DSOUs SORT Thank you for your service

Today is a day for reflection, particularly for our members who were working in the Divisional Sex Offender Units, as today, technically these units no longer exist. It is an end of an era for the Probation Service, which has historically prided itself on being an evidence based and research driven organisation, and these teams were held in high regard by sentencers, police, social services and by sentence management colleagues for the knowledge and insight they bought in working with people who have committed sexual offences. No reason has been given for the removal of these experienced teams, other than "career progression" for those without a probation qualification and who will now be expected to deliver Horizon and New Me Strengths (for those with intellectual disabilities), in the main without the experience and same level of training as those gone before and without an increase in pay, whilst moving into the rollout of Building Choices, which will be one programme whatever the offence may be.

Napo and our sister unions, along with our members (THANK YOU), have worked hard over the last 4 years to raise the concerns for public safety by removing the divisional sex offender units, but sadly the wider HMPPS has refused to hear these. Be assured though, we are still continuing to challenge this in every way we can.

Napo wish to acknowledge our members in those lost units and their commitment to the work to give those convicted of sexual offences an opportunity to address their reasons for making those choices to ensure no more victims going forward, their commitment to ending violence against women and children, their commitment to supporting colleagues in sentence management and overall their commitment to keeping the public safe.

Thank you for your service, we value and respect you.