The probation service was decimated as a result of Chris
Grayling's disastrous privatisation reforms. Since its
reunification in 2021, the service has been severely impacted by
staff shortages in each of its regions and dangerously excessive
workloads. The service requires significant investment both in
the organisation of the service and in its staff in order to meet
the Governments agenda for its future.
General Secretary Ian Lawrence in response to the speech by the
Lord Chancellor in London today, said: “Our members have gone
above and beyond over the last decade to keep the probation
service running and to deal with successive governments'
emergency measures to alleviate the prison capacity crisis. They
need more than just words to recognise their efforts, and the
previously announced 2.8% cap on public sector pay rises just
isn't going to cut it. Our members want to be properly
recompensed for the work that they do to protect the public and
to help people turn their lives around.”
On top of better wages to recruit and retain staff Napo is
calling on the Lord Chancellor to make radical reforms to ensure
the future of the service. It's current capacity to absorb change
is being stymied by a prison centric civil service. Napo have
tried to work constructively with this agency, making
suggestions for real changes to Probation workload that
will support staff in doing their jobs to the best of their
ability. Unfortunately, all too often HMPPS have been too slow to
respond, or have failed to explore these options properly.
We believe the gross mis-management of HMPPS (and its
predecessor) over the past decade has led to the
current state of crisis in the Probation Service. As a
result Napo do not have confidence in them to make any
substantial positive changes to the working conditions or
practice of our members. Napo wants probation to be
taken out of HMPPS and to be embedded into the local communities
it serves and not suffocated by centrally driven bureaucracy.
Ian Lawrence said: “Prior to Grayling's reckless reforms,
probation was an award-winning service. All 36 Probation Trusts
were rated as good or excellent. Since 2014 all that good work
has been lost. Probation just doesn't fit the civil service model
and we risk losing the profession altogether if we don't break
away from prisons and central control.”
Probation needs to be able to focus on its core work and evidence
led practice. It cannot continue to be simply used as an escape
valve to alleviate prison pressures. This is why Napo is calling
for removal from the civil service to enable it to deliver on its
key priorities. Just as the government can't build its way out of
a prison crisis it cannot recruit itself out of the probation
crisis. Drastic urgent action needs to be taken to reduce
workloads in a way that ensures public protection, protection of
its own staff and groundbreaking changes by way of the sentencing
review to make a permanent impact on reducing re-offending.
