On 11th June Secretary of State for Justice Robert Buckland MP has formally announced that all probation services will be brought back into public ownership. This includes unpaid work and programmes. For many of you this good news could not come soon enough and after 7 years hard slog right from the foundations of TR, our relentless campaign has finally won over the government.
Clearly Napo still has a long way to go to ensure that all staff are fully protected in the transition and that full terms and conditions of the transfer will be subject to agreement. However, we are hopeful that the Ministry of Justice, HMPPS and the NPS will fully engage with unions to ensure a smooth transition and to try to relieve the anxieties that many staff will have at the prospect of yet more change.
Napo would like to thank each and every member for their hard work, both in the campaign and in trying to deliver probation services (at times in the most difficult of situations and environments). Your dedication to your work and loyalty to your union has been exceptional and we would not be here today without it.
What Now?
We still have a long way to go to ensure that we have a fully functioning and effective probation service that enables probation professionals to carry out the work to the standards they want. Now we need to focus on rebuilding the service for the future. Napo will continue to campaign for the demands of our members that Probation must be:
- In the public sector and never for profit, but out of the civil service and released from prison.
- Built on evidence based practice.
- Rooted in the local community and partnering with local specialist providers.
Napo will develop a national campaign to push on these demands. In the meantime, members can celebrate this astonishing achievement that has been so long in the waiting.
Napo and Transforming Rehabilitation: the story of the fight to save Probation
Watch the announcement on Parliament TV