Latest increase in Probation workload to address Prison overcrowding provokes outrage

Napo members have reacted with anger to Wednesday’s announcement by the Government on changes to the Fixed Term Recall process. This will effectively significantly increase the numbers of people who will now be automatically re-released 28 days after being recalled, where previously they would have been subject to a Standard Recall, involving a much more robust risk assessment and management process in the months after recall.

Changes To Fixed Term Recall Risk Public Safety

On the details provided so far it appears only very limited exclusions will be in place, meaning that large numbers of people who have committed sexual, domestic abuse and stalking offences will be subject to Fixed Term Recalls. All this despite a decision having been taken just 4 weeks before that the risk these individuals posed to others was such that they could not be managed in the community and should be returned to custody. Napo’s view is that, along with the person committing any further offence, the Government will share responsibility for the deaths and serious injury that will be caused to members of the public by those re-released early following this change.

This change has attempted to have been justified by the increase in the proportion of those in prison following recall. No mention is made of the leading role played by HMPPS over recent years in promoting the use of recall, including the climate of fear and blame created in their approach to Serious Further Offences. If it wanted to take responsibility for addressing the numbers of people recalled to custody each year the Government could have considered the immediate implementation of changes to the threshold for recall, for example bringing this in line with that in place for others released on licence, such as indeterminate sentenced prisoners.

Napo calls on the Government to urgently change course following this announcement, and to listen carefully to the range of opposition to this plan.

What This Means For Pay And Workloads

From the point where Napo representatives were informed about this change, just over three hours before the announcement was made, we have made our position clear.

We have made clear that again the Government has prioritised Prisons overcrowding over Probation workload, seeming able to find billions to expand the Prison estate as well as producing legislation in short order.

Our members are past breaking point with the approach of this Government and its treatment of the Probation Service and its workforce.

We expect the Government to find the money to meet our current pay claim in full and to instruct HMPPS to respond more positively to the workload relief demands that Napo and the other trade unions have made. If the Government can find billions to engage in the spectacle of prison-building it can find the millions required to improve the pay of Probation staff who have, by Minister’s own accounts, saved the criminal justice system from collapse by implementing various early release schemes over recent years.

Napo remains in a trade dispute with the employer on the twin issues of pay and workloads. Unless significant progress is made on both fronts in the next few weeks members will be left with no course of action but to progress the options available to us in terms of industrial action to force them to change their approach to us.