Probation budget cuts are to Blame for Sonnex. The service is falling apart

An anonymous News Rage reader writes:

"I am a Welsh Trainee Probation Officer who will qualify in September 2009 without a job. Before this horrific tragedy took place, I contacted my MP, MEP, AM and MP's from the Ministry of Justice with my concerns that although the Government state that since 1997 they have increased probation budgets, however the last two years and for the foreseeable future Probation Budgets have substantially decreased.

This has resulted in voluntary redundancies, and a re-design of the service. For the last two years newly Qualified Probation Officers have found themselves without jobs upon completion of a 2 year training programme, and natural attrition of staff through retirement and sickness are not being replaced.

The Probation service in my opinion and from practice experience is operating at dangerous levels. The Sonnex case only highlights this.

Mr Straw responded to the Sonnex case by stating that it was not a result of a lack of resources. However - in contradiction, it was recommended that the London Probation Area as a result of the Sonnex case should seek to employ 100 Probation Officers?! My question is where do they propose to get these 100 Probation Officers from during a time where newly qualified PO's are being told they have no job?

I again want to express my concerns over current probation practice. From my experience operational staff cannot manage their case loads effectively. Case loads are too high. In South Wales Probation Trust unqualified Case Administrators are now responsible for managing low risk or first time offenders. Yes I agree they are low risk, however appropriate intervention for first time offenders is vital to prevent them from further offending and prevent them from becoming another re-offending statistic. Case Administrators are not qualified to manage this.

As for the National Offender Management Service, is it completely necessary to spend billions of the tax payers money in order to simply create a process whereby prison and probation 'work better together' and sell out probation resources as a matter of financial contestability?

To sum up, the Probation service is falling apart, and failing to meet its aims in protecting the public and reducing re-offending due to a lack of resources and an ever decreasing budget. Prison levels are at an all time high which in turn means more and more offenders will be released into the community without adequate probation resources to manage them. The Government response - BUILD MORE PRISONS! Was it not considered that this will also increase the number of offenders being supervised by Probation? So More Probation Officers will be required to manage the ever increasing prison population upon their release. No probation will manage! I agree with Mr Llwyd - Lets hope that the Sonnex Case is not the first of many to come in the foreseeable future."


This comment was posted anonymously in relation to the following article:
http://daggnabbitnews.blogspot.com/2009/06/plaid-mp-highlights-lack-of-resource.html

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