Forever away

 It has been forever since I was here posting some of the smaller pics and to be honest I have more but cannot be sure whether I can be bothered to post any of the others.

Yep, it is like that. I am now off work until November and then hopefully they will allow me to go back on a schedule of part-time days before getting back to doing the day job full-time. Yay!

I can’t remember what I have said so I’ll take it I said nothing of anything and start over.

August 16th – yes that is so long ago – I had an arthroscopy and a sub-acromial excision…in English they had a look inside the shoulder and then chopped some bone off. Since then pill popping is a way of life, it is anyway because of the diabetes, but slows down the digestive system. OK, TMI but there you go.

I have been into work and seen the guys once or twice and they seemed quite happy but stuff is changing big time. Some are taking early retirement which may be a bit previous as there are significant changes to staffing and employers happening that may mean the settlement will be better but they chose to go now so that’s good. Down side? They are not being replaced opening up a number of other roles that will not be for anyone who is untrained. Thus I will be staying where I am and then seeing what happens.

The changes? The government has decided that the re-offending rate is too high particularly by those who have a sentence to custody of less than 12 months. This group are not seen by probation and therefore have no input but they are the group that is being held up (unfortunate phrase I know) as the reason for failure of probation. Thus 70% or so will be farmed off to the private sector or charitable bodies, you know those interested either in profit or losing money because of government activities, to do the best. Evidence already in the public domain suggests

(a) there is little control over the contracts and lead to potentially fraudulent claims;
(b) possible inability to meet the contract (see London 2012 security for an example);
(c) no evidence that public protection will be enhanced;
(d) no addressing of the need for homes and similar needs – one of the factors in criminality – nor the provision of housing for this group;
(e) drug treatment may go ahead – but will need to address more than that over the course of the licence;
(f) more people will have a licence which may last for 24 to 50 weeks whereas before they would not have any contact; – something that probation has been banging on about and now it is coming in they are being taken away for dogmatic reasons
(g) other community orders still need addressing;
(h) the payment by results culture has no system created nor available for inspection and analysis; 
(i) there is no evidence in the world that suggests that PBR works in legal services – its never been tried outside of prisons and it didn’t work there
(j) the services could be run by companies outside of the the UK – really it could!

OK rant over

Its a bad, bad idea from a Government that is dogmatic that the only way forward is private – well in simple terms cobblers