Probation workers across England and Wales in both Unison and Napo are voting in a national pay ballot on the employer’s 4% offer.

Amy Sage, Unison rep, personal capacity

This pay offer comes at a time when workloads, staffing levels and safety concerns have all sharply deteriorated, and when anger in the service has reached breaking point.

Unison, the largest union in probation, has taken the important step of recommending a reject vote. This marks a significant shift.

When a similar offer was made a few years ago, Unison did not take a position at all,  much like GMB today, which is neither recommending acceptance nor rejection.

The fact that Unison is now taking a clear stance shows that the leadership is being pushed by the mood of the members.

And that mood has hardened. Over the past two years, probation staff have repeatedly asked why we weren’t taking action when other public services were striking and winning. In the recent general secretary elections, members ousted the Starmer-supporting Christina McAnea and elected Andrea Egan, who stood on a platform of more serious action.

Meanwhile, the situation in probation has deteriorated sharply. Caseloads remain dangerously high, staffing levels continue to fall, morale is low, and workloads are unsafe.

In the past six months alone, there have been two serious incidents involving the stabbing of probation staff. After the first incident, where a probation officer was almost killed, the employer dismissed it as ‘rare’ and unlikely to happen again. Since then, another stabbing has taken place.

Stretched beyond limits

Workers know this is not a coincidence. It is the direct result of a service stretched beyond safe limits. Against this backdrop, it would have been impossible for Unison’s leadership to avoid taking a clear position in the ballot, or to try to hold back the possibility of strike action.

This pay ballot, with two unions balloting simultaneously, could mark a turning point for probation. Years of underfunding, unsafe workloads and falling pay have pushed the service into crisis. Members are increasingly unwilling to accept another real-terms cut while the job becomes more dangerous and more impossible to do safely.

The employer’s offer represents a real‑terms cut and falls far short of the unions’ 12% claim and £15 minimum wage demand. It does nothing to reverse a decade of pay erosion, leaves the lowest‑paid on course to be overtaken by the national minimum wage, and widens the gap with comparable public sector roles.

Crucially, it offers no solution to the staffing crisis or unsafe workloads, even as the employer withholds a £100 million underspend created by its own failure to recruit.

If probation workers vote to reject, and if unions move to a formal industrial action ballot, it will be because the workforce has had enough. The pressure from below is real, and it is reshaping the union’s stance. The question now is whether members will seize this moment to fight for the pay, funding, safety and staffing levels the service desperately needs.

  • Amy is seeking nomination to stand for the Police, Probation and Cafcass Service Group Executive (SGE) in Unison. Other Socialist Party members standing in the SGE elections are Adrian O’Malley and Paul Tovey in health, Mathew John and Balaka Fell-Holden in local government, and Manny Dominguez for the Community SGE

Adam Harmsworth, Napo vice chair, adds in a personal capacity:

Last August, Napo members showed their determination to fight with a 90% vote for strike action over pay. Unfortunately the ballot fell short of the 50% turnout required by the 2016 anti-union law, which still remains in place under Labour.

Members’ anger has only grown since, over the lack of a pay offer and the wider crisis in probation. Napo’s Young Members Network met just days after the pay offer was finally received, and young activists reported how in some offices probation workers immediately gathered to express outrage and disappointment. There is a mood to fight back especially, but not only, among young probation workers.

This year, Napo and all probation unions must do everything to beat the threshold. Napo has already launched a programme of online meetings and social media posts for the indicative ballot. A strong rejection alongside preparing branches for a ballot of industrial action could see us not only beat the 50% threshold, but give our members the strength and organisation to take on this weak divided Labour government.