Pay talks set to resume

Don’t hold your collective breath but we are at last set to get around the table again over the now somewhat ancient 2014 pay claim.

Both Unison and ourselves are still in dispute over the shoddy response and the insulting delay which preceded it; and Unison have already consulted their members on the offer as it stands (which in case you have forgotten currently stands at 0%).

We will explore what mileage there is in terms of securing some sort of improvement but as we have said previously, all our members will have the opportunity to be consulted about where we have got to just as soon as we can.

Of course we will need to submit our claim for 2015 very soon, so the consultative meetings will allow you to tell us the sort of things that you want to see included in it.

As readers of Napo News online  will have seen, the coalition’s austerity agenda has created not so much a pay freeze but a veritable ‘Ice Age’, which will mean a whole host of problems for the new government.

Look out for details of your consultative meeting on Pay and please try and ensure that you attend one.

Napo standing up against Racism and Fascism

As we publicised recently, the ‘Stand up to Racism’ march and rally takes place tomorrow.   
Any of our members who heard my speech at AGM 2014 will have been left in no doubt as to where I stand on these two vexing issues. As the son of an immigrant from India who worked hard to try and forge a life for himself, paid all of his taxes and raised a family in Britain, I have no truck with the Xenophobia spouted by the far right parties as they seek to make the divisions in our society even greater.
Tomorrow brings another opportunity for everyone who feels the same way to take to the streets of London and show their true multi-cultural colours.

Two big questions have crossed my mind in advance of the event. I wonder if we will see any members of UKIP at the rally now that they have declared themselves to be a non-racist political party? Secondly, I can hardly wait to see if the BBC will actually see the thousands of people who gather outside their offices this time, as opposed to their blissful ignorance of the huge People’s Assembly event against austerity last summer?

If you would like to join other Napo members on the day, please be advised that London Napo have suggested an assembly point at All Souls Church  (very near BBC Broadcasting House) for a 12 Noon Start.

The full postal address is:
All Souls Church                 
2 All Souls Place
London W1B 3DA.
Nearest Undergound is Oxford Circus (3 minute walk)
Look for the Napo flags etc.

For the latest up-to-date information, including details of transport available to attend the demonstration , please visit the Stand Up to Racism website at http://www.standuptoracism.org.uk/

NOMS public sector prison policy
 
Following the welcome news that HMP Wrexham will be ostensibly under public management once it is completed, comes this detailed instruction from Colin Allars and Phil Coppell that we have literally just seen.

We will of course be studying it very carefully and taking part in the promised consultation. Essentially it talks about the proposed steps for the deployment of NPS staff in public prisons, a review of the OMU system and the development of a new role for SPO’s which will follow afterwards.

Along with the annexes it’s a lengthy read; but it is worth a look and your Officers and Officials will welcome any views that you may have.

Directorate of Public Sector Prisons
National Offender Management Service

        
A number of significant change programmes have affected the work of offender management in prisons. The purpose of this note is to provide further clarity about how to deploy NPS staff working in prisons, in light of the implications of both the Benchmarking programme and of the ongoing OM Review for offender management in custody. This letter is addressed to both prison and probation managers and sets out the guiding principles of the new relationship between Public Sector Prisons and the National Probation Service. The instructions in this letter must be implemented with immediate effect, any concerns or questions should be directed towards the contacts listed below.

The National Probation Service (NPS) was created on 1 June 2014 and NPS staff are now part of NOMS. A national Joint Working Agreement (JWA) between the NPS and Public Sector Prisons (PSP) in England is currently being developed which will replace all past agreements or contracts between prisons or PSP regions and probation. The JWA will be agreed at a national level and sent out in the near future.

The JWA will set out the duties which will be carried out by different grades of NPS staff working within different types of prisons and is based on agreed staffing levels in OMUs for both NPS and PSP. There will be formal reviews of the agreement and the principles within the JWA that should guide the relationship between NPS and prison Governors in relation to probation staff working in all prisons are:
•    the Governor is accountable for all offender management within the prison;
•    the Governor, normally through the Head of Offender Management, will set the priorities and the tasks that will be completed by both probation and prison staff working within the OMU ; and
•    NPS managers are responsible for the line management and quality of the work completed by NPS staff in prisons.

The instructions set out in the remainder of this note apply to all closed male Public Sector Prisons in England.

This note sets out a phased and carefully managed transition from the current model to the Benchmark model and explains what staffing arrangements that are appropriate during the Mobilisation, Transition and Transformation period of Benchmark implementation and what is required when a prison is at ‘Steady State’.
 
The most significant change which occurred in OMU staffing arrangements as a result of Benchmarking is the introduction of the dual role of Offender Supervisor and Supervising Officer. This means Prison Officer Band 4s complete two roles: one as Offender Supervisor and one as Supervisor of the regime and other operational elements within the prison. A national agreement between NOMS and the POA (referred to as the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding) included the arrangement that all offender supervision in these prisons will be undertaken exclusively by the new dual role Prison Officers. This means, that once in ‘steady state’, there is no requirement for probation staff to act as Offender Supervisors within prisons.

A number of prisons have experienced staffing shortages in the Band 3 Prison Officer grades, due to vacancy levels or high sickness levels (or both). This has necessitated cross-deployment of staff in the new dual role of Offender Supervisor/Supervising Officer Band 4 Prison Officer, which in turn has had a negative effect on these staff being available to work as Offender Supervisors. In addition to this a significant number of the staff in the dual role are new and untrained in the work of offender supervision and this has exacerbated some of the difficulties.

Against the backdrop of a newly created NPS and Benchmarking within PSP, Offender Management and Public Protection Group (OMPPG) within NOMS has worked with PSP and NPS to agree the new role for Probation Officers in prisons within the constraints of the POA/NOMS MoU (that all in-scope prisoners will be allocated to Prison Officer Offender Supervisors). This role will be implemented in all male closed prisons which are at ‘steady state’ and will remain in place until the implementation of the OM Review.

Due to the number of changes within offender management it is welcomed that OMPPG are undertaking a fundamental review of this essential function of prisons. The review will look at practice first hand, and will seek the views of staff working in OMUs and other departments, as well as those of offenders. The review will also look at expert advice, using international research evidence to identify what is effective in case management. The aim of the review is to develop a future model of offender management. The review will take account of all the changes that have occurred in the system and develop a model that fits our budget and the changed delivery landscape. Whilst the review is necessary and very welcome it will, realistically, be some time before its published recommendations, due in June 2015, are developed into operating models to deliver the recommendations.

How to deploy NPS staff in public sector prisons which have reached Benchmarking ‘steady state’:

For prisons in ‘steady state’ the delivery model for offender management in prison has changed so that all offender supervision is completed by Prison Officer Band 4 in the dual Offender Supervisor/Supervising Officer role. The Prison Officers will be supported by Probation Officers who will undertake their new role. This new role sees Probation Officers delivering professional advice and guidance, and supporting and mentoring the offender management practice of Prison Officers but not holding a case load of their own. In addition, it gives Probation Officers in these positions a key role in quality assurance of the totality of offender management in the prison. The new role description is at Annex A and is captured within the scope of existing Probation Officer job descriptions.

It is worth noting here that it is within the Benchmark principles to maintain a hybrid model of the dual role where in practice there are two groups of staff; one group doing Offender Supervision and the other engaged in Supervising Officer duties, provided staff are rotated regularly (maximum 2 year deployment).
We recognise the difficulties of staff resources in some prisons and in the recruitment of  Probation Officers for these roles in prisons and have therefore agreed that the implementation of the dual role and the Custody Probation Officer needs to take place at an appropriate pace to make the introduction safe and manageable. Before reaching ‘steady state’ the Governor needs to put in place a plan, as part of the MTT process, to introduce the new role for Custody Probation Officers and the dual Prison Officer role. This will need to be completed in collaboration with the NPS Senior Manager with responsibility for prisons. Implementation of the new role for Custody Probation Officers needs to be prioritised in these prisons to ensure that Prison Officers, when working as Offender Supervisors, have access to professional advice and guidance and are appropriately supported.

We are aware that prisons were advised of a target number of Custody Probation Officers for the male closed estate but due to changes as a result of the introduction of resettlement prisons under Transforming Rehabilitation, the population configuration across the estate has changed and these numbers can no longer be applied. Business Development Group will issue new target staffing figures for Custody Probation Officers by 1 May 2015. These will be revisited in due course in line with the recommendations of the OM Review.
 
How to deploy NPS staff in prisons which are currently in MTT:

For prisons still in MTT the delivery model of offender management remains the same as pre-Benchmarking - a mixture of probation and prison staff undertaking the role of Offender Supervisor. Whilst we remain committed to the introduction of the new Custody Probation Officer and the dual Supervising Officer/Offender Supervisor roles (and Governors will need to include the implementation of this in their MTT plan), for prisons still in MTT the pre-Benchmarking model deployed may need to be adjusted and should be compliant with the following:
•    In order to achieve and/or maintain best possible offender management delivery in OMUs, it is important for Heads of OM to understand and consistently be able to predict prison officer staffing levels. An accurate understanding of the prison’s profiles and a consideration of OMU staffing when applying the Regime Management Guidance are an essential first step to planning OMU work during MTT successfully.

•    The next step is to have a detailed understanding of the relative priority of all the OMU tasks to ensure that the available resources are deployed to the tasks in priority order. Further advice about resourcing is available from BDG and OMPPG’s policy guides about effective practice (which sets out the priority of the tasks in different types of prisons) and the OASys prioritisation guidance are available at the end of this letter at Annex B.

•    For prisons with severe resourcing difficulties it is advisable to move away from allocating prisoners to individual Offender Supervisors and move towards allocating tasks to individual members of staff, including probation staff. This will require much closer management; ensuring that managers in OMUs allocate tasks on a daily or weekly basis.

The Head of OM will, in consultation with the SPO (whether on-site or the remote working line manager), and taking into account the qualifications, skills and experiences of the staff available, deploy staff according to these guidelines:

•    Probation Officers Custody Probation Officers are professionally qualified graduates. They are experienced at working with a range of offender cohorts and they are highly skilled at risk assessments, risk management and sentence planning.  With this in mind, POs should be used to undertake offender supervision tasks for the most high risk cases but depending on the local situation can be deployed to provide offender supervision for any prisoner. If allocated on a task basis in local prisons, the screening and any subsequent risk assessment in relation to public protection would normally be a key part of their work. Probation Officers should also have time to provide advice and guidance to other staff working as Offender Supervisors.

•    Probation Service Officers (PSOs)/ Prison Officer Band 4s/ Non-operational Band 4s Staff in these grades do not hold a Probation Officer qualification but have a range of OM skills and experience. Subject to capacity and operational demands, they can be deployed to cover the full range of offender supervision tasks, including the Basic Custody Screening Tool (BCST). They should have access to Prison Service Managers and to NPS Probation Officers to provide advice and guidance.
    
•    Senior Probation Officers A new role for Senior Probation Officers in custody is currently being developed.  This will be not be introduced until the implementation of the recommendations for the OM Review and following discussions with the trade unions. Until then, the status quo must be maintained in terms of staffing numbers, wherever possible. The purpose of the SPO role is to line manage all NPS staff working at the prison, this involves overseeing their performance, leave etc. SPOs are also potentially an invaluable resource to the Head of OM and Governor and, depending on how much SPO resource is available to the prison, SPOs might also advise and assist in the assessment of and improvement in the quality of OM delivery. They should, however, not be used to undertake management duties which are properly for prison staff to complete, such as chairing ROTL boards on a regular basis. Given that budgets for NPS staff rest with NPS, additional overtime should be agreed with NPS line managers in advance.

If there is any uncertainty about whether a particular prison has reached Benchmarking ‘steady state’ BDG (bdg@noms.gsi.gov.uk) completes the formal reports on Benchmarking and will be able to advise.

We are grateful for the hard work and commitment that both probation and prison staff are undertaking in OMUs. This work is essential in ensuring that we protect the public and is core work for both prison and probation.

COLIN ALLARS & PHIL COPPLE

Annex A

Annex B1

Annex B2

Blog type: 
General Secretary's Blog