Pay negotiations with HMPPS have ended with a 5% “best and final” conditional pay offer being presented to the trade unions.
Napo’s Probation Negotiating Committee (PNC) – made up of Napo members across different pay bands and roles – have rejected this offer as unacceptable and members will now be asked to vote for industrial action on pay, along with the question on workloads, in a formal ballot on industrial action to launch on the 19th of October 2026.
The members of PNC who considered this offer rejected it unanimously for two reasons.
Too Little Pay
This offer falls too far short of our initial pay claim of a 12% increase to all pay bands and allowances.
A key element to our pay claim was to continue to seek to restore Probation pay to catch up on our loss of earnings since 2010 and against comparable sectors (Local Government, Prisons, NHS and the Police), the latter as set out in the pay claim. This offer does not do enough in this respect. We reject, as irrelevant, any reference by the employer or Government to single year pay deals given to other public sector employees this year.
This table illustrates how far Probation pay has fallen against inflation since 2010.
Probation is now widely recognised to be key to the operation of the wider criminal justice system, which the provisions of the Sentencing Act make more apparent than ever. Last week saw the latest in a long line of early release schemes where Probation has been asked to take on huge amounts of additional work in the tens of thousands of prisoners released early from prisons since 2022. Many of these early release schemes are now enshrined in legislation via the Sentencing Act. This offer does not reflect the value of Probation staff to our communities.
Sacrificing Terms And Conditions
A condition – set by the employer – of accepting this offer, relating to the Competency Based Framework (CBF), was that Napo would give “…a firm commitment that successor arrangements (to be negotiated) for CBF will begin to be implemented from 1 April 2027 onwards. Whilst details will need to be worked through with you, new arrangements will need to reduce or remove the impact of CBF on pay progression from 1 April 2027.”.
PNC view this as an unacceptable condition, which: -
- Seeks to prejudice negotiations between the trade unions and employer to a pre-determined outcome on a set timescale.
- Risks the definite removal of CBF in April 2027 with no agreed adequate recompense in place for employees for the loss of this term and condition.
- Creates huge uncertainty for members not currently at the top of their pay band.
If the outcome of open negotiations is to be a successor to CBF then Napo would seek to ensure that members benefit overall from any changes to terms and conditions. This condition effectively looks to end CBF on the cheap.
This pay offer does not include CBF payments for 2026/27
As we saw with last year’s pay offers, we believe the employer will try to artificially inflate their offer for 2026/27 by including in any progression payments under CBF into their calculations. Napo maintain our position in rejecting this misleading and divisive approach and will continue to be honest with our members about the actual value of the pay offer.
Members eligible for progression under the CBF should have been paid from April 2026, not had this withheld until a pay award is made.
It is a 5% offer that PNC have rejected and this is what it means for pay bands/points.
Next Steps
Napo has today served a notice of a Trade Dispute on Pay as part of a necessary legal step to an industrial action ballot.
Napo’s All Member’s Pre-Ballot Meeting will take place on Tuesday 13th October 2026 at 1pm to provide further information as we now move to ballot members on industrial action on pay and workloads from the week after.