Many of our members working in Programmes and Interventions will have taken the opportunity to join one of the regular consultative meetings organised by Carole Doherty (National Vice-Chair) and Tania Bassett (National Official) over recent months. Here we have covered the position relating to the plans for the Target Operating Model and delivery of the ‘Next Generation.
In addition to the comprehensive updates that have been made available at these events, your National Executive Committee (NEC) members and elected National Officer Group, receive comprehensive reports of progress on our engagement with senior management. In addition we have also issued regular mail outs to our members, but if you know of a colleague who has not received these please ask them to contact: membership@napo.org.uk to confirm their preferred e-mail address, or to notify us of any change in their personal details.
Background to the current position
As you would expect, the Probation Unions (Napo, UNISON and GMB) take every opportunity to regularly relay the anger and frustration that has been made clear by our respective members directly to senior management. This is via a series of scheduled meetings with the Reducing Reoffending Directorate, but also during our fortnightly engagement with the Chief Probation Officer Kim Thornden-Edwards or HMPPS Executive Directors Amy Rees and Phil Copple.
This update brings you up to speed with the latest position in what has undoubtedly become a difficult and protracted issue; one that is causing massive uncertainty to the workforce, but which also has serious implications for public protection if the plans come to fruition.
Some months ago, Napo were alerted to a number of high-level documents which the employer had mistakenly published on the Intranet. These revealed plans to decimate the Divisional Sex Offender Units and downgrade the work of Facilitators delivering Programmes to Band 3.
Following the understandable level of anger and mistrust that this generated across all three unions, the consultation was paused. Napo, alongside Unison and GMB made it clear that there had been a complete breakdown in trust with the employer and their intentions, and we demanded written assurances before any further discussions could be held. This process took about 2 months with the unions responding to the employer’s submissions during this time. As a result of this, the consultation process has changed and there has also been a change on the employer’s side in who attends these talks.
Our current engagement strategy
Essentially, the unions have two choices before us. One is canvassing members for hard hitting industrial action over a prolonged period to try and shock the Government into changing these plans, but feedback from members so far indicates that we are not yet at this stage.
The second, is to maintain our engagement for as long as we can before entering a National Dispute under the Probation Joint National Council (JNC).
We are now at the stage where we are close to concluding formal consultation over the stated plans on which we regularly brief our political contacts. Once consultation is concluded we will enter into formal negotiations as the proposed changes will clearly impact on terms and conditions if they are enacted.
In addition, Napo has provided regular briefings to the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group, and the General Secretary has personally briefed Sir Bob Neil, the Chair of the Justice Select Committee on these seriously dangerous proposals. The Probation Unions will also be invited to give formal evidence to the Justice Committee over the summer, and as you would expect, this will cover a range of issues including the stated direction of travel on Programmes and Interventions which Carole and Tania continue to challenge on a daily basis. As well as this work, we are in regular contact with Labour’s Front Bench Team as they start to build their criminal justice policies for their general election manifesto. If Labour are elected to government, we already know that they will ditch these proposals.
Understandably, some members are asking why we continue to engage on these proposals, but the view of the Officer Group is that it would be a mistake to withdraw from the talks. Firstly, it would allow senior management a clear playing field when we have on numerous occasions, been able to prevent communications being issued or events taking place. Additionally, it would enable management to push through the Job Evaluation exercise on the role of Band 3 and 4 practitioners without our involvement. We simply cannot allow that to happen.
While we maintain pressure on management and make plans to step up our campaigning activities, we also have an obligation to try and find a negotiated solution to the impasse that we are facing, and Napo would be failing its members if it did not explore every possible avenue here.
The next steps
There is no room for doubt that we are in the midst of an attritional campaign, to which there are no easy solutions; but we hope that the foregoing will demonstrate that we are doing all we can in the absence of members willingness (at this moment), to support an industrial strategy. However, the consultation has made some progress and we have already achieved a number of concessions from the employer as a result of our strong position. We will continue to keep members up to date via regular briefings and mail outs to ensure that you remain clear about our position and our approach to future engagement, and that we will make sure that our members voices, views and concerns are clearly heard.