Concerns about prison-probation merger

A merger of leadership between prison and probation services has heightened fears that the latter is the Cinderella part of the organisation

A new leadership model

The Ministry of Justice has just announced what it describes as ”a new leadership model” for HMPPS. Two new Director General (DG) posts have been created; DG Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and a DG Operations. The two new DG posts will replace the existing DG Prisons and DG Probation, Wales and Youth posts. This is described as being the first step on “our journey to becoming One HMPPS”. The one HMPPS model is promoted as having three main advantages which:

• Allows for a “whole sentence” approach to the way we deliver our services, ensuring offender management services are better joined up across the whole of the offender journey;
• Empowers decision making at a regional level, enabling our leaders to ensure that the services they offer are tailored to the needs of and improve outcomes for users of our services; and
• Supports the sharing of resources, knowledge, information and skills through a new organisational structure that enables better outcomes and provides value for money.

Probation concerns

Many probation folk have complained about being part of NOMS and HMPPS, feeling that they are the Cinderella part of the organisation with the greater size of, and public interest in, prisons meaning that probation concerns are always seen as a lower priority. Both the Probation Institute and the National Association of Probation Officers have issued strong statements protesting about the merger.

Both organisations question both the principle of the merger and its timing. In terms of timing, they argue that Probation has undergone too much turbulence over recent years with the decision to split and semi-privatise the service under Transforming Rehabilitation doing much damage to morale and causing many experienced probation officers to leave the service. The reunification of the service is still only 14 months old and very much a work in progress. Performance is currently under the spotlight with the probation inspectorate yet to find a delivery unit providing a good service. The HMPPS merger is seen as yet another poorly thought out and rushed initiative which will have a long-standing (and possibly irreversible) impact on the probation service.

In terms of more fundamental opposition to the merger, both organisations point out the very different working cultures, vocational paths and values of the prison and probation service. Some of the points made include:

• Probation is a profession with a long-standing requirement for probation officers to be educated to Higher Education Level 6 while there is no equivalent professional qualification for prison officers.
• Different cultures with the probation service more focused on desistance with the prison service more concerned with a safe prison environment.
• Different leadership styles with the prison service operating in more of a command and control structure while the probation approach champions practitioner autonomy and individual professional judgment.

Fundamental to the concerns of both organisations is the discomfort that many probation people feel in being part of the civil service under the reunified arrangements. The Probation Institute spells out its concerns:

It says: "In our view the Civil Service is a wholly inappropriate location for the Probation Service. Indicators of this inappropriateness include:

• Ministerial control taking precedence over professional advice (recent decisions concerning recommendations in Parole Reports)
• Severe constraints on Probation Practitioners from sharing professional concerns in public arena, including publishing
• Lack of external scrutiny (only the MOJ funded HMIPP Inspectorates currently scrutinise the work of the Probation Service."

Prison and probation services have been trying to implement a “whole sentence” approach for many years with little success despite the obvious benefits of improved “continuity of care” on prison release. It appears to be a key part of the MoJ’s thinking that this would be easier to deliver within an integrated service.

Many probation commentators are concerned that yet another re-structure is the last thing that probation staff need, especially in the middle of an ongoing staffing crisis. More fundamental are worries that probation will lose its identity as an independent profession within the proposed new model.