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April 30, 2009
USE OF VEHICLES FOR WORK TASKS
It has come to our notice that some staff members are being told they should use their own vehicles for work tasks due to a lack of pool car availability or time constraints. Members should remember that once you are deemed to be a casual car user there is no requirement for you to provide a vehicle for work duties anymore. You do not essentially need a car for work. Therefore, if for example, you are required to attend for an early morning legal visit to a prison or if you are required to travel a long distance to a multi-agency meeting, you do not need to use your own vehicle and incur car parking costs if you no longer bring a vehicle to the workplace. HPA have a duty to ensure that you can attend required meetings and appointments. Your senior management must arrange appropriate provisions that enable you to carry out your duties. Health and safety concerns must also be taken into consideration. Members are advised that if undertaking visits to offender homes they must follow health and safety guidelines.
Posted by Hampshire at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2009
PROBATION CUTS CAMPAIGN: “WHILE WE SUFFER THE BOX TICKERS WILL CONTINUE TO PROSPER”
Writing in the Observer on Sunday19 April, Nick Cohen said: “On paper, probation officers should be able to continue protecting the public and encouraging criminals to go straight. Certainly, their finances will tighten as cuts beckon, but they ought to have plenty of fat to spare because Gordon Brown threw funds at their service in the bubble years … and yet for all his munificence the number of qualified probation officers declined by 4%, public money went on managers engaged in constant reorganisations … worse than the administrative costs was a disastrous flirtation with computing…as they added more demands, the projected costs rose from £234m to £690m.” He continued: “Cuts may target form-fillers while sparing front-line staff only if they are accompanied by a revolution in government. As there is no prospect of revolution coming, the auditors will survive and prosper long after the Labour government that has pampered them to excess has gone.” Let’s hope he’s wrong.”
BULLETIN 2
Posted by Hampshire at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2009
CAR PARKING PROPOSALS
Napo attended a meeting with the HR Director to discuss the draft car parking proposal planned for implementation on June 1st 2009. We formally objected to the proposals as outlined due to the elitist nature of the designated roles, the unnecessarily bureaucratic nature of the proposals and the perceived inequalities in costs to staff throughout HPA that will result from implementation of this policy.
It was made clear to Napo that the proposal is for consultation only, not for negotiation.
As such Napo was advised that agreement on the proposals is not required and a new policy will be in place on June 1st 2009. However, HPA did state they were prepared to take into consideration staff views and concerns.
Napo made the following observations on the proposal as detailed on the HPA database;
• Designated roles favour senior management
Napo requested information regarding what criteria was used to assess designation as a role eligible for free parking. Napo were advised that Board Members felt senior managers frequently travel to various office locations and this necessitated the ability to move between sites quickly and efficiently. It was cited as a resource issue. Napo pointed out that the Probation Service is primarily a service that involves offender contact. Thus, primarily, operational staff need to be able to travel between offices and the community to meet with service users, attend meetings with other agencies etc. Napo pointed out that where staff have to utilise work time to travel to distant cost effective car parking sites this is also a resource issue. The proposed list of designated roles for free car parking is elitist and inequitable.
• Why are operational roles not considered to be designated roles?
As there is a resource issue linked to operational staff requiring access to their own or office provided vehicles, why are these roles not designated as eligible for free car parking? Napo pointed out that there should be a focus on encouraging staff to undertake home visits to service users to ensure we meet national targets. Surely staff incurring costs by bringing their own vehicles into city areas will have a negative impact on this practice?
• The proposal appears unclear, bureaucratic and difficult to interpret.
HPA insist that the proposal is complex and extremely detailed to ensure staff are eligible for appropriate subsidies in appropriate areas and according to appropriate mileage. Napo believe that any scheme could be simplified and much more equitable in distribution of any subsidies. Why not a blanket subsidy for all staff with weightings according to areas or local car parking costs. The costs of providing free car parking for so-called designated role holders could be used to offer financial assistance to all HPA staff who pay for car parking.
• The proposal is punitive in nature.
Why, in an organisation that purports to be motivational and supportive, do we have a proposal that threatens disciplinary action against staff who fail to adhere to policy? There should be a greater focus on support, incentive and reward for staff who adapt to the changing workplace.
• The proposal will lead to a vast financial disparity across the county for staff.
Currently some staff have free office car parking on site, although numbers are likely to vary as premises and office locations change. Any policy on car parking should acknowledge this disparity and support staff with appropriate geographical subsidies.
• Members have suggested alternative options that would decrease these variations and lead to a more equitable car parking scheme.
Inner city weightings, free parking for operational staff, basic subsidies for all; these are all options that could offer equitable and cost effective schemes for staff members.
HPA have a duty of care to staff. Napo feel this duty of care incorporates a responsibility towards general staff morale. The draft car parking proposal can certainly be seen to have had an effect on staff morale, though not a positive effect!
The HR Director states she will take Napo members concerns on board and possibly amend the proposal to reflect those concerns. It anticipated that any amended version of this proposal will be available for comment in early May. We will discuss this proposal, as it stands or as an amended version, at our Branch Meeting on the 8th May 2009.
Posted by Hampshire at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2009
IMPOSING A WORKLOADS MODEL
We all intuitively know what separates satisfactory consultation from unsatisfactory consultation, not least because we usually have experienced both. On the 15th April the management side sent out an email to the entire workforce to announce that a new workload tool will be imposed on the 1st June, despite the lack of agreement with Napo and Unison. The workforce will receive briefings, but will not be consulted about the changes.
The staff care agreement and the workloads tool is a long story which last October the unions believed was at an end. We went to a meeting with the intention of signing an agreement. However, the management side said they were not ready and needed to incorporate some changes. As they would not sign there was no option but to agree to a delay and continue with negotiations. To this end a Joint Statement was agreed with the management side and sent out on the 2nd February.
This is the note:
“Hampshire Probation Area (HPA) have been consulting and negotiating with NAPO and Unison on the development of a revised workload measurement tool and staff care agreement which reflects the implementation of OM2 and OM3 and brings up to date workload weightings related to reports and tiering. This has been a positive process and agreement has been reached on the staff care agreement and in principle agreement has been reached on the workload weightings.
The proposal from HPA, which was agreed by the TU's, was to defer ratification of the workload weightings pending the anticipated findings from the specifications, benchmarking and costings programme which could impact on the workload weightings part of the agreement. It has been agreed that these will be shared when they have been received and the workload weightings part of the agreement will be reviewed, by both sides, in the light of this information.
It was agreed that work would be started to scope a workload measurement model to incorporate Breach Prosectution Officers and Victim Contact officers, which would then be incorporated into the agreement.”
In the meantime we had two further meetings. We ran into particular controversy in relation to the increased use of fast delivery reports, targeting and timings. We have also been trying unsuccessfully to get the management side to provide us with findings from a pilot they apparently undertook to examine the new fast delivery’s so we could get a sense of realistic timings. You will see in the Joint Statement a promise to share information. There was no sharing of information.
I now quote from the last management note that was sent out on 15th April to the entire workforce:
“It is probably the most advanced model of its kind in the country. The existing tool is not fit for purpose as it does not include the above and cannot reflect current workloads. The staff care agreement describes processes that support staff if workload exceeds thresholds over set periods of time. HPA has been consulting with the trade unions over an extended period seeking to achieve agreement on this package.”
You will see that the unions are apparently turning their noses up at ‘probably the most advanced of its kind in the country” This is merely a claim and we have no way of testing the claim because HPA will not share information. The recent makeover in the targeting matrix for FDRs underpins the need for statements to be supported by clear evidence. Maybe the workload tool will live up to the claim and be a Rolls Royce or maybe it will be a Sinclair C5. We are hostages to time and fortune! And it should not be like this. If the management side are boastful of their model they should have had the confidence to run pilots and share all the findings. Isn’t organisational change best managed with openness and transparency and shouldn’t planning incorporate the likely impact upon the workforce of proposed changes?
The management side seek to suggest that the hiccup with workloads only relates to a few elements in the weightings tool and that the unions are satisfied with the staff care agreement. This is misleading: workloads and staff care are like two sides of the same coin. The staff care agreement contains all the principles that underpin workload management and we have not signed up to the agreement because HPA is in breach of those fundamental principles.
We do not know if the management side intend to circulate the new policy prior to implementation. We view their approach as authoritarian and unreasonable. We have no belief that the workloads tool will strike the right balances between staff care and cutting resources. The unions were prepared to continue negotiating but unfortunately you cannot do this when the management side choose to pull the plug, something that was denied when the unions suggested that was their intention last October.
It will be in the interests of all members to take a close personal interest in the workings of the workloads tool. It will be on the agenda for the next branch meeting. In the meantime we will get a view from Napo nationally on the proposed imposition of a workloads tool which from the very outset was meant to be based on an agreement between management and the unions. Contrary to impressions, there is no such thing as half an agreement, just as you will never find a coin with only one side.
Posted by Hampshire at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2009
10 POINTS ON WORKLOADS
1. Discussions with the management side have effectively broken down over the new court reports and the wider issue of workloads. If you have not heard of ‘demand management’ you should do soon.
2. They intend to impose the new court reports from 1st May and a new workloads model from the 1st June.
3. It is envisaged that the majority of reports from the magistrate’s court will be done in the FDR format. HPA have refused to share their research (apparently there was some pilot work) as to how long such reports will take to do. A straightforward FDR is fine within 1.75 hours, but expect complex and higher tariff cases where it may take 45 minutes just to read the depositions and probation records. Why the timings from the pilot are ‘restricted information’ is a mystery.
4. Under the existing workloads agreement, it says:
"Confirmation that if new tasks are to be assigned to individual members of staff, clear designation of the amount of time to be allocated to those tasks and clarity as to the demands which will be relinquished to accommodate those new tasks will be provided, in advance of their implementation."
... a clause more honoured in the breach than the observance.
5. The shift to FDRs should be ‘impact assessed’. The director of offender management informed Napo, in writing, that existing national risk assessments associated with a 70/30 split in reports need to be ‘applied and developed for HPA and this work will be undertaken prior to implementation’. No sign this work has been done.
6. Nor has there been an equality impact assessment.
7. The training is not yet complete and those attending the training have received mixed messages in relation to the ‘targeting matrix’ and timings. The policy and procedures should have been settled before training was rolled out. The training has not addressed IT needs.
8. According to the project plan the training events should have covered issues relating to assessments for programmes. There has been no attempt to review the paperwork used in court report writing – to streamline, avoid duplicity, etc. It does seem that the project planning has been flawed.
9. The new demand management policy will impact on how staff work. Under the health and safety management standards it is understood that organisational change can increase the incidence of work related stress because changes to roles, demands, and control over the job can be very stressful especially if there has not been meaningful consultation, training, and support structures put in place. This is why Napo says these changes should be impact/risk assessed.
10. The five top poor perceptions from the 2008 staff survey were:
Many Staff feel more could be done to help them prepare for and cope with change.
Many staff do not feel that excessive workload is dealt with effectively at work.
Many staff do not feel that change within the NPS is managed well.
Many staff do not feel that stress is dealt with effectively at work.
Many staff feel there is too much national change for change sake.
Posted by Hampshire at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)
THE DECISON TO IMPRISON
Published 6 years ago: The Decision to Imprison . Nothing changes...the under-funding in probation just worsens.
"While sentencers are generally satisfied with the quality and range of community sentences, and with the management and enforcement of these sentences, there are widespread concerns that the Probation Service is under-funded."
"The best way of bringing down the prison population is to issue guidance to sentencers to use imprisonment less often, and where it is used, to pass shorter sentences. Providing a wider range of tougher and more demanding community penalties will probably result in ‘net-widening’ – where the new sentences are used with offenders who would previously have been fined, or served a conventional community penalty.There is a need to improve sentencers’ and the public’s awareness of community penalties and their benefits.The courts should make more use of fines, freeing up probation resources and deferring the time when the ‘last resort’ of imprisonment has to be used. But above all, there needs to be clear political leadership in stressing the need to end the uncontrolled rise in the prison population."
Posted by Hampshire at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
THE IMPACT OF PRISON ON CRIME
The impact of prison on crime
• The increased use of prison in England and Wales since 1997 is estimated to have reduced crime by around 5 per cent. The fall in the number of young people over the same period is estimated to have reduced crime by a similar amount. This reflects practical difficulties in identifying persistent offenders.
• There is a problem with identifying persistent offenders before they stop offending. 40 per cent of those with three previous convictions will stop offending without further intervention from the criminal justice system.
• A more fundamental issue is that the population of persistent offenders is not stable. 20 per cent of them desist and are replaced by a new cohort each year. Even if persistent offenders this year could be identified, there will be a different group of persistent offenders next year. 300,000 people are, or have been, persistent offenders over the last decade.
The role of rehabilitative work
There is an important role for targeted rehabilitative work.
• International analysis suggests that well-designed, well-run and well-targeted rehabilitation programmes can reduce reconviction rates by 5-10 per cent.
• These programmes can be cost-effective, though returns can vary substantially (pilots have shown average returns of just over £1 to £7 for every £1 invested).
• The maximum effect is achieved when programmes target a spectrum of risk factors – employment and education, along with behavioural or cognitive programmes. Although drug treatment is difficult, evidence suggests that it can be cost-effective in reducing crime and social harms.
• However, there are significant issues around the scalability of some
rehabilitative programmes – it is not clear that the average returns measured in pilots can be maintained on a large scale.
Posted by Hampshire at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2009
FROM NAPO NEWS APRIL 2009: BE CAREFUL
Napo is representing members in a huge number of disciplinary cases at present. Members should be aware of what is happening throughout much of the country and should be very careful it does not happen to them.
Staff who have worked without incident for twenty years, doing their work, leading a normal life and expressing their thoughts about the work and their employers, are suddenly finding themselves charged with gross misconduct and threatened with dismissal, either in Probation or in Cafcass. How has this happened?
There are in general two reasons in my opinion. Firstly, the Probation Service has become a much more punitive organisation. As it has become more punitive towards its clients, so it has towards its staff. It will not brook dissent. Cafcass too is affected by this autocratic attitude towards staff. Secondly, the Service is under massive financial pressure. Areas are faced with having to reduce staff. dundancy is expensive. It is much cheaper to dismiss someone.
This, unfortunately, is the bald truth. Matters which once would have been brought up with a quiet word, or more officially in supervision, are suddenly appearing as allegations of gross misconduct. Arguing with a line manager, capability issues, making a mistake, perhaps an error of judgment, become disciplinary offences. Often these are categorised as gross misconduct, but how can that be? The answer is that if all else fails, senior management/employers can use the heading of ‘disrepute’, which is gross misconduct. It seems to us that managements around the country have got together on this because we are faced everywhere with members charged with bringing the service into disrepute. Anything, any inadequacy of performance or any semblance of disagreement with the Service can, if it has any connection with the world outside the office, result in a charge of disrepute, or potential disrepute.
What, then, should members do?
Firstly, remember that your office email belongs to your employer. Do not write anything in an email that you would not write in a letter. Secondly, remember that your employer can access anything on your email, even if deleted. Thirdly, do not say or write anything publicly about your employer in a personal capacity. If you have concerns or criticisms raise them through Napo, then you are protected. Apply this to websites (including the Napo website) and Facebook too. Fourthly, be very careful about all your conduct both within and outside the office. Fifthly, do not go into any meeting which could discuss your conduct without a union representative present. Remember, you are entitled to this. Finally, Napo finds an increasing number of staff making allegations against other staff. Sometimes they do not even realise that they are making an allegation when they complain about a colleague. So please don’t do this unless it is so serious that it cannot be avoided. Go and talk to the colleague about the issue. Most importantly, go to union branch meetings and voice your feelings there. Defend your values in a concerted way instead of individually. Also, make clear that Napo is strong and will support you. Be assured we have a very good record of defending members in representations.
Jeremy Cameron Member of Napo’s National Reps Panel
Posted by Hampshire at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)
FROM NAPO NEWS APRIL 2009: BE CAREFUL
Napo is representing members in a huge number of disciplinary cases at present. Members should be aware of what is happening throughout much of the country and should be very careful it does not happen to them.
Staff who have worked without incident for twenty years, doing their work, leading a normal life and expressing their thoughts about the work and their employers, are suddenly finding themselves charged with gross misconduct and threatened with dismissal, either in Probation or in Cafcass. How has this happened?
There are in general two reasons in my opinion. Firstly, the Probation Service has become a much more punitive organisation. As it has become more punitive towards its clients, so it has towards its staff. It will not brook dissent. Cafcass too is affected by this autocratic attitude towards staff. Secondly, the Service is under massive financial pressure. Areas are faced with having to reduce staff. dundancy is expensive. It is much cheaper to dismiss someone.
This, unfortunately, is the bald truth. Matters which once would have been brought up with a quiet word, or more officially in supervision, are suddenly appearing as allegations of gross misconduct. Arguing with a line manager, capability issues, making a mistake, perhaps an error of judgment, become disciplinary offences. Often these are categorised as gross misconduct, but how can that be? The answer is that if all else fails, senior management/employers can use the heading of ‘disrepute’, which is gross misconduct. It seems to us that managements around the country have got together on this because we are faced everywhere with members charged with bringing the service into disrepute. Anything, any inadequacy of performance or any semblance of disagreement with the Service can, if it has any connection with the world outside the office, result in a charge of disrepute, or potential disrepute.
What, then, should members do?
Firstly, remember that your office email belongs to your employer. Do not write anything in an email that you would not write in a letter. Secondly, remember that your employer can access anything on your email, even if deleted. Thirdly, do not say or write anything publicly about your employer in a personal capacity. If you have concerns or criticisms raise them through Napo, then you are protected. Apply this to websites (including the Napo website) and Facebook too. Fourthly, be very careful about all your conduct both within and outside the office. Fifthly, do not go into any meeting which could discuss your conduct without a union representative present. Remember, you are entitled to this. Finally, Napo finds an increasing number of staff making allegations against other staff. Sometimes they do not even realise that they are making an allegation when they complain about a colleague. So please don’t do this unless it is so serious that it cannot be avoided. Go and talk to the colleague about the issue. Most importantly, go to union branch meetings and voice your feelings there. Defend your values in a concerted way instead of individually. Also, make clear that Napo is strong and will support you. Be assured we have a very good record of defending members in representations.
Jeremy Cameron Member of Napo’s National Reps Panel
Posted by Hampshire at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2009
PLEASE WRITE TO YOUR MP - TO PROTECT JOBS AND AVOID REDUNDANCIES
You may recall that in the consultation document on travel allowances issued last October, it was predicted that up to 93 posts could go in Hampshire over the next three years, that figure was based on a 13% reduction in funding or a £3.25m deficit. We have recently written to the chief officer seeking the latest estimates as we know that there have been recent savings/cuts achieved and more are envisaged.
No probation area is going to escape lightly and it's clear some will be hit harder than others. Redundancies are now part of the probation experience.
It is vital that as many members as possible write to their MPs and set out their concerns. It should not need emphasising that if probation staff do not raise their concerns then we can hardly expect others to do it on our behalf.
MPs are always vulnerable in a run up to an election and public trust in them is at a low ebb - what with movies and bath plugs! so we should campaign hard on resisting these cuts. Crime is always an election issue and we need to get the message across that cuts to probation will reduce the supervision of offenders and there will be more crime. Below you will find the latest campaign material and a model letter which I have borrowed from another union, which is apt as we are all in this together, you could say.
ANTI CUTS CAMPAIGN
A MODEL LETTER
Posted by Hampshire at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2009
CUTS: OFFICE CLOSURES
There are going to be office closures in Hampshire – some have been announced and reviews are ongoing. The purpose of this note is to advise members that they should seek Napo advice before formally accepting a move. There are likely to be circumstances where additional travel and other costs are incurred. The brunt of extra costs should not fall on members.
Posted by Hampshire at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
THE CUTS: FROM NAPO'S GENERAL SECRETARY
"As I indicated last week Napo and Unison representatives met with Jack Straw on Wednesday where we talked cuts, redundancies and industrial action.
Harry and I were joined by Ben Priestley, Unison's national official for the Probation Service, and Dave Prentis, its General Secretary. Dave's presence was most welcome and the meeting was, under the circumstances, a constructive one. The Justice Secretary was flanked by David Hanson and some dozen or so officials!
We gained the impression that they are taking very seriously the points we are making about the threat to peoples' livelihoods and the impact on front line service delivery. The ball is firmly in the MoJ's court and we stressed the need for a quick response and firm action. Interestingly, Jack Straw proposed regular meetings and monthly dates are in the diary. It begs questions about the politicians' understanding of what is currently going on.
Some will, no doubt, be sceptical - without a positive consequence such meetings, of course, have little point. But it is testimony to the work we are all doing locally and nationally that such strong attention to the issues is now being given."
Posted by Hampshire at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2009
CUTS: CAR PARKING: THE STATUS QUO
The emails, that have been doing the rounds in some offices, which include references to disciplinary action, have been sent out prematurely.
No new car parking policy is in place. The proposed arrangements, that some staff have been quoted, are not in place and at this stage are merely proposals. No new policy has yet been imposed or implemented. Therefore, missives implying otherwise are wrong. The status quo remains.
The proposals will be subject a consultation period. Hampshire probation area is aware it will need to consult with all its employees on these proposals.
Posted by Hampshire at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)