October 24, 2005
Probation Values
Martin Wargent and Mike Nellis both spoke at Napo AGM on Saturday 15th Ocober about Probation Values. Their speech notes are below.
Vicky Borough's speech will also be added in due course.
The Value Base of a Probation Service of the Future
Speech given at Napo Conference 15 October 2005
By
Martin Wargent
Anyone who picks out core values lays themselves open to criticism for the ones they missed out. I’m going to unashamedly take my first three (from a total of four) from a speech that my association commissioned from the economist Will Hutton. We have also done some work on values and Will Hutton gave us three that underpin how probation should work in the public realm.
In the light of the Charles Clarke letter that you have, we have to look at these values against the looming reality of contestability. It would be pleasant to have the morning discussing philosophy and values and ignoring the real world, but we can’t. Values should inform us and guide us but not everyone is susceptible to their charms. The issue that we have to deal with one way or the other is contestability opening up criminal justice work to privatised provision. The issue from day one of NOMS was privatised provision. As NOMS has withered and failed to deliver – its only real legacy is privatised provision.
It’s just not true that life is one damn thing after another – it seems like the same damn thing – over and over. Privatise the probation service. People with more intelligence than me saw that the moment the Carter report came out. It’s what No. 10 wants, the PM wants, the PM’s ex-BBC adviser wants and they want it quickly. They want it now.
What values can we lay out?
Hutton’s three are:-
Universality
Equity
Accountability.
They are about publicness.
Publicness, says Hutton – is the great Enlightenment idea, the great joyous moment when Europe escaped the tyranny of having to think within the precepts of Crown and of Church. It’s the public space where what is true is exposed by debate, by the free exchange of ideas between men and women, where truth and evidence matter.
What a tremendous idea. That’s where you and I work – the public realm – a thing to be very proud about.
What underpins publicness?
Three Values
(1) Universality – something in the public realm that is available to everyone. In the Criminal Justice world, the same sentencers, offender assistance, same level of advice to courts, the same training, the same standards everywhere. Contestability – crudely done – blows that away. Do not believe those who tell you a mixed economy is necessarily good for probation. Those people don’t understand markets which are volatile and unstable. Competition is about being unstable.
Markets are where the strongest dominate, by-pass regulations, change the product and use whatever influence is available to enlarge the profitable and do away with the non-profitable. We can’t criticise them. This is how they must be – and some civil servants think they can control this. They don’t even understand it for what it is. When private provision arrives – universality in probation goes.
(2) Equity - as soon as private provision enters, charging policies shut down access. Equity says all must be treated alike, every student, passport applicant, every offender. But not if you come with a high or low price tag. Funding will flow towards high profit work. It’s so obvious I’m ashamed to be saying this.
(3) Accountability – we must have mechanisms of accountability that are not simply market transitional. In the Clarke letter ROMS are central they let contracts so local governance disappears and business-like trusts arrive. Boards with local people are abolished. For accountability to be real, we must have:
• Reliable, sound, honest in formation.
Not partial, not touting for business.
• Proper financial reporting.
Not hiding true costs.
• Planning for need – not commodifying and selling a product.
• Proper monitoring – by bodies with real power.
• Public voice in governance. Not centralising.
All these are essential for a public body – more especially a criminal justice agency.
The evidence is from health, railways, water, electricity and roads and (I put this mildly) not one of these is enhanced by private involvement.
We must fight for proper debate; we have a duty as public servants to so. We know from letters that HO is planning to curtail debate and say when challenged ‘we’ve been discussing this since 2004’. This is not proper. We know the Home Office is committed already to a plan and is not intending any consultation to affect it. That is not proper government. We have to continue to believe in the free exchange of ideas in the public realm where evidence matters. We know that contestability has been costed as a shadow exercise at £2m – but not costed beyond. This is frankly amazing. We know the Home Office admits privately to more layers of bureaucrats, and extra burdens on staff. There does need to be a business case, a rigorous, fully evidenced, professional comprehensive business case. Anything less will underline the flimsiness and the uncertainty that we have experienced through NOMS.
The fourth value that I would add is integrity. There are two strands to its meaning. One is about wholeness, soundness, being undamaged, not in unconnected parts. The other is simply about honesty.
Whoever advises the Home Secretary about the future of probation has not seemed to grasp the first meaning of integrity. The proposals you have seen are like someone grabbing at solutions, cobbling ideas together to reach a deadline. The service of the future as suggested will not be sound, or whole, but broken down into ‘commodified’ parts.
NOMS planning acts like a barometer for telling us the future and like a barometer there’s a vacuum at the top. A vacuum where ideas about proper structure, integration and evidence should co-exist. Time and again we see social problems being tackled through vast expenditure on changing structures and administration, a pointless exercise.
So these are my four values.
Universality
Equity
Accountability
Integrity
I want to go back to the issue of accountability and involving people in local governance – which we now see the Home Office intends to abolish. Unlike the rest of the public sector where the citizen’s voice and consumer choice are the issues – probation is set to be a centralised, civil service run organisation with a totally artificial market. Local people who are our customers will not govern probation or make choices, regional civil servants will. Sentencers who make choices – by local people for local people – are being taken out of governance and the accountability system. As your General Secretary often says ‘you couldn’t make it up’. Well, this week there is enormously important research news. The Magistrates’ Associations and PBA run a project where local community groups are given sentencing information. 65% of the public who initially favour a prison sentence vote for probation supervision. 89% who undertake this work say their confidence in probation supervision increases. That’s why localism, local governance, local involvement matter.
Ultimately of course it’s not down to us. Others take decisions and Parliament must decide. But if it all seems too much, if the political power plays seem too strong, if we’re tempted to think that globalised marketising of public services is too strong a force - then we have to go back to the values that underpin our work. We must make out the case for integrity in Criminal Justice – the weaknesses and the lack of values in the NOMS case may yet cause it to unravel.
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The Future of “the Probation Ideal”
Mike Nellis
Presentation to Napo AGM, Llandudno,
15th October 2005
We need justice, we need liberty, and we need as much solidarity as can be reconciled with justice and liberty. But we also need, as much as anything else, language adequate to the times we live in. We need to see how we live now, and we can only see with words and images which leave us no escape into nostalgia for some other time and place. (Michael Ignatieff (1984) The Needs of Strangers. Chatto and Windus
Changes in punishment are almost certain not to arise from a simple one dimensional effect. The forms of punishment employed by a society at any one moment are shaped by a variety of interests and intentions. They arise in response to what must often be antagonistic considerations, including the framework of law, what is technologically possible, what seems desirable or necessary in the light of the apparent problem of crime, what society is willing to accept and pay for. Why one method of punishment loses favour over time and gives way to another is a complex question because penal methods evolve within a larger social and cultural context. (John Beattie (1986) Crime and the Courts in England 1660 -1800. Oxford University Press. p470). (Rob Canton pointed this out to me)
Developing technology so that it performs quite different functions from the one for which it was originallly intended is the standard path of technological advance. The steam engine, developed for pumping water out of mines, revolutionised land and sea transport. The internal combustion engine, developed and still used for land transport, made possible powered flight. The personal computer was developed for the home, but its main economic impact has been in the office. ... The video camera was developed for use by the television industry but has become an important tool for security. .... Changes in the cost of existing technology, coupled with changes in society, will make the world in 2020 feel quite different, often in surprisng ways. (Hamish McRae (1995) The World in 2020: power, culture and prosperity - a vision of the future.Harper Collins . p167)
The Probation Service is in crisis -
cliche or truth?
The original NOMS plan would have absorbed probation into a new organisation;
contestability/purchaser-provider split would then fragment probation into unrecognisable pieces.
it has not happened yet –
because of NAPO/PBA resistance
..... but it still might & this would be a tragedy :
NOMS = improving control from the top, not improving quality of ground level services.
contestability = privatisation and technological transformation.
In 1999 Cordell Pillay set out to modernise Napo/ probation values - all credit to her - this event is a continuation of something that she had the wisdom to see was needed.
“The Probation Ideal”
non-punitive/ rehabiliative
caring to control/ controlling to care
scepticism about imprisonment
anti-oppressiveness.
this is a tradition worth defending, but recognise
a) a community dimension has been lacking
b) restricting liberty and threatening worse is always punitive in some degree.
but - how to defend it in the 21st century ?
how to modernise on your terms?
how to articulate values that resonate with the mood of contemporary Britain?
A Sketch of “Reinvented” Probation Values
community safety
COMMUNITY
JUSTICE
restorative justice hostility to custody
a) the overarching ideal is the creation of safe, convivial and inclusive communities
b) restorative justice seeks to balance the needs, rights and interests of victims and offenders
(effective rehabilitation is encompassed within restorative justice)
c) the democratic ideal - maximising liberty for maximum possible numbers of people +
achieving desistance (teaching skills for and pathways to crime-free lifestyles)
requires use of imprisonment as penalty of last resort.
i) limit criminalisation/imprisonablity
ii) promote ‘community prisons” - local with strong community links
anti-oppressiveness surely encompasses
a) reducing crime an d fear of crime in crime-blighted communities
b) challenging unnecessary use of prison.
so refocus the field.
think of the fields of community penalties/ offender resettlement and community safety /crime prevention as a single sphere of operation/ a single administrative entity
stand explicitly for non-violence
much of what you already do is about violence reduction - weave it into your public image
and become publicly known for:
a) understanding & narrating why violence occurs
b) your skills in challenging it
in our centenary year - rediscover “temperance” - tho’ you’ll need a new, modern word for it!
pick a fight with the commercial interests behind
the “booze, brawls and blades” culture
(choose serious enemies and get noticed)
don’t let the police monopolise
moral concern about this.
work with - but maintain a separate identity from - the police (Mike Nash’s issue):
the civilianisation of the police - the incorporation of probation functions - remains underexplored
respect and promote diversity - but not a “categorism” which intensifies a sense of “otherness” - empathy is precious.
“we are all more simply human than otherwise” (Harry Stack Sullivan)
accept the inevitable involvement of technology in community supervision and offender rehabilitation - but argue the ethics of it.
present forms of electronic monitoring (EM) may not survive - not punitive enough
the extra degree of control EM gives
is too small to be viable
but will something worse replace it?
so should Napo make full peace with EM?
should not probation run EM - as it does in mainland Europe - rather than the private sector ?
sometimes, think “places not cases” -
(Todd Clear)
focus on high crime/high resettlement neighbourhoods
adopt community development strategies
be prepared to change your vocabulary - be attuned to public moods and intellectual currents
and develop a language that enables you to participate - never sound wilfully or inadvertently
old-fashioned & nostalgic .
change words and names to preserve
and reinvent traditional ideals
eg rename probation “community justice”
be future-oriented
the politics of “community justice”
will remain defensive for the forseeable future.
these are dark times - preventing the worst from coming to the worst is noble and worthwhile.
but alongside this:
map possible & probable futures and articulate preferable ones , to avoid
a) being taken by surprise
b) becoming merely reactive to gov t initiatives
+
find, learn from, inspire and educate allies in
a) penal reform network
b) trade union movement
c) academia (not just via training)
d) arts and media
and Napo itself?
you will not have Judy McKnight, Cordell Pillay and Harry Fletcher forever.
you must find a new generation of leaders from among the brightest and the best of you:
people with a taste and a talent for serious penal politics - who can do 3 things:
a) articulate a compelling new vision
b) win political respect
c) carefully manage the tensions between being
a professional association and a trade union.
above all
Napo needs an immensely competent, intellectually sophisticated, politically astute
local membership who will work to
a) preserve an important social ideal &
b) simultaneously create a service you won’t be ashamed to work in -
it is your future that is at stake here , so
“if not you who, if not now when? “ (Primo Levi)
I’d be interested in any comments on this
mike.nellis@strath.ac.uk
Posted by jmcknight at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)
Roger Hill's Speech
Set out below is the speech that Roger Hill made to Napo's AGM on October 14th.
Director of Probation – speech to NAPO conference.
Thank you for the invitation to speak.
I am delighted to be here and consider myself to be among friends. I am also pleased to be in Wales. Particularly as the four Welsh Probation Areas have won the Public Sector Award from the Welsh Quality Association.
I have been a probation officer since 1978. For more than half of my life and for virtually all of my working life. I began as a probation officer in Stockton on Tees in the then Cleveland area. More recently I have been Chief of Lincolnshire, Deputy in London and Chief of London. I have been the Director of the NPS since April this year.
I am passionate about the NPS and believe in the work we do. When we are successful communities benefit and victims are prevented. This is important work, of significant social value. Reducing re-offending is our core business, it always has been and we are good at it. That is not to say we cant do better, I think we can, but I want you to hear a message of thanks and well done throughout this speech. The NPS is an organisation I am deeply proud of. The improvements and successes you have achieved are made even more creditable given the back drop of change that has existed over the last two years as we move towards the implementation of NOMS.
Having set the scene in a very general sense let me tell you what I want to talk about.
• Reducing re-offending, offender management, contestability and working together.
• Some key issues about the type of organisation we are.
• Key priorities we must deliver and achieve.
• NOMS future structures and consultation.
1 Reducing re-offending, offender management, contestability and working together.
When Charles Clarke gave his [arguably] first major speech on future corrections policy at the PRT conference on 19th September he may have surprised many by spending the first half of that speech talking about reducing re-offending.
He talked in detail about the contribution of the wider social policy agendas of accommodation, education, health care, employment and working with families as key and vital building blocks in turning offenders away from crime.
He effectively addressed the complex, politically difficult agenda that of being tough on the causes of crime.
It is my assessment that there is both political will and political weight behind this agenda at this time. More so than has been evident in the past and I consider it to be the agenda of paramount importance.
Seeking to access services for offenders as citizens is right and whilst some individual staff have had some success we have not, as an organisation been able to establish the principles of, for example offenders rights to access housing. The probation service are somehow always deemed to be the people who would say that wouldn’t they.
Working alongside the police and the prison service has made this slightly easier in recent years but there is [in my opinion] still a significant mountain to climb. I make no secret of the fact that I consider this agenda to be one where the ROMs could be highly influential, by intervening in other organisations commissioning processes. They are at a distance from daily service delivery and could make real progress in this area. Clearly it is a piece of work on which the Home Secretary places a high priority.
Turning to offender management, if there is anyone in this hall who does not believe in end-to-end offender management [even though we may know it rather better as case management] I would be surprised. It is a familiar concept and one many of us have aspired to one way and another over our careers. Establishing effective case management was one of the first tasks I set myself to achieve in Lincolnshire in 2001.
Offender Management is a sound approach and one I will work closely with Christine Knott to implement in the coming year. Next week I will appoint a new post of head of Offender Management in NPD. It is very pleasing to me that the argument that probation areas should deliver offender management appears to have been largely won at the centre.
I am keen to draw a distinction between the Offender Management Model and the separation of Offender Management from Interventions. They are two different things. The Offender Management Model being the far more important in my opinion. Offender management, or case management as we have known it over the years, is something we know well, do well and can implement well. The challenge of providing high quality offender management to those serving prison sentences is a change we must rise to.
Change in organisations including in the public sector is the norm. In just the last couple of months we have seen major proposals for change in health and in the police.
I am convinced that flexibility to adapt and change is where our future security lies. We will always have to respond to change either driven within the organisation requiring us to do things more efficiently and effectively, or change that is introduced to or by our external environment. For example in a world of commissioning we will need to be able to respond to the demands of commissioners, always ensuring we provide quality and value for money and therefore remain the provider of choice.
However good the past has been, and probation is due to reach its hundredth birthday, something we should celebrate, we all have to recognise that there are new demands and challenges ahead and take responsibility for delivering them.
Again in his speech to the PRT conference the Home Secretary referred to contestability. Significantly he linked the use of contestability to performance.
“The introduction of NOMS is also seeking to maximise the rehabilitative outcomes for every offender in a way that is far more consistent across the country. While some prison and probation areas have responded magnificently to these challenges and have improved, there are others which have not achieved as much as necessary. This is the reason why I am personally committed to the creation of a vibrant mixed economy with NOMS. I believe that, particularly within the voluntary and community sector, there is a large untapped resource which is keen to help us achieve the reductions in reoffending that I have described. A strong structure of commissioning and contestability in prisons and probation will create a wider range of appropriate interventions and raise the quality of offender management services across the country”.
I do not support the ideology of a market driven world in corrections, but I do not question the use of contestability as an approach to ensure the public sector [or any provider for that matter] delivers what is required. Linking contestability to performance in the way I believe Charles Clarke did was both an endorsement of probations achievements, and a challenge to deliver his agenda of change to reduce re-offending.
I do not fear contestability, because I believe in our achievements and the quality of service we provide. By developing effective partnership working between employers and trade unions at a local level I am convinced we can win any competition that comes our way.
Equally I am convinced that if we fail to work together our likelihood of winning is significantly reduced.
I know that NAPO opposes the concept of contestability and wishes to see probation maintained as a public sector function but if and when contestability is introduced we will need to work together to ensure that we retain our pre eminent status as the provider of choice of probation services.
In parallel with contestability there is also a government agenda for a wider range of providers in corrections. With 200,000 offenders on supervision in the community currently, an additional 40,000 who will come through custody plus and 250,000 reports a year there is clearly no shortage of work.
A range of voluntary, community and private sector organisations including organisations that deal with the needs of minorities want to work with us and I want to rise to this collaborative agenda, and work alongside these other organisations as partners.
The more we collaborate prior to contestability the stronger our bids will be if and when we have to make them.
NAPO has shown it is able and willing to work closely with the NPD and the employers during the last year, we don’t always agree but most times we are able to resolve our differences to a mutual level of satisfaction.
Negotiations are sometimes difficult with each side coming from entrenched positions but collectively we have shown that through openness and a willingness to listen on each side we can move forward.
It may be difficult for many of you who have not been involved on the national scene to understand how hard Rob, Judy, Jonathan and others have worked for you and your interests in recent years. There was and probably still is amongst some on the employers side a belief that NAPO is locked in the past, my experiences have been and are substantially different.
So I am confident we can work together and build on our successes to date.
2 Some key issues about the type of organisation we are.
I want to look at what we have achieved around the HR side of the business, but first let me say something about diversity.
Diversity
There are real achievements in relation to diversity, but there is no room for complacency.
Traditionally I believe the probation service has been good at talking about its commitment to diversity and rather less than good about actually doing something about it. And diversity for me is about what you do. It is about how you behave towards other people and not entirely bound up in what you say, or the way you say it.
If ever there was a wake up call then the towards race equality thematic inspection in 2001 was it. 52% of black staff said they experienced racism at the hands of offenders, 57% experienced it at the hands of their colleagues. If we were to look again now, almost 5 years later would we still find the same thing? Like you I hope not.
Accelerate our development programme for under represented groups is into its second year. It is good to note that half of the participants on the first year of the programme have achieved promotion thorough competitive processes within the first half of the programme’s life.
We have re-formed the central diversity unit within NPD and have just advertised for a permanent head. We received the HMIP’s report on racially motivated offenders and are progressing the recommendations. On the issue of membership of far right groups such as the BNP despite there being a willingness on all sides to discuss such a ban within the probation service the matter has been referred to the Cabinet office for a decision across the public sector.
We will have to work hard to meet the new legislation in respect of sexual orientation and disability but I believe there is both a will and commitment to meet this challenge. I have been particularly impressed by the joint working between NPD and NAPO in respect of assistive technology and I am pleased at the significant progress that has been made.
Job Evaluation
Employers and Unions alike acknowledge that the national package was only possible by real partnership working. We now have a scheme that has been successfully independently assessed and can be rolled out.
It allows us to benchmark all our roles and jobs against national agreed standards. The training and implementation is due to start shortly and as we move to April 2006 we will see implementation commencing in Areas.
Work Load measurement Tool
Roll out is going ahead and extra resources have just been put into the project to ensure it is delivered by April 2006. Work has been undertaken to ensure the tool is compliant with CJA 2003, this of course means that the tool has to accommodate two sets of possible orders and licences for at least the next couple of years. I must express my thanks to Nottinghamshire for putting extra resources into the design of the desk top manual for the tool.
Health and Safety
NAPO led by Pete Bowyer and John Hague have been heavily involved in the development and roll of the Health and Safety Strategy. This followed by the policy on stress and on-going work in respect of occupational health is considered to be an exemplar by the Health and Safety Executive. Health and Safety has been re-audited by internal auditors and those Areas who appeared to perform poorly have received help and advice from NPD HR.
NAO Audit of Sickness Absence
Notification that we were to be the subject of a NAO audit of sickness absence across the NPS came as something of a shock.
I will not pretend that our performance in terms of sickness absence is any where near adequate. We have the worst sickness levels in the Home Office. I am afraid arguments that probation work is stressful do not hold water when similar stressful occupational groups record much lower sickness levels. Furthermore performance varies markedly between areas, some with as few as 5 days to date this year, some running closer to 20.
The response rate to the questionnaire that the NAO sent to all staff was disappointing, and it is fair to say that NAPO and the employers are both concerned about that. Low return rates often mean that statistically it is more likely that those with a grievance are likely to be in the majority rather than those who are neutral or positive about something.
I cannot pretend I am looking forward to a Public Accounts Committee hearing but by working together to reduce sickness absence I hope we will have a good story to tell at the Spring hearing. All 42 areas have produced action plans and sickness absence has fallen from 12.3 days for 2004/5 to 11.7 for the first quarter of 2005/6. From October sickness absence has gone back into the weighted scorecard.
Pay and Reward
Real negotiations have been a long time coming.
I have made it my business to ensure Richard Cullen and Iain McIntosh have a clear mandate for these discussions.
The discussions near conclusion. I am optimistic we can reach agreement.
Modernising the NPS
I am really pleased that the trade unions have agreed to be part of the Modernisation Programme Board.
This board will look at a number of issues and in particular during its early stages will focus on the role boundary issues between POs and PSOs. I know for many of you this is a key issue and I understand the need to get this right, equating skills, knowledge and experience against the level of risk an offender poses. To do this we need to address a number of training and development issues, but there is an urgency about this agenda.
I want to stress that the probation service needs PO’s PSO’s and administrative staff, together they are the strong backbone of reducing re-offending. I have no agenda that one grade is more important than another; they are quite simply different, but all very important.
3 Key priorities we must deliver and achieve.
Let me take you briefly through our current performance:
We are achieving or exceeding the enforcement, victim contact, court report timeliness, Basic Skills Starts, Basic Skills Awards and accredited programme targets. Basic Skills Awards at 228% of the profile is a fantastic achievement. This is much more than a target - these are offenders gaining skills that stand them in good stead for employment, a huge contribution to reducing re-offending. We are also very close to achieving the target on compliance and unpaid work completions.
DTTO completions at 85% is our most problematic area, and that was always going to be a tough target to achieve.
Again there is no room for complacency but this is a very good news story. We have really established ourselves as a public sector organisation that can deliver the governments agenda, and as I have already said it is so vital that we do just that.
I may be the only one here who believes this but I am a supporter of targets. I think all organisations require clarity about what they are required to achieve and targets do that. I do not see them as a substitute for quality but firmly believe they are a part of that agenda.
In a contestability situation bidders will be judged [in my opinion] on 4 criteria. Quantity, quality, cost and innovation. Achieving our targets deals with the quantity issue and goes some way to quality.
I would not want to be heading towards contestability in an environment of failing to achieve our targets.
Probation is performing better than ever and we need to maintain and where possible, and I believe it is possible improve that performance.
I do also have some concerns and some performance issues I would like to raise with you. First my biggest concern.
The assessment of the risk of harm
If anything defines us as an organisation this is it. It is a crucial responsibility and bound up with protecting the public.
You will be aware of the three year effective supervision inspection programme which covers all 42 areas during 2003/4, 2004/5 and 2005/6.
At the end of the first year of that programme Andrew Bridges, the Chief Inspector, told my predecessor that a finding of the ESI was only about 60% of risk of harm assessments were satisfactory. Or, in other words, about 40% were not. On the basis that he had, at that time, only inspected one third of the probation areas, Andrew felt able to leave that early finding out of his annual report and press release. We did not take this sufficiently seriously and perhaps unsurprisingly a few weeks after I started in role Andrew came to see me to explain that the second years findings were much the same as the first, and (in 2005) this year he had no choice but to include it in the annual report and the press release. I was deeply concerned by this and you will be aware of the circulars that have subsequently been issued and the action I have taken. Andrew accepts that I take this issue very seriously and I can assure you that I do. I am introducing two new measures that will demonstrate improvements.
The first measure is to assure me that the quality of the work done with those cases assessed as a high risk of harm is of a good standard. The second measure is to demonstrate that the quality of our risk of harm assessments – on all cases (through sampling) is adequate.
I am sure you will agree with me about the importance of this area of our work and will work with me to improve our current performance.
Enforcement and compliance
Enforcement and compliance are key areas of work and have the attention of the Prime Minister. It is essential we maintain our current performance and we need to prepare for the new end to end enforcement targets; in particular we will have to work closely with the courts on this.
Work in the courts
I want to talk about our work in the courts. For the eighteen months I worked in London I had a great deal to do with the courts and some of you will have heard me describe them before as our strongest allies and our sharpest critics. I want probation officers back in courts; I want PSOs in courts too. The timeliness target is likely to go and be replaced with a target for a percentage of reports delivered on the day.
Visible Unpaid Work
Let me talk about visible unpaid work. I have been a passionate advocate of unpaid work, community punishment, community service over the years. I consider our staff in unpaid work to be the unsung heroes of the probation service. I make no apologies that I have been perhaps the main driver of making unpaid work visible. The tangible reality of an offender who has offended against a community, paying back to that community, is to me a simple common sense. It is a significant potential source of confidence in community sentences. And with the prison population at capacity we need confidence in community sentences now. I want to make our unpaid work indispensable to government and the visibility campaign is at the heart of that.
Let me be clear. I do not subscribe to humiliating offenders but I do believe communities should identify the work through which offenders pay back, and I do believe that where possible unpaid work should be visible at the point of delivery.
Of course I realise visibility is not always possible and let me give you an extreme example to make the point. In Durham, an area I know well, most unpaid work is visible at the point of delivery. In environmental projects the work group are identifiable through logos on vehicles, etc. I applaud this and support it. They also have offenders who work in agency projects, one example being a hospice. This is not visible and, of course, never would be. Areas have discretion to move towards increasing visibility, but visibility at the point of delivery where sensible and possible is my expectation.
I have chosen to focus on unpaid work for another reason. I consider it to be particularly vulnerable to contestability and want to strengthen it and make it indispensable with the sole intention that we remain the provider of choice if there is a contest.
Finally I want to make the point that I have made repeatedly to Chiefs and Chairs since starting as Director of Probation. Performance is a partnership, if I can help areas to deliver through the NPD I will. Your performance difficulties are my performance difficulties. Your successes can be your own if you like though I’d be pleased to share in them too.
The encouraging turnaround in London performance, of itself a real credit to London staff, is a message to us all that performance improvement is achievable.
4 NOMS future structures and consultation.
Next week the Home Secretary will publish a consultation paper on the future structures for the probation service. I know NAPO will have a view on the proposals.
Following the speech to the PRT conference the Home Secretary held a stakeholder event for a range of staff. Key NAPO staff were there including Judy, Charles Clarke made an impromptu speech towards the end of the event and was very clear again about the key agenda being reducing re-offending and he emphasised the extent to which he wanted to consult on the best structures for the future.
It will be important that NAPO respond to the consultation frankly, constructively as a trades union and in a way that builds on the success we have achieved over the recent years of the national probation service.
Conclusion
I am really proud to be Director of Probation and I want to thank the officers of NAPO and all of you who deliver probation services across England and Wales for your efforts over the last twelve months.
I could not finish without saying a personal thank you to Rob Thomas for the leadership he has shown as Chair of NAPO. Rob fights hard for NAPO and has taken a realistic view of the problems that occasionally confront us. I look forward to working with Mike McClelland and welcome Mike to his new role.
Finally on behalf of the not just me but the Service generally thanks to all of you for your commitment to the national probation service.
Posted by jmcknight at 03:22 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2005
Judy's Annual Report Speech
Herewith the speech Judy made in presenting Napo's Annual Report.
We hope to get more speeches from other contributors to Conference to add to this site in the next few days.
Posted by jledger at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)
Contesting contestability
Conference has been angry about the Government's apparent willingness to dismantle the Probation Service and with it, 100 years of service to the community and the criminal justice system.
The documents attached speak for themselves. Make sure you read them, your colleagues read them, and get ready for action.
Details of the campaign will be with you soon.
1). Judy's letter to Charles Clarke (10/10): Download file
2). Fiona McTaggart's response (11/10): Download file
3). Judy's Circular 14/05 to AGM (14/10) Download file
4). Letter from Charles Clarke to John Prescott (30/9): Download file
Posted by jledger at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2005
Probation Privatisation - Napo fights back
Conference unanimously passed an emergency motion moved by Napo's outgoing and incoming National Chairs condemning the Home Secretary's threat to dismantle the Probation Service via privatisation. It also commits Napo to a full campaign of action for the maintenance of a public Probation Service.
Read the text of the motion (attached) and get ready for action. As Judy warned the Home Secretary concluding her Annual Report speech today - 'You ain't seen nothing yet!'.
Posted by jledger at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)
AGM in pictures
Here's a flavour of Conference in a very sunny Llandudno!
Posted by jledger at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2005
Thanks but no thanks
In a dramatic development AGM successfully overturned the Officers' decision to accept Martin Narey's offer to attend AGM tomorrow and speak about NOMS.
This offer had been made in the absence of a ministerial presence at AGM, all the Home Office Ministers invited having been unavailable.
The mood of Conference had not been improved on seeing a leaked letter from the Home Secretary which effectively seems to suggest that the future of the Probation Service is time limited as a result of legislation which will remove Boards and introduce widespread 'contestability'.
An emergency motion is likely. More news on this will follow.
Posted by jledger at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)
Chair's speech
Rob Thomas gave his final speech as Chair, a moving and passionate assessment of developments in Cafcass and the NPS.
The speech was warmly received by Conference reflecting the high regard in which Rob is held.
I hope to attach the speech in the near future.
Posted by jledger at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)
Section meetings
Cafcass Section AGM took place this morning with 50 people in attendance.
Guest speaker was your blogger and I spoke primarily about pay issues. Motions and Section Constitutional Amendments were passed.
NPS members were addressed by Roger Hill, NPS Director. There was a lively question time lasting more than half an hour. I'm hoping to be able to attach Roger's speech, although it may not be possible before next week.
Posted by jledger at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)
AGM Blog is back
Welcome. I'm hoping that this year's blog will not suffer last year's fate when the website crashed!
However, we have excellent IT support on hand in the form of Eric Lee! Eric is leading a session on the website for Branch reps at this AGM.
We are up and running and quorate. I will try and update when I can with latest news.
Jonathan Ledger
AGS
Posted by jledger at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)