- Conference
- 2015 Police & Justice Service Group Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that the tory government’s success in the general election means that they will now, undoubtedly, continue with their plans for the privatisation of the probation service.
Clearly this has major implications for all UNISON members in the service, but there are particular issues facing women workers:
1) The majority of the redundancies in the privatised section of probation will be coming from administrative functions – these are roles are more likely to be filled by women and therefore women will be the biggest affected group by these moves;
2) Conference condemns the decision of the previous Coalition Government to split the Probation workforce into the National Probation Service (NPS) and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) and the subsequent sale of the CRCs to the private sector. Since the split of the service there has been a proliferation of new processes which duplicate and increase work leading to a fragmentation of services and a division of previous working relationships. This is expensive and demoralising for staff and many of our members have chosen to depart leading to a loss of skilled staff and a high level of agency staff having to be temporarily employed to fill vacancies at a time when a significant number of redundancies within the CRCs are expected to take place. The centralisation of probation offices, which is happening in both the National Probation Service (NPS) and Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs), will greatly affect those with care commitments as it means people travelling further and for longer. Once again the greatest impact will be on women as they are still, primarily, the carers in family relationships;
3) The majority of domestic violence cases have been and will continue to be assessed as medium risk, meaning that they will be supervised by the CRCs – profit making organisations, where cutting costs is the primary objective. Ensuring protection for victims and interventions for perpetrators is not something that can successfully happen within an austerity framework. This impacts not only on women in society, but on members who may themselves be the victims of domestic abuse, and on the staff who previously provided the services;
4) Staff will, inevitably, have to do much more work with less resources, within a context where austerity measures are affecting other services where probation staff would normally look for additional support – for instance mental health services, women’s community support services, drug and alcohol services.
Conference calls upon the Service Group executive to:
a) continue to campaign for a unified Probation Service, one which is fully staffed and based local to the communities in which they should be serving.
b) write a letter to the Justice Minister requesting the reversal of the fragmentation of, and part privatisation of the Probation Service;
c) ensure that the protection of terms and conditions is paramount by continuing to engage in effective negotiations with both the NPS and the CRCs;
d) develop an ongoing strategy to adequately support membership growth in both the NPS and the CRCs to ensure that a strong and effective trade union organisation across the NPS and CRCs remains in place;
e) provide information in the form of leaflets and posters to all of our branches to ensure that all staff remain aware of current developments within both the NPS and the CRCs, in particular the work that Unison nationally is undertaking to support our campaign;
f) increase the awareness of our campaign by producing publications of information via social media to ensure that the public are kept duly informed;
g) continue to collaborate with sister unions Napo and GMB to ensure that the detrimental effects of the split of Probation Services including planning an appropriate industrial action strategy if necessary;
h) utilise Labour Links to support a campaign for reversal of privatisation of Probation Services.