90.76% of Napo members back industrial action over probation workloads

Napo Members back our trade union again! Indicative ballot shows 90.76% support for a move to industrial action on workloads if needed.

Napo’s Probation Negotiating Committee met yesterday afternoon to receive the outcome of the indicative ballot of Napo members in the Probation Service, based on the votes of a significant majority of eligible members. This massive majority for a potential move to industrial action, has produced a stark warning for the Government and senior HMPPS management. Napo members have spoken in large numbers, with a clear, strong vote to take action on excessive Probation workloads if there is not a meaningful change in the immediate future.

Overwhelming Support For Industrial Action

Given that this latest ballot of our members is the fourth that we have conducted in the last 12 months, and that we are in peak holiday season, the response has been quite remarkable.

The total turnout was well within the parameters to give us the confidence that we could follow up this result with a successful formal ballot of our Probation members to support industrial action. If required, our plan is that this would follow a similar pattern as previously discussed, beginning with a period of Napo members working only their contracted hours before progressing to include concurrent strike action over several days – more details on this will follow for members in the coming weeks.

If the Government and HMPPS continue to fail to take the meaningful action on excessive workloads this will be the next step in our ongoing campaign to secure these and address a situation which is harming the mental and physical health of members as well as our ability to do our jobs to the best of our abilities.

Prioritise Probation before Prisons

Napo question the priorities of politicians who focus on a prison system that is estimated to be at capacity later this year while ignoring a Probation Service that has been consistently over-worked for years. Members are not fooled by empty promises of the next ‘cavalry’ coming to save us which turn out to be based on dodgy assumptions, lacking in any actual evidence or outright intended to deceive.

How much of the £700 million we hear has been dedicated to the Probation Service is actually coming to practitioners and how many hundreds of millions are being diverted to the private sector, such as for increased electronic monitoring?

How many of the 1000+ trainee probation officers announced as being hired at various points actually qualified, and how many of those colleagues who became Probation Officers have then left shortly afterwards due to excessive workloads, poor pay or unsafe offices?

How can HMPPS credibly continue to claim they can introduce any initiative to reduce Probation workloads when they’ve such a long track record of failure, the latest example being the botched implementation of ‘Probation Reset’?

Napo have worked to make it clear to Ministers that excessive Probation workloads represent a great risk to public safety, made worse by plans to increase this work by many provisions of the Sentencing Act. This indicative ballot result will be used as the starting point for Napo’s work with politicians and others to demonstrate our clear and obvious strength of feeling that enough is enough.

Next Steps

Napo’s Probation Negotiating Committee has unanimously agreed to progress to ballot members on formal industrial action, to commence next month on a date to be announced soon. Members should be aware that much more information will be provided before postal ballots begin arriving with members, including the details of online all member meetings beginning later this month.

While we move forward with our plans it is for the Government and HMPPS to decide if they want to change course and make a meaningful offer on Probation workloads, in line with what Napo has already asked for Napo pressing for change – 7 key issues.

As we have any further news to provide members with on workloads, and pay, we will provide that as soon as we are able.

Finally, we want to thank all members who voted in this ballot for that vote, activist members in Branch for their efforts in organising locally and Napo staff for their work in delivering this ballot. Without our collective efforts this result simply would not have been possible.