In terms of media coverage, the lead stories on BBC and Sky news on Saturday following Rory Stewart's suggestion that under six-month sentences could be a thing of the past, was a huge boost for our campaigns....Read more
Ian Lawrence's Blog
If you celebrated Christmas but were not on duty over the festive period, the first Monday of the "New Year" brings that traditional challenge in the form of all those unopened mince pies, cakes and chocolates that your colleagues have...Read more
07th Jan 2019
I have just signed off the last of the letters which I have been sending out to CRC Chief Executives over the last few days. These will be published to members early in the new year. These essentially remind them that...Read more
20th Dec 2018
News reaches me of a pay award to Cafcass staff. Ordinarily, and especially on top of Christmas, that might bring a bit of festive cheer. Unfortunately, Cafcass neglected to inform anyone of the decision to implement the remit they were given by...Read more
17th Dec 2018
Its hardly surprising that the NPS pay out has caused some predictable resentment among our members in the CRC estate.
In my letter to the Secretary of State David Gauke -...Read more
11th Dec 2018
The Government's campaign to convince the public that this is the best deal on offer intensifies. No, not Brexit this time, but the increasingly desperate attempt to justify the policy to merely repeat the mistakes of the past four and a half...Read more
04th Dec 2018
As we expected, some of the CRC providers have reacted to the NPS settlement by making some movement on the pay front.
Sadly, it is still not enough in terms of our campaign to secure pay equity across the NPS and the CRCs, and I will...Read more
26th Nov 2018
As I reported to the AGM, your delegates to the TUC were mandated by your National Executive Committee to support the TUC policy position on Brexit. The outcome of the negotiations with the EU were announced last week and gave rise to what was by...Read more
19th Nov 2018
As I have reported in previous weeks, the so-called consultation on ‘strengthening Probation and building confidence’ is nothing but a sham, and won’t change the intended direction of travel which is to create a false market and merely sell off...Read more
05th Nov 2018
Just as was predicted at our recent AGM, the news of the current NPS pay offer has spooked CRC owners who are understandably worried that they will lose staff across to better paying employers, (well actually, the NPS to be precise). News reaches...Read more
29th Oct 2018