They say Sodexo – we say: Oh no!

Earlier this week I issued Branch Circulars 24/2015 and 25/2015 which alerted branches with members in the 21 CRCs in general and those in Sodexo in particular, of plans to announce redundancies.

We now understand that in Cumbria and Lancashire CRC the Chief Executive has announced a reduction of 11% to the current Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staffing profile with plans to reduce the current staffing levels from 340 to 217 by the Autumn.

In South Yorkshire it’s a two phased reduction with a proposed end state compliment of 157 by the first half of 2016.

We await news from the CRC’s covering Northumbria, BENCH, Norfolk and Suffolk and Essex, early next week.

Grubby tactics

Naturally there has already been contact from members expressing outrage at these developments, and of course it’s the sort of thing that we expected from Sodexo (having seen their lamentable performance in HMP Northumberland) after they got their foot in the Probation door thanks to Chris Grayling's master plan.

In terms of their modus operandi, this bunch are right up there with the likes of Serco, whose self-congratulatory sales blurb during the tendering process convinced NOMS to let them loose in London C.P. with disastrous results for staff and the taxpayer. Only this time around its public safety that we will all  be just as concerned about

As I write we are working on a statement to members to outline as much detail about the proposed job losses as we can. Ranjit Singh is convening an emergency meeting of Sodexo CRC Napo reps next week. Your Officers and Officials will be analysing the outcomes from that and, as I said in the circulars referred to above, we will be formally writing to the company with copies to their CRC Chief Executives.

More hard times ahead as we see yet another example of the Tories privatisation solution, and what a disgraceful shambles it is, and they are.

BAME Staff and Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) Survey

In case you have not seen this. Napo is working alongside the Association of Black Probation Staff (ABPO) and the National Initiative for Leadership and Empowerment (NILE) to investigate and assess the impact of the TR ‘split’ and the assignment of staff into either, the National Probation Service (NPS), or, a Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC).

This investigation has been prompted by concerns that BAME Probation Staff were subjected to racial discrimination during the first phase of the privatisation/TR process, and the persistent failure of the employers to provide statistical data that would shed light on the matter.  Therefore, Napo has joined forces with ABPO and NILE to establish the facts about the experiences of BAME Probation staff under TR.

Napo strongly encourages all BAME members to complete this survey and share their experiences. The link to the survey is included below.  If members have difficulty opening the link from the workplace they can forward the link to a personal email address and complete the survey at home.

Link to Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Y8N5KDQ

To ensure we achieve a maximum response as possible branches are encouraged to use their networks to promote the survey to BAME members.

Elfyn Llwyd says farewell

Following the disastrously embarrassing attempt by the Condems and Unionists to unseat Commons Speaker John Bercow yesterday came a number of valedictions from those due to leave the House forever.

In amongst them was a dignified and uplifting contribution from our friend Elfyn Llwyd MP. If you can get it on this link it features at about 14:25 pm. His presence and humility will be a great loss.

More next week on all of the above and other hot topics for sure. Sticking with Napo and becoming a member of it has never been more important.