Napo and Unison jointly will be holding an open meeting on the Probation cuts for the Yorkshire and Humberside Region in the Victoria Hall (Chapel Walk) Sheffield from 2.00pm – 3.30pm on Friday, 5th June.
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Napo and Unison jointly will be holding an open meeting on the Probation cuts for the Yorkshire and Humberside Region in the Victoria Hall (Chapel Walk) Sheffield from 2.00pm – 3.30pm on Friday, 5th June.
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Download a copy below
Download file
The wording of EDM 1521 is: “That this House urges the Government to ensure that the Probation Service in England and Wales has sufficient resources to ensure that it can carry out its statutory duties in an effective and efficient manner.”
Members of Napo are urged to write to their MPs asking them to join the signature list.
You can find your MP and email them direct - and also find a model letter to use - on the Napo home page - just type in your post code and click "GO".
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The purpose was to explain to MPs the impact of the cuts, the affect on trainees and subsequent consequences for crime. By the end of the day, 25 MPs from all Parties had attended the sessions. They included a majority of MPs who do not normally come to Napo events. All were sympathetic to the plight of staff and the service.
MPs attending included Philip Dunne (Ludlow), Michael Fabricant (Lichfield), Rob Marris (Wolverhampton), Meg Munn (Sheffield Heeley), Ann Winterton (Congleton), George Howarth (Knowsley North and Sefton East), Andrew Mller (Ellesmere Port), Robert Key (Salisbury), Doug Naysmith (Bristol North West) and Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall).
All MPs agreed to write to Jack Straw to express concerns and to table parliamentary questions about the effect of cuts in their area, and most will sign an Early Day Motion on Probation resources.
A second event is now planned for London, Southern and North Thames regions, probably in June.
]]>This time it was Jack Straw who faced a question from David Anderson, Labour MP for Blaydon in Northumbria. What, the MP asked, would the Secretary of State "advise me to tell the people who work in the probation service in the north-east? How are they supposed to improve reoffending rates if, because of deficit cuts, they lose £1.6 million this year and £4.2 million in 2012, and do not employ the 24 trainee probation officers who have been trained over the last three years, at a cost of £2.5 million to the public purse? Surely that cannot be correct?"
Jack Straw's response, as well as repeating the Ministerial mantra about the "70% incease in Probation funding over the last 12 years", was to offer a meeting. "My colleagues and I are always happy to see my hon. Friend—and, if necessary, a delegation from Northumbria probation service—about their concerns", he said. We will keep members posted on the outcome of the offer.
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]]>While on Wednesday 29th April, Elliot Morley, Labour MP for Scunthorpe, secured a second debate on Humberside Probation and the cuts. During the debate supportive comments were also made by MPs Ian Cawsey (Brigg and Goole – Lab), Shona McIsaac (Cleethorpes – Lab) and Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness - Con).
Interestingly, in replying to the debate, Minister David Hanson said: “Indicative budgets have been set for each probation area and have been issued. However—this is important for my right hon. Friend to recognise—the director general of the National Offender Management Service has now made it clear that the indicative probation budgets were issued without the knowledge or approval of Ministers, and so have no authority, as there is no comprehensive spending review settlement for 2011-12 onwards. Therefore, there cannot be any accurate indicative budgets for any area of Government spending beyond that period.”!
Also interestingly, the Chief Executive in Humberside has since written to staff withdrawing the announced compulsory redundancies and indicating that TPOs, who had been told there would be no jobs for them, now have some hope of employment.
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Download a pdf of this bulletin below
]]>The official signing - 9 December 2008
(Standing left-right: Robin Fallon, PCS, Mark Scott, Napo, Megan lliott, Napo, Joe Simpson, POA, Joyce McAndrew, UCU. (seated) Alan Green, Unison.
The TUC said "The Probation Service is facing a cut of approximately 20% of its budget over the next three years, making the Justice Unions' 10 point Charter for Justice (launched last December) increasingly important and relevant for the uncertain future that lies ahead. In Northumbria Probation Area (Tyne& Wear and Northumberland) there is a predicted deficit of £1.6 million in the financial year 2009/10."
Megan Elliott from NAPO said 'The primary purpose of the Probation Service is to reduce the risk of reoffending and protect the public from serious harm. Budget and staffing cuts on this scale will inevitably reduce the ability of the Probation Service to carry out this work effectively and safely.'
Download a copy of the charter below
Download file
Download a pdf of this bulletin below
]]>Details have now been sent to Napo from 35 Areas. These have been turned into a briefing and distributed widely. You can download a copy below.
Napo believes that unless the cuts are rescinded the Probation Service will not be able to fulfil its statutory duties. In particular, on professional grounds, courts will need to be told that normal supervision standards cannot be guaranteed, in appropriate cases.
Over the following months we propose to issue fortnightly bulletins to Branches:
• giving latest advice and support in the light of legal advice which we receive (e.g. concerning redundancy);
• highlighting campaign action which is being done at Napo Head Office (including contact with ministers, NOMS officials, sentencers, UNISON and the press);
• saying what is being planned and achieved at the local, regional and branch level;
• giving details of Napo’s continuing Workloads Campaign – which will be even more necessary as the cuts reduce staff numbers.
These will also be published on the website.
Plans are being laid for a meeting at Westminster at which Branch officers will have the chance to meet with their MPs region by region, to appraise them of the effects of the cuts locally. Nore news on this shortly.
We plan to make good use of Napo’s redeveloped website as it comes on-stream in the late Spring. This will make it possible for more interactive networking between branches and Chivalry Road.
In the release Napo said
Probation Areas in England and Wales are facing cuts to budgets of between 13% and 25% over the next three years. Napo has calculated that this will mean minimum job losses of 2,500, the vast majority of whom will be frontline staff. As a consequence the service will not be able to fulfil its statutory duties, the quality of supervision will deteriorate, fewer court reports will be produced and because of this there will be more crime and more victims.
In 2008 the Probation Service was allegedly merged with the Prison Service. In fact it was a takeover. Only 3% of posts in the National Offender Management Service, which oversaw the merger, have a Probation background; the remainder are from the Prison Service. No senior managers in NOMS are from Probation. The post of Director of Probation has been abolished. Prison Service managers are attempting to introduce a centralised control and command model to Probation, which has traditionally been managed through consultation and consensus. This will lead to demoralisation and an absence of any voice for Probation in government.
The Ministry of Justice Business Plan which was published in February shows astonishingly that the amount spent on NOMS HQ now exceeds £1 billion, which is more than is spent on the entire Probation Service for the whole of England and Wales. The budget for NOMS has shot up from a modest £12 million in 2003/4 to £1 billion now. There needs to be an urgent enquiry by the National Audit Office into how this has been allowed to occur.
A briefing paper published today details the effect of the cuts in 30 of the 42 probation areas. Figures from the 14 areas which have given them would suggest that up to 880 jobs could be lost, in those areas, by the end of the financial year 2011/12. This would equate nationally to at least 2,500 posts made redundant. This will affect the ability of the Probation Service to provide supervision, programmes and prevent re-offending. Napo has calculated that a 25% reduction in supervision and programmes will lead to the commission of at least 300,000 additional offences a year. This is a conservative estimate based on an additional offence per person per week. The vast majority of people on probation have severe problems with drugs or alcohol and 84% have literacy levels of an eleven year old or less. The vast majority lead chaotic lives, a fact that seems not be understood by the new NOMS management.
Probation managers were told last autumn that £120 million needed to be cut from the budget by 2011/12. In addition no allowance would be made for cost of living increases. The government justifies this on the grounds that the Probation budget has grown by 70% over the last decade. However the number of probation officers is falling, the workload rose by 23% between 2002 and 2006 and the new money was predominantly used to employ more managers, consultants and bureaucrats at the centre.
Harry Fletcher, Assistant General Secretary of Napo, said: “The level of cuts is unsustainable. The gains made in reducing re-offending over the past five years will be lost. There will be at least one third of a million more offences as a consequence of the curtailment of supervision and programmes. The recession will make matters much worse. There are already indications that acquisitive crime and fraud are vastly on the increase. This will put an additional strain on Probation, the police and on prison numbers.”
He added: “It is of extreme concern that the Probation presence is being eradicated within the Ministry of Justice. There are no Heads of Department with a Probation background and just 113 Probation secondees compared with 3,400 transfers from the Prison Service. The introduction of command and control models into the Probation Service is totally inappropriate and will lead to demoralisation of staff. The affect of the cuts to budget and the absence of a Probation voice will render the service unable to fulfil its statutory duties.”
Find a copy of the briefing - Probation under Stress below
Download file
“This House values the work of the staff who are employed in the Criminal Justice System for their efforts to deliver a good service despite difficult conditions and circumstances; and therefore urges the Government to ensure that staff are paid an appropriate rate for the service they provide, that workloads are eased to containable and realistic levels, and that sufficient resources are allocated to allow staff to carry out their statutory duties efficiently and effectively.”
63 MPs have already signed up to the EDM. This is really good, given the short space of time since the EDM was put down, and it is clearly due to union members contacting their MPs and asking them to sign.
You can help. Check if you MP has signed by clicking the link below. If they haven't write to them to ask them to do so. You can find and email your MP direct here - then simply type in your postcode and click 'go'. You will also find a model letter to cut and paste.
]]>John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab): What plans the Secretary of State for Justice has for future levels of funding for front-line services in the criminal justice system?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Maria Eagle): The comprehensive spending review 2007 settlement agreed for the Ministry of Justice requires us to live within the funding available. Budgets for 2009-10 will be agreed shortly, and we will then be in a position to inform Parliament more fully of the impact of this work on the Ministry of Justice. We are prioritising and protecting front-line services, but we are looking at how we can improve performance and efficiency across the Department. We are, of course, involving our Department’s trade unions in ongoing discussions in this regard.
John McDonnell: My hon. Friend will be aware that this week has been designated justice week by the justice trade unions, and they will be lobbying the House tomorrow on their concerns about future budgets. Has she seen the report launched yesterday by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, which demonstrates that although the Government have increased resources within the individual budgets of prisons, the probation service and the courts, that has not matched the work loads? Would she therefore be willing to meet a delegation from the justice trade union group to discuss the report and its implications for future budget planning?
Maria Eagle: On my hon. Friend’s last point, I would of course be more than happy to meet him and any delegation that he wishes to bring in respect of the particular point that he makes. I have not yet had a chance to see that report, but I would be very happy to read it.
The Justice Unions Parliamentary Group also organised for the issue prison over-crowding to be raised in the House of Lords on Wednesday 10th, during Starred Questions, with planned interventions from Baroness Howe, Baroness Stern, Baroness Linklater and Lords Ramsbotham.
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