No chance of a restful weekend with attendance at a major summit being run by tbe General Federation of Trade Unions in Stafford with a hotfoot back to London today for the privilege of addressing a packed Central Hall for the TUCG rally against austerity. Here I was able to illustrate the impact of the TR disaster and why its part and parcel of this Governments attempt to privatise anything that moves and at the same time seek to knock the stuffing out of the organised workforce.
Here is what I said if you are interested in seeing it:
Brothers & sisters, greetings from Napo members working in probation and family courts and also from the GFTU summit in Stafford this weekend which I have been attending
When we talk about the Austerity agenda its easy to forget the direct social impact on what we have traditionally taken for granted in our society.
One such example is the wanton act of vandalism that has seen the destruction of the England and Wales probation service by that dreadful Chris Grayling the worst Lord Chancellor in living history, who implemented his disastrous social experiment this year after a courageous campaign of opposition by Napo members.
His ideologically driven rehabilitation reforms have led to a division of the gold standard probation service to create 21 local rehabilitation companies and place them in the expert hands of privateers such as Sodexo (the horsemeat traders) and Interserve who now run contracts to manage low and medium risk offenders and proving, as we predicted, that they will make a complete pigs ear of doing so; but, in addition, they have also had a disastrous impact on our members skills and professional standards which has resulted in an exodus of experienced people from the service
So what does all this mean in the context of austerity:
Well, it means a real and dangerous risk to public safety as increasing numbers of probation clients are no longer subject to the same standards of skilled supervision as they were before the sell off
It means more and more cases of serious harm and loss of life in our communities because dangerous people slip off the radaras failures of systems and inadequate investment in ICT adds to the omnishambles
It means more cases of domestic violence because there are not enough rehabilitation programmes and tell that to women who (typically) suffer an average of 40 assaults before they decide to call for assistance from the police, and yes that presupposes there is a police officer available to respond.
It means a serious impact on the diversity agenda with more cases of racist assaults, and attacks on refugees or violence fuelled by religious radicalisation because probation officers working in the National Probation service often find their caseloads increased by over 50% and it means the near collapse of multi agency public protection arrangements because those who should participate no longer have the people or resources to take part regularly if at all, and p
It means the planned removal of probation officers out of our overcrowded prisons where they have the best chance of encouraging people to consider reshaping their lives and placing them in locations where it will not be possible for that same interface to occur because of further cuts to the probation estate and budgets for travel. and that as we know, will lead to more friction and the likelihood of more assaults on our POA comrades in the prison estate.
All of this is bad enough, but there is a sinister undertone to these reforms which illustrate that the decimation of the probation service was not just about carving it up for profit, it was part of the Tories systemic assault on our criminal justice apparatus and the trade unions who operate within it, but you know that already; but you also know ...It will not succeed!
It will not succeed because Napo members are starting to say to me enough is enough, enough of this destruction of our profession, (hopefully gaining confidence from the courageous stand being made by our sister and brother junior doctors) enough of allowing the privateer probation pirates to make a buck on the backs of savage job cuts and putting the health and welfare of my members and the clients they serve at risk.
But make no mistake, the fightback for us will be long and hard, but Napo stands ready to embark on a major reengagement exercise to explain why membership of our union is so vital, to explain the insidious threat to our democratic structures from the pernicious Trade Union Bill and to Napo itself as we, like you, face massive pressures caused by the removal of checkoff and the loss of facilities time.
Yes... going back to basics to re-engage with members... to re-energise, to re-galvanise, to simply say: your power of collectivism is greater than that of our enemies, but we have to believe it before we can apply it , and we have to build that confidence within our respective unions and organisations that we can and will move forward from here.
Its often said that despair is a terminal condition but its the loss of hope that will actually kill you. Well its clear to me from this fantastic event and attendance today that hope is a quality we have in abundance.
Finally, let me say that if I need to call on some friends then I know where to go in the form of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, both of whom have loyally stood by our members in probation and Family Courts in their hour of need.
And people may say to me why is Napo endorsing their leadership when we are a politically independent union and I say its because Napo never turns its backs on those who have spoken out and fought for us, and secondly, that we now have an unequivocal commitment from the leadership of the Labour Party that when the time comes they will enact the restoration of the probation service back into public control and if thats good enough for them its good enough for me and the members I represent !
Austerity? Napo says: Stick it.......we dont want it... we dont need it. We must and we will defeat it!
Blog type:
General Secretary's Blog
- ilawrence@napo.org.uk's blog
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