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May 20, 2008
TRADE UNION RESPONSE TO TRUST CONSULTATION
Napo AND Unisons response to consultation on becoming a Trust.
1. Napo and Unison attended a meeting at the end of April. We were given a PowerPoint presentation and went through the strategy document which HPA put out last February. The meeting in April was the first time HPA had invited the recognised trade unions to discuss their application for trust status in the so-called ‘second wave’. If they are successful they would become a probation trust in 2009. If not, then they go with the ‘third wave’. All probation areas will become trusts at some point.
2. We are aware that the whole trust framework is being reconsidered, so some of the following may be academic, but as we have been asked to respond to the current 3-year plan, we will do so, as we have not been told anything formally by HPA that the status quo has changed.
3. The union perception is that we are being sidelined as regards the trust application. We should not have been left waiting until the end of April for first discussions; there is to be a working party, but there is no place for the trade unions. The strategy is intended to be underpinned by values. Of particular interest to the trade unions is the value about ‘open communication and collaboration’ This is not our experience as in our view HPA often fails to be open and shows an aversion to collaboration and partnership. Values about respect and a belief in change are always to be welcomed. We hope all the plans in the 3 year strategy are informed by a range of values that are person-centred. We believe that the best way an employer can value its employees is through decent pay that rewards the source of the current high performance levels in probation – the hard work of the staff.
4. As part of the selection process to becoming a trust the organisation should be able to demonstrate ‘effective working relations are maintained with its trade unions’. HPA submitted its Capability Assessment last February. In the assessment the picture portrayed of HPA relations with the unions is positive: there is mention of scheduled meetings with HR, formal consultation, etc. However, the reality is different - that document says nothing about the cessation of meetings with HR last December, the threats to trade union facility time, the breakdown in working on policies, HPA’s threat to unilaterally impose new working practices and the limitations on Napo’s ability to communicate with members through Lotus Notes. The actual state of current relations between HPA and the trade unions are far from effective. But you would not get that impression from the submitted assessment.
5. The trade unions campaigned against the worst manifestations of NOMs. About twenty concessions were secured including the retention of national collective pay bargaining, the retention of core work for three years, and restrictions on other ‘freedoms’ that were being sought in the original offender management bill. Some probation areas wanted to see an abandonment of national pay negotiations.
6. The purpose of the HPA strategic plan is to propose a framework for the development of the Area for the three years from 2008-2011. However there is no evidence in the proposals of an audit of the current situation in HPA to inform future development. Account has been taken of other factors such as national economic, social and legal developments, and an assumption that HPA is performing well currently. However there has been evidence in recent years of a lack of formal planning underpinning fundamental changes to staff roles, a lack of effective communication with staff, and a failure of training provision to support new practice. An example of this is that HPA sources much of its performance information from CRAMs, but Offender Managers have, in general, received very little training on the use of CRAMs.
7. The Strategic Plan inevitably focuses on performance, however measures to achieve performance targets need to be underpinned, in an organisation for which staff is the major resource, on ensuring that staff are able to perform their roles with support from management. There is mention in the plan of the introduction of a pilot Workload Management Tool and a Staff Care Agreement during Year 1; however half-way through Year 1 there is no evidence of this. Although there are plans for the provision of management training for middle management, this is again focused on performance management and makes no provision for staff management skills. The style of management which appears to be preferred in HPA is a directive micro-management style which does not encourage staff to take personal responsibility for doing well those tasks which they have been employed to do.
8. There is provision within the plan for all staff to achieve NVQ Level 2; I am aware that there was an audit of levels at which PSOs are already qualified, but I have not seen any published results. Anecdotally it appears that the majority of staff are qualified beyond this level.
9. Aim 3 objective 2 is concerned with staff surveys showing increasing morale and high levels of satisfaction, achieved by the introduction of a recognition programme. Staff morale is not high at present and this will only be achieved if staff management skills are assessed and improved. A staff reward scheme is inappropriate at this time. Communication is also currently poor; research needs to take place to discover whether e-mail is an effective means of communicating essential information. Studies in other industries have shown that it is not effective. The plan aspires (Page 6) to a ‘workforce characterised by: high degree of motivation (to do what?) and shared ownership of the corporate vision and values’ but there is no indication of how this will be achieved apart from the proposed reward and recognition scheme and regular staff surveys, both of which are fundamentally flawed. Staff are motivated by professional satisfaction and self-esteem in spite of increasing workloads in recent years; this does not have a connection with corporate ‘vision and values’. HPA will fail to engage its workforce while there is such a huge gap between COMT and those working with offenders. Friary House can be compared to the Forbidden City in Bejing: we all know it's there but we're not sure what goes on inside; we know it impacts on our working lives but do not feel we have a voice or the opportunity to influence its agenda.
10. The current plan is written to communicate with management and therefore uses jargon extensively; jargon is an ineffective method of communicating with the workforce and may conceal a lack of realistic planning.
11. It is unclear exactly what ‘freedoms’ the new trusts will have and what kind of national framework they will operate in. We don’t know how much HPA will spend in staff resources in making arrangements to assume trust status if they are given the go ahead in June 2008.
12. Though there are no references to ‘trade unions’ or ‘consultation’ in the 3-year strategy, there are countless references to ‘performance’. It is a strategy that has been written to a performance template. We don’t know if it will work nor what happens if it doesn’t work. The fact is HPA has not been good at dealing with organisational change – the integration of unpaid work being a more recent example. We also see a senior management that has paid insufficient attention to workload management. We saw intransigence over a twelve month period in reaching a simple and reasonable compromise on hire cars; on sickness management, the days lost may have reduced, but we all know of members who have been treated unfairly in the process. Confidence of our members is not high when it comes to current processes.
13. The setting of plans in probation over recent years has resembled the turning of a kaleidoscope. We have not known whether we have been coming or going. HPA, along with other trust aspirants will submit their 3 year strategies, but no one knows what will happen in the wider world. So, it is all fairly assumptive. Probation has been in constant revolution over the past ten years. Once there were 54 probation areas, then 42 within the remit of the national probation service; then came along the Noms vision and that got dimmer and dimmer until it was nothing more than a flicker that dare not speak its name. Now there will be 42 probation trusts – but for how long? Trusts that started out independently in the health service have since been forced to merge by the government. Only a credulous mind would believe that a trust has its fate in its own hands. There is always the political pressure to change, to reorganise, and to look for economies of scale. Who is to say there won’t just be ten super/titan probation areas in 5 years? We would be better to remember the words of Petronius Arbiter written two thousand years ago: ‘
14. ‘We trained hard - but it seemed every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.’
15. The trade unions are agnostic about trusts. They will happen sooner or later. Of far greater importance is the maintenance of strong and organised trade unions that are able to represent the interests of members collectively and individually. We are under no illusions that HPA would like to see the role of the unions weakened. The unions will seek to work constructively and honestly with HPA in our efforts to be part of a probation service that strives for performance and staff care with equal vigour.
END 15th May 2008
Posted by Hampshire at May 20, 2008 06:21 PM