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Probation Journal
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The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0264550510373812
2010 57: 291 Probation Journal
David M Scott
Who's protecting who?

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Whos protecting who?
David M Scott, Chair, Probation Chiefs Association (20089)
Abstract The author was invited by the Probation Journal to comment from his
own leadership perspective on a serious case failure and its aftermath. He considers
the context of the case, the predominant political culture of command and control
and the crude allocation of blame. He concludes that these factors, together with
political short-termism, jeopardize public protection because they preclude open-
ness to learning at every level, including Government.
Keywords leadership, learning, openness, ownership, public protection,
uncertainty
The emasculation of the Probation Service over the past ten years has been accompa-
nied by political apathy and public indifference. At the beginning of this Millennium
there was much talk of giving Probation a national voice and a strengthened role in
the Criminal Justice System. At the end of the decade, Probation has been pushed
from pillar to post. Far from having a national voice, the organization, which at any
one time supervises 200,000 plus offenders in the community, is not even represented
in its own right in key national decision-making fora but subsumed within a vast Prison
Service dominated bureaucracy. A national asset is being squandered.
For the best part of one hundred years, Probation was led locally and overseen
by a light touch Home Office unit which provided administration and the critical
interface with ministers. The role of the Chief Officer was to deliver professional
local leadership and to work closely with the very communities where offending
happened and to which all but the most dangerous offenders would return on
completion of their prison sentence.
The predominant political themes of the past ten years have been a growing
intolerance of crime and anti-social behaviour and an emphasis on punishment,
public protection and the improvement of criminal justice performance across the
whole system. Arguably no other agency has been as affected as Probation by the
political short-termism and opportunism which have prevailed in a period of
heightened public anxiety and frustration about law and order failings. The
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright 2010 NAPO Vol 57(3): 291-295
DOI: 10.1177/0264550510373812
www.napo.org.uk
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Comment
291
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increased risk aversion and intolerance which have followed a series of high profile
cases have been well documented but the massive impact on Probation workload
and capacity has been conveniently ignored.
In 2001, Probation for the first time became a national service complete with a
National Director and a mood of genuine optimism among Chief Officers. The pri-
vate political rhetoric was of backing Chiefs and giving them the tools to do a very
difficult job. Within the blink of an eye, it seemed the National Director post was
downgraded, then marginalized within the newly created National Offender Man-
agement Service (NOMS).
A feature of these changes has been the absence of consultation. Change has
been imposed. In quick succession Probation moved from having its own leader
to becoming part of NOMS, then unified at head office level within the Prison Ser-
vice and moved from the Home Office to the newly created Ministry of Justice. The
House of Commons Justice Committee has expressed its concern about these
changes:
We are concerned that there are no probation staff at a senior level in NOMS: this
suggests a lack of advocacy on behalf of probation for better resources. We have not
seen any evidence which suggests that bringing together prisons and probation has
yet had a positive impact; in fact the available evidence on the financial outcomes of
this merger point to the contrary. We are deeply concerned at this indication that the
Government is moving further towards a prisons-oriented criminal justice system
(House of Commons Justice Committee, 2010: 10).
When I became London Probations Chief Officer it was in the aftermath of the
Hanson and White case which had involved the brutal murder of a financier in his
home by two offenders under supervision. Subsequent to the sentencing in this
tragic case I met both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary individually to
discuss pressing issues about public protection. This is in sharp contrast to the
NOMS environment of 2008 when Dano Sonnex, an offender being supervised
by London Probation, murdered two French students shortly after his release from
prison on licence. By this time there were several additional tiers of management,
with key personnel in temporary positions and critical business functions like
finance, information technology and business accommodation, being cobbled
together as we went along. At no time was I invited to meet the Justice Secretary
on London Probation business.
There is an unshakeable tenet of the Probation Service that should apply as much
to leadership and management as it does to the vital front line work between proba-
tion staff and offenders for change to happen there must be ownership and accep-
tance of personal responsibility. Displacement of blame on to others is as sure a sign
as probation staff will get that real change is being thwarted or denied. For this
reason, the abdication of political leadership in the Sonnex case is deeply
disturbing.
My mantra from day one in London was that the buck stopped with me as Chief
Officer (I was advised from above that this was an inherently risky position to take).
I resigned as Chief Officer for London Probation because something had gone badly
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wrong. Two innocent young men had died terrible deaths at the hands of Sonnex
and another individual. Failings by the service I led and the wider criminal justice
system contributed to their deaths.
However nothing had prepared me for the duplicity of the agency nor, more
shockingly, the posturing of the then Justice Secretary in the national media. Why
the Justice Secretary should state that I had been suspended when I had not remains
a mystery to me. His assertion that I would have been sacked (prejudging any hear-
ing) is deeply ironic coming from the head of the Ministry of Justice. I had expected
and received intrusive door-stepping by the media at my home but not careless fal-
sehoods from those with the power to provide perspective and balance. Does this
matter, or is it just another symptom of the political life in our country which has des-
cended to such tawdry depths?
I believe it matters greatly. For organizations to learn lessons (just as with people)
there has to be a willingness to face up to what has gone wrong, however unpala-
table. The best private sector organizations know that this openness to learning and
new ideas is at the heart of their competitive advantage. Ed Schein, widely
regarded as the world authority on organizational development, believes the will-
ingness of leaders to be open and to listen (to staff and service users) is as much
about survival as competitive advantage. In his lecture Why the Leader of the Future
Must be a Humble Inquirer, Schein (2009) argued that neither effectiveness, nor
safety can be improved without a genuine desire to learn across cultural divides.
Command and control, the modus operandi of NOMS, and political style of choice
of the then Government, is outmoded. A similar argument has been made by David
Spiegelhalter, Professor of Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University
The main problem is that if scientists and politicians are too certain, then adapting
to new information can be slow or embarrassing. He concluded that:
Politicians need to be willing to accept scientific uncertainty and still take decisions,
and this means getting an idea of the magnitude of the risks, even when our
understanding is incomplete. None of us expects certainty in our lives but we could all
get better at acknowledging our ignorance without succumbing to the twin perils of
panic or paralysis.
(Spiegelhalter, 2009)
In 2006, after six years experience as a member of the Parole Board, I wrote in the
Foreword to a book on public protection and the criminal justice process, that the
author wished that the runaway train of public protection could be slowed suffi-
ciently to allow for mature reflection and informed debate: It may not be possible
to affect the speed of the train, but if this book helps to improve the signalling and
track on which the train runs it will have made a very substantial contribution to
really protecting the public (Nash, 2006). Although I did not realize it at the time
these words would have very real resonance for London Probation.
At the time of Sonnexs release from prison, London Probation had recognized
the need for transformation and embarked on the journey with strengthening public
protection at the core of its strategy. The pattern of improvement and sound financial
housekeeping had been recognized by the Her Majestys Inspectorate of Probation
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and London Probations External Auditor alike. What London desperately needed
and constantly sought were the national enablers (the improvements to the signal-
ling and track) to allow it to plan and flourish. Above all, it needed high level cover
to grow the skills and competence of its committed but overstretched and inexper-
ienced staff. The myopic behaviour of the Justice Secretary and others precluded
real, long term learning into the tragic failures of the Sonnex case. For example,
the question of Probation resourcing was trivialized into tabloid sound bites to the
effect that money allocated to Probation hadnt been spent fully, therefore the
problem was with management. In reality it takes time to plan, recruit and develop
a diverse workforce skilled and flexible enough to meet the inexorable rise in
demand for its services. It has been a feature of recent years that well grounded
policy and resourcing has lagged behind initiatives such as indeterminate sen-
tences or creating a viable framework for private sector involvement in service
delivery.
The Probation future is for others to forge but the risks it faces are considerable
and it is desperately important that the wider issues raised by the Sonnex case are
debated openly. In Scheins words, it is high time for humble inquiry and to set aside
the obsession with technical quick fixes and confront the complexities of the bigger
picture. How can Probation continue to exist, let alone flourish, without its own
national leadership? Who represents Probation in the corridors of power and
argues its corner when crucial decisions about resourcing and public profile are
made? Is Probation best placed in the Ministry of Justice when many would argue
it belongs more with the Police in the Home Office? What model best enables Chief
Officers to deliver high quality local services? Why is probation practice so desk
bound, and why is there no real time inter-agency training simulation to build con-
fidence and share learning across cultures?
Fear and cynicism are highly corrosive forces. It is vital for the well-being of this
country and the many worldwide jurisdictions which look to the United Kingdom for
leadership that Probation retains a strong heartbeat fuelled by the best professional
practice. The tragic Sonnex case and other notorious public protection failures quite
properly challenge our very foundations.
Commenting on the shortcomings of the free market target driven culture of the
public sector one of this countrys most senior police officers wrote recently: The
saddest irony is that public sector leaders crave the loyalty and respect of the people
they serve (Bettison, 2010). I share this view. In my experience Probation Chief Offi-
cers are highly motivated, still driven largely by a sense of vocation and remarkably
skilled and committed in their professional service to their political masters. Increas-
ingly, as with the Armed Forces and other public sector organizations in the spot-
light, they are alarmed by the short term, knee jerk reaction of most politicians
and they question Who is protecting who?
Political failure to provide perspective and balance corrodes the mutual trust
which must be at the heart of reform and change. Instead of building confidence
in public protection it creates a fault line which is inherently dangerous because it
prevents open analysis of failure and the genuine steps needed to bring about last-
ing change. The celebrated poet Ben Okri (1999), who has spoken at a national
probation conference and is revered by many probation staff, wrote:
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And so hold on to the best
Things of the awakened mind.
Only the most solid and intangible
Aspects of the human spirit
Can save us from succumbing
To the waves of panic
That engulf us temporarily.
Probation staff have a remarkable history of adaptation and courage against the
odds. These qualities and a willingness to speak up for the service will be crucial to
its imperilled future.
References
Bettison, N. (2010) We Cant Afford the Nonsense of Huge Public Sector Salaries
(Including Mine), The Yorkshire Post, 12 April.
House of Commons Justice Committee (2010) Cutting Crime: The Case for Justice
Reinvestment, First Report of Session 200910, Volume 1:10.
Nash, M. (2006) Public Protection and the Criminal Justice Process. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Okri, B. (1999) Mental Fight An Anti-Spell for the 21
st
Century. London: Phoenix
House.
Schein, E. (2009) Why the Leader of the Future must be a Humble Inquirer, Lecture in
London, 17 November 2009. DVD available from: www.quality-equality.com
Spiegelhalter, D. (2009) An Uncertain Scientists Guide to Taking Risks, The Times, 4
November.
David M Scott CQSW, BSc, MBA qualified as a Probation Officer in the
1970s. He served as Chief Officer for West Sussex, Hampshire and London
20052009; Chair of Hampshire Criminal Justice Board and Vice Chair
of the London CJB; Member of the Parole Board 19992005; Founder
Member and Inaugural Chair of Probation Chiefs Association. Email:
davidmscott@live.com
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