The Trade Union, Professional Association and campaigning organisation for Probation and Family Court staff.

This NEC has No Confidence in HMPPS as an Employer.

Share this

 

NEC 13/2026

Resolution 1 NEC 11th June 2026

This NEC has No Confidence in HMPPS as an Employer.

This National Executive Committee (NEC) believes:

  • HMPPS has failed to provide a safe, sustainable Probation Service, evidenced by:
    • Allowing unmanageable workloads to become the norm.
      • Planning to remove the Workload Measurement Tool (WMT) from ‘Sentence Management’ staff without a replacement, failing to have made a similar tool available for others and failing to engage with the trade unions for a jointly owned approach on workload measurement and management
      • Not adequately addressing persistently high vacancy and staff sickness rates.
      • An insufficiently transparent and slow response, lacking a robust evidence base, to significant incidents of violence and aggression perpetrated against staff.
      • The significant delay in producing an initial pay offer for 2025/26.
      • Refusing to honour existing agreements with the recognised trade unions on employee care and progression payments while failing to reach agreement with the trade unions on issues such as a ‘Probation definition’, Artificial Intelligence and the Job Evaluation Scheme.
  • Napo representatives, both national and Branch, have made significant efforts to raise these issues with the employer’s representatives at every available opportunity over an extended period but, so far, these have failed to result in sufficiently meaningful change for our members.
  • HMPPS leadership has demonstrably failed in its duty of care to the workforce of the Probation Service, and this represents a reckless disregard for our welfare and professional integrity as well as the safety of our communities.
  • That this failure has fundamentally, and potentially irreparably, damaged the confidence of our members in HMPPS.
  • That incremental engagement has been exhausted, and that stronger, collective action is now required.

This NEC resolves:

  • To formally declare no confidence in HMPPS as an employer and its current leadership.
  • To state unequivocally that the current position is untenable and cannot continue without immediate and substantive change by this employer.
  • To support the ongoing efforts of Napo representatives undertaking negotiations and consultations with HMPPS representatives on workloads, pay and Health & Safety issues.
  • To direct all relevant Napo members and staff to escalate national and branch-level organising and campaigning, with a potential move to industrial action by Probation Service members on workloads within the next three months (and include pay if HMPPS cannot deliver an initial offer for members within this timescale).

 

Back to top