By james gtr manchester - 20 Aug 16 8:41 PM
How are people finding this?
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By Christopher - 11 Oct 16 2:00 PM
+xHow are people finding this?
An observation of the "privatisation" of Probation Services.
I have had the misfortune to have been placed on a period of "supervision" after an excellent assessment with a highly professional and experienced Court PO who recommended it as a continuation of counselling and support that I was receiving via the NHS.
Sounds good so far but sadly my arrival in the system coincided with the decision to split the local Probation Services into a 30% retained public sector element and a 70% hive off into a Community Interest Company (a non profit form of governance) which was given the rehabilitation and resettlement contract.
Oh Joy. In the eighteen months of the order I have had no less that six PO's due to staff shortages, maternity leave, internal reorganisation and transfer of staff to other offices and sick leave. That has meant I have had to repeat my history to six different people with six different ways of working and any hopes of continuity and genuine help has disappeared into smoke!
The real farce is that as a highly experienced top level manager I have been able to offer them an insight into the was organisations run and are managed, especially at the early stages of development after being set up. The hardest thing they have had to learn is that they are no longer public servants and the imperatives of their employer - now a private company fighting to achieve it's contractual targets and bid for new work - over-ride any notions they may retain of being able to "help" people towards genuine rehabilitation. We have seen this with Group 4 and Private Companies running services and it is now a feature of Probation.
So at the end of the period I have probably given much more than I have received and my own notions of being helped along my personal journey have been well and truly shattered on the rocks of "austerity" cuts in public services.
As someone unlikely to ever fall into the hands of the criminal justice system again I have been something of a "banker" for my PO's who meet with me for a perfunctory chat every month and who will be able to tick the box that records "has not re offended in the past twelve months" which will eventually enable a Home Office Minister to stand up in the House of Commons to report that the new policy has been a "success".
After all, that is (cynically) what all of this comes down to in the end, isn't it?
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By Christopher Stacey - 18 Jun 08 1:26 PM
Hi All,
Many of you will have read annoucements this morning about the privatisation of Probation - see www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/09/probation-service-private-firms-grayling.
I was wondering what people thought of this, in terms of thinking back to how you think it would have affected you. Would it have bothered you? Are the planned changes a good thing?
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