- Conference
- 2025 Police, Probation and CAFCASS Conference
- Date
- 17 June 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Conference welcomes the publication in May 2025 of Jennifer Rademaker’s report into professional standards and behaviour in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS).
This long overdue report confirms what our probation members have known for years, that bullying, harassment and discrimination are rife within the organisation they work for.
Conference recognises that these toxic conditions were exacerbated by the former Conservative Government’s disastrous Transforming Rehabilitation reforms back in 2014. The Tories part-privatised and part-centralised probation, creating a divide between former NPS and CRC staff, and then starved probation of funding for the next 10 years. This led to the current staff shortages and unachievable workloads in the Probation Service – ideal conditions for bullying, harassment and discrimination to thrive.
Conference welcomes the acceptance by HMPPS of all of Jennifer Rademaker’s recommendations, but recognises that all the evidence over the last 11 years tells us that being part of the civil service is the root cause of many of probation’s current problems.
Before 2014, probation was a high-performing local service managed by independent trusts aligned with police force boundaries. There was greater managerial accountability, and local trusts addressed local needs. Trusts were small enough, with smaller spans of managerial control, which allowed chief probation officers to set a positive workplace culture, know their workforce and properly support their staff. This is simply not possible in a large civil service organisation like HMPPS, particularly one where probation has to play second fiddle to the prison service.
Conference calls upon the SGE to work with the Probation Service Sector Committee to:
1. Support the implementation of Jennifer Rademaker’s recommendations to improve the health, safety and well-being of our members working for the Probation Service;
2. Redouble UNISON’s ‘Let’s Fix Probation’ campaign for probation to be returned to its local roots, to be run again by independent chief probation officers as a locally accountable public service.