of the latest TR developments. This is particularly important as MP's will be voting on TR in January and I understand that one of the amendments put forward by the Opposition regards time-scales. This I understand will also be a feature of the debate in the House of Lords.

6. If a rigorous risk assessment is not available prior to any split of work and discussed with the Unions then consider lodging further grievances

Here's another memo from a Branch Chair at a different Trust concerning those grievances and the situation must be typical:-

Dear Members 

Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you have had a good break. Well despite the holiday season it's been a busy couple of weeks and I have been copied into and collating the individual members grievances that have been sent to me. It is with great deal of sadness I read the details of the grievances I have been sent as it demonstrates the disquiet and discontent that you are feeling. It is also clear that your grievances, like mine, are individual and personal to you. That's why it's disappointing that management seem to be applying a thick coat of Teflon and referring the grievances to the xPT  Transforming Rehabilitation team to deal with. 

Well I am not happy with my grievance going to a group who are actively progressing the very issue that aggravates my grievance and I have responded by asking that my grievance is dealt with by my manager and that xPT's grievance policy is adhered to. I leave it to you to decide how you want to respond to your reply from the TR team. 

As for further TR news I will be attending a campaigning meeting in London in couple of weeks and will be able to bring you news from the centre. I can tell you Harry Fletcher is busy at work with his parliamentary contacts and is seeing progress in overturning Lib Dem support for TR. The appointment of Simon Hughes  within the MoJ is a positive sign and although not directly responsible for probation, I know NAPO have had positive meetings with him. We still have some influence locally and contacting your Lib Dem and Labour MP's can still have an impact.

I read an interesting quote from Chris Grayling this week concerning his views on the European Court of Human Rights.

"The key issue here is that we were told recently by one of the senior officials of the court who came to Parliament that Britain was best in class when it came to human rights," he said.

"If the country that is best in class is saying: 'Hang on, this has gone too far, enough is enough', then actually it is for those in Strasbourg to ask themselves the question: 'Why has that come to pass?'.

Well Grayling...!  Probation has been assessed as being best in class and we are saying to you that you are going too far and enough is enough..!!

Keep fighting everyone it still all to play for....

Interestingly, nobody took up Rob Palmer's suggestion some time ago to post copies of grievances, suitably anonymised, on this blog or the Napo forum. Just thought I'd mention it. Talking of the Napo Forum, tailgunner has been busy posting a couple of interesting observations, such as this potential conflict situation:-

Officer of the Court & Civil Servant?

Civil Servants are responsible to their Ministers for their actions and conduct. They are supposed to provide an impartial service to the Government of the day or any future Government. For many decades, front line Probation staff have provided Courts with an objective and professional service as Officers of the Court. 

Is there not an issue of applied ethics here pertaining to the separation of powers and has it been properly aired yet? Has there been a proper debate over what it means to provide objective professional advice to the courts? Undoubtedly this is a road we’ve been travelling now for the better part of two decades as justice has become increasingly politicised but the (re) creation of Probation staff as civil servants is it’s denouement.

Put simply, I think there is a fundamental friction and maybe even an irreconcilable difference between being an ‘Officer of the Court’ and being a civil servant. Even this uncomfortable dichotomy is now to be overlain by a third uncomfortable partner which is the market. The question of servant and master is fundamental. Have we really examined this? In its curious idiosyncratic construct, the Probation Service has evolved in such a way as to be able to reconcile the pressures of having to account to different masters – Executive, Legislature and Judiciary/Magistracy. This is about to be shattered and have we even talked about it?

Rob Palmer's response is interesting too:-

I think the points made here are massively important but I think the so called (r)evolution that is TR is based on an incredibly superficial understanding of Probation's role. The creation of this supposed 'market' has, since it started, missed the point that the Probation Service has not one customer but several; sentencers, victims, offenders, the State, the public etc. The creation of this artificial market is overly simplistic and forces the players to at the very least place these customer in some form of artificial hierarchy. Personally, I suspect it has placed the State, as commissioner, as the only customer and everything else is peripheral with the obvious exception being the invisible but defining relationship between the private provider and its shareholders. It cannot BUT compromise the Justice process, be that at point of sentence (or even pre-sentence in the case of restorative approaches) or in the delivery of a sentence. A great example is the over-use of fixed penalties; by enabling Police to use fixed penalties, an opportunity to compromise the delivery of Justice has been built into the system i.e. is it cost effective to seek prosecution for a greater offence or to settle for a fixed penalty because it ends the matter now and gives the arresting Police Officer a guaranteed 'outcome'.

The market is going to change the relationships between all of the players and is unlikely to serve victims as victims have no market value. A happy victim cannot be turned into an increased dividend so is unlikely to be a priority. The only customers that will matter will be the commissioners and the shareholders. Everything else (i.e. the most important elements to existing practitioners) is entirely peripheral to the developing structure, despite the rhetoric from all sides.

In another post, Rob raises another little unforeseen problem with TR:-

Just got wind of this:

In some Trusts, colleagues have been working with their contract primes in the National Career Service (and for ESF/NOMs delivery) to look at how they can progress their contracts across to the CRCs for the 1st April 2014. All of these contracts require that the sub-contractor is 'Matrix Accredited' to the new standards and, consequently, all Probation ETE teams who deliver such contracts are already accredited to this quality benchmark. This accreditation, unsurprisingly, requires, time, resourcing and money to achieve.

The EMQC (the awarding body for the Matrix standard) have alerted providers to the fact that this Matrix Accreditation is not transferable to the CRCs on the 1st April 2014 as it is the Probation Service that holds the Matrix quality standard, not the proposed new organisation. Any CRC interested in delivering these services will need to start the process to achieve accreditation from scratch. This can take anything up to 6 months. This has immediate implications for the continued delivery of these contracts. Ironically, if these contracted elements of service delivery remain in the NPS, this is not a problem as the National Probation Service can continue to hold the existing accreditation.

In short, Grayling has shot some of the most effective partnership initiatives we have in the foot. Too much too quickly = omnishambles.

Finally, here's some evidence that the voluntary sector are getting cold feet about the whole TR project. It's not just the thought of inheriting a very disaffected workforce, it's the penny finally dropping that it's not going to be about a bit of cosy voluntary mentoring. The reality is, it's about statutory supervision, compulsion, uncooperative clients and sanctions. They don't like this at all and won't be bidding. I wonder if the MoJ know this yet? 

Here's Clive Martin, CEO of Clinks, interviewed for the Guardian on Wednesday, and rather than sounding like someone ready to bid, sounding remarkably like someone already mourning the impending loss of the very special ethos that is 'probation'

Clive Martin, director of the networking and advocacy charity Clinks, is concerned about the sheer volume of change. "Over the next 12 to 18 months there will be new supervision arrangements for over 300,000 people," he says. "All the providers of current supervision services will change and there is no one who will be left in the same role. From 1 April, community rehabilitation companies (CRC) will hold contracts for the transition period of a year and during that year the contracts will be handed over to the new providers. For Martin, rehabilitation is about giving people hope that they can change and the tools with which to do so.

"We are constantly fed the story of failure and of risk – what's really inspiring is the story of people changing for the better and turning their lives around, of which we hear less and less. But that is the story that really makes communities safer."

Does he think the government's new approach will crack it? "The way people change is through other people," he says. "Unfortunately the stuff we welcomed early on relating to mentoring is in danger of being replaced by the concept of supervision – which is about holding someone to account, rather than helping them chart a course so they are able to rehabilitate themselves."

Does he feel the system has lost faith in the possibility of rehabilitation? "I think the system has become all stick and no carrot," he says. "In my experience working in prison education, I met very few people who didn't want to change. But in public discourse and the way the issues are presented to the public by policymakers, there seems to be a sense that we have given up on hope. We talk about 'the market' and 'programmes', but we don't talk about people. For whatever reason, empathy has been pushed to the sidelines. We don't feel empathetic towards groups of people – even fairly obvious groups such as unemployed young people, who we tend to blame for their situation.

"If you look at what most people in prison were before they were labelled 'offender', they were people who had terrible upbringings, people who were abused, people with mental health problems – they're the sort of people we would normally tend to have some sympathy with, but we don't. We see them as a drain, a burden, rather than a part of us. We forget that there but for the grace of God go so many of us."

PS. Don't forget, Chris Grayling, Sadiq Khan, Sarah Teather and Patrick O'Flynn are the line-up on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions? tonight at 8.00pm, repeated on Saturday 1.10pm and followed by Any Answers? I have it on good authority that there are Napo members in the audience.