At an urgently arranged meeting between the Probation Trade unions and the new Ministerial team for the MoJ, your Napo representatives spelt out the reality of the pressures being faced by our members caused by inadequate pay and excessive workloads.
The meeting with the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and James Timpson the Minister for Prisons Parole and Probation, while focusing mainly on the new Government’s plans to introduce a new early release of prisoners scheme, produced a genuine feeling that the views of trade unions while receive a better hearing than has been the case over the last 14 years of the previous Tory administration.
Nevertheless, and as can be seen from the attached media release from Napo, it was made clear to the Secretary of State that our members need action rather than warm words in the face of the crisis that exists in Probation.
The formal announcement about reducing determinate prison sentences is expected today, but in advance of that, the General Secretary has been engaged in a series of media and radio interviews over the last 24 hours, see one example.
In terms of the trade disputes that have been lodged by Napo and UNISON, it was made clear that the goodwill of Probation staff is all but exhausted, and that for the governments plans on early release to succeed, it will be necessary for urgent solutions to be found to demonstrate the commitments that we received from Ministers.
The unions will be following up on the specific requests we made to Ministers yesterday, and more news about this will follow shortly.
