Napo: We cannot wait – the crisis means we need a fighting union

Adam Harmsworth, Napo NEC member, personal capacity

Year after year, at the AGM of Napo (the union of probation and family courts workers), members have expressed their anger at the state of the probation service and children and family courts (Cafcass).

The Tories put probation through hell, not least through part-privatisation, which Napo boldly challenged with strike action.

The fact that the probation service was reunified and taken out of private hands proved Napo right. But it was taken back under civil service control, not the democratic workers’ control the Socialist Party argued for, and has faced over a decade of pay restraints, budget cuts, and soaring workloads. That has had an effect on members’ morale.

While union membership is rising, and Napo has begun building an outstanding new layer of activists, attendance at recent AGMs has been lower as a result of the attacks Napo has faced.

Napo needs fighting strategy

Members also openly talk about some branches struggling to effectively organise. Doubts have been raised about the union’s ability to build an effective campaign of industrial action if that is needed. Being able to strike is necessary to demand both what our members need and what probation and Cafcass services need.

The period we are going into is one of growing instability, but also a renewed interest in the strength of trade unions and of working-class organisation. We cannot ‘wait for a Labour government’, because we now have one. We cannot wait for austerity to end, because it is continuing under the Starmer’s government.

Napo must take the lead with its sister unions in probation and Cafcass to campaign for change. A fighting strategy on pay, funding and workload will draw in new members, build up our branches with reps and activists, and make the union a fighting fit and democratic organisation.

Organise for a combative union

Important in achieving this would be to bring together all those members who want a fighting union, to campaign for that throughout the union. Building a campaigning, democratic left organisation is a key task within many unions, and Socialist Party members are working alongside others where possible, such as in the Broad Left Network in civil service union PCS, which is now part of the new left NEC majority of PCS.

One of the urgent tasks facing socialist and other activists in Napo is how to bring people together into such a broad left grouping, to champion a programme which can build the union into the organisation it needs to be for the period ahead.

Socialist Party members in Napo are seeking to begin this discussion during and after this year’s AGM, and want to work with any Napo members keen to see Napo rebuilt into an active and combative union that can win real changes for the membership and champion socialist policies.

Unison probation workers demand pay and funding to solve probation service crisis

Amy Sage, Unison member in the probation service

Unison’s 2024 Police, Probation and Cafcass (children and family courts) Service Group conference comes at a time when the probation service is facing one of its most serious crises in decades.

For years, probation workers have been pushed to their limits resulting from severe government underfunding and understaffing. The cracks in the system are widening, and it’s probation staff who have been left to bear the brunt.

Since the last service group conference in October 2023, the pressures on the probation service have only intensified. The government’s early prisoner release scheme, brought in due to prison overcrowding, has exacerbated the crisis. This quick fix may temporarily ease pressure in prisons, but it’s dumping an unsustainable burden on probation officers, who are expected to manage increased caseloads with no additional resources.

With vacancy rates remaining persistently high, probation officers are, on average, expected to complete six days’ worth of work in just five. This is a dangerous and unsustainable situation that puts public safety at risk, damages the health and wellbeing of probation staff, and reduces support for former prisoners. Instead of solving the crisis, the government has simply shifted the overcrowding problem from prisons onto probation services – creating another crisis in the process.

Underfunding

Years of neglect have left the probation service desperately underfunded, making it increasingly difficult for staff to do their jobs effectively. Probation workers are being asked to manage increasingly complex cases with insufficient support, Labour is continuing to promise ‘tough choices’.

Despite being at the forefront of public safety and rehabilitation, probation workers are still denied the fair pay they deserve, enduring over a decade of real-term pay cuts. 2024 is the last year of a three-year deal which awarded between 3.7% – 19.3% depending on grade over three years. In 2023, Unison called for this to be re-opened, demanding 12% at each pay point.

After failing to secure a meaningful pay increase through negotiations, Unison’s national leadership launched a consultative ballot asking members whether they would be prepared to take industrial action if the probation service continued to refuse to renegotiate the pay deal. Over 44% of members voted, and an overwhelming 98% said they were ready to go on strike over the issue of pay.

Although this result clearly reflected the deep frustration and anger among probation staff, Unison’s probation committee decided not to proceed to a full industrial ballot – an action that could have led to the first strike by probation staff in over a decade. Instead, in a move that many members saw as a betrayal, the union’s leadership opted to ‘give the new Labour government a chance,’ despite previous assurances that the general election result would not influence the union’s strategy.

Left must stand up to the Starmer supporters

The stakes are growing increasingly high. Without a leadership with a fighting strategy to reduce workloads, win pay rises that go some way to restoring lost pay, and the resources probation service staff need, staff, service users and public safety continue to be put at risk.

In 2020 Unison members, wanting a fight against austerity, voted for a left-led National Executive Council, but the general secretary Christina McAnea is a supporter of Keir Starmer’s policies. It is clear that what staff working in the probation service need is a united left challenge that counters the Starmer-supporting right wing that makes excuses for Labour’s lack of action and fails to really challenge the employers. We must demand more in pay and funding, and get organised to fight for it!