Helen Banner, National Chair, opened Napo's 2023 AGM in Nottingham with the following speech:
Shwmae, Good Afternoon Conference.
A warm welcome to all that have been able to be in person in Nottingham today and for our comrades that are attending virtually. Croeso.
What a State we are in! Conference, we will hear over the next few days, that chaos still ensues within the Probation Service.
The pay matters are still outstanding in Family Court and Probation Northern Ireland.
The retention problems are impacting the valued work we know we need to undertake with the clients we work with.
The last year has been interesting to say the least. We hear the assurances from our employers: “the cavalry is coming”, yet we also see experienced and new colleagues walk out the door, and the churn goes on.
When will the light be turned on? When will we be able to rebuild, stabilise and get on with what we do best? These are the questions we hear from members day in day out.
Comrades, Keep telling us the reality. Keep pressing us to take this forward. As you know, even though we don’t give up on the people we work with, we sometimes have to sit back, re-evaluate, deliver and communicate what it is we do in a different way for it to be understood.
There have been many re-evaluations of the jobs that we do by the employer in the last year, stemming from efficiency savings we are told.
Yet, what our experiences over the last year have told us is that the cost cutting has reactionary outcomes, the distrust within the relationship between employee and employer is resound, and the retention problem is real.
We are told there is a downward trend, and it is us who see the empty desks and the new faces that come and go without the nurturing they deserve.
One size fits all, and still there is tick box after tick box leading to relentless mindless churn.
The direction of travel is so subsumed by the crisis and chaos within the Prison Service.
Take stock, evaluate and listen we say. Probation is not just full, the work is overflowing and bursting at the seams.
Staff are experiencing work related stress to an extent that has left them traumatised and devastated and we continue to maintain this toxic relationship.
Little wonder we have had to undertake the launch of Operation protect as a Joint Trade Union movement, with our colleagues from Unison and GMB Scoop.
We learn from our experiences I hope. I went to an event, where I saw a male I recognised with lived experience as someone sentenced to an IPP.
He recalled his distrust, he recalled his anger with the Pre-Sentence Report Writer who then attended his Maprap after sentence, yet this person just kept coming back time after time to every sentence review meeting throughout his sentence.
He was angry, he was sad, he was impacted by this sentence, yet started to examine how he had impacted on people’s lives in a negative way.
He explained his worries for his Mum, we visited his Mum, we built that relationship. We put in support for his Mum.
He said that was his light bulb moment with Probation – he started to trust. The respectful relationship had started its new journey. He opened up about this shift, he was on his journey of change.
This however, was when the resources were there to actively support this movement.
When my colleagues had the time and resources at hand to support and facilitate this change.
When these resources were also within the Prisons.
We know that there are so many less victims due to changes like his.
That was our profession, that was our culture, that was why we are still here, day in day out.
There was robustness, there was continuity there was Respect.
There was relationship building; that is what brought about change.
What colleagues experience now is constant reactionary measures to respond to the increasing churn of who is there to do the work. This has to got to stop.
We work in our communities, with our communities but absolutely for our communities.
We are not puppets on strings, we cannot and will not be pulled in the direction of devastating knee jerk reactionary measures to appease and pick up the pieces when things are going wrong.
There are some, who don’t necessarily have our insight into what it is to prompt change.
Conference, you know best, you are the specialists in the room, you have this insight. We need to ensure and nurture this change, let’s crack on with business, our business, our Justice, our profession that is locally robust and wholeheartedly is within our communities.
Again, we work in our communities, with our communities but absolutely for our communities.