Project Article - Indifference, resistance, possibility: Probation staff perspectives on the introduction of professional registration
Our article Indifference, resistance, possibility: Probation staff perspectives on the introduction of professional registration, published the Probation Journal, explores the responses from interviews with a mixed sample of probation staff in one case study region (n=56) to questions they were asked about their knowledge of the Professional Register and what implications they felt it would have for their careers. Our sweep of interviews, running from March 2024 through to September 2024, captures the views of staff in the months leading up to the formal establishment of the Professional Registration policy framework that set out the requirements and guidance for probation staff around professional registration, probation professional registration standards, and loss of authority to practice. In the article we argue that although some staff in our sample expressed a cautious support for professional registration, there was also a high level of indifference – and in some cases resistance - among those interviewed suggesting a need to articulate more clearly what the purpose of Professional Registration is and what its implementation means for those working within the Probation Service.
The analysis of responses to the two questions we asked about Professional Registration helps identify two further reflections. Firstly, based on the views of our sample, in the efforts to help overcome the lack of knowledge reported, it is important that efforts to stimulate awareness about Professional Registration a) explain where the Register will ‘sit’ and be maintained and b) demonstrate how it can be part of the wider renewal of efforts to enhance service delivery. The staff in our sample who were most positive about models of professional registration qualified their views on the basis that the Register needs to have a catalytic effect on continuous professional development – time and resources - in ways that both advance their own individual careers and protect the integrity of probation service practice more generally.
Secondly, within our sample we can see that some groups of staff harbour deep concerns about how the language of individuals being ‘on’ or ‘off’ the Professional Register has the capacity to be divisive and – in their view - unfairly question the professionalism of colleagues. Although the PSO grade staff in our sample reported having limited knowledge about Professional Registration, it is telling that it was PO, SPO, and senior manager grade staff who have previously been PSOs who highlighted the need for Professional Registration to be more inclusive. Drawing on their own experiences and sensitive also to the legacies of experiencing organisational change within the sector, they offered a persuasive argument that, following the initial focus on the probation officer grade, it is important that discussions about proposed structures and ambitions for governing and acquiring Professional Registration speak more clearly than they currently do to staff at all levels of the organisation.
In our final remarks in the article we argue that the need for stronger (and visible) political leadership to help educate the public about the work of the probation service and to manage their expectations about what rehabilitative work can be achieved, and when, is something that emerges strongly across our research work packages, operating as they have at local, regional, and national levels: within and beyond probation. Though this yearning to more meaningfully recognise the work of probation services is not new, its need has rarely been greater as the fragility of the service and scrutiny of performance has rarely been the subject of such intense focus (HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2023). The role of probation practitioners and the interventions they administer must be part of a wider systems approach that has the capacity to connect a series of organisations and resources to support long-term and sustained efforts to reduce reoffending. Professional Registration, conceptually, does evidence the ambition to seek to recognise and record the skills and competencies probation (qualified) staff have, and does explicitly renew the commitment to the crucially significant role the probation service plays within a more co-ordinated administration of criminal justice policy delivery. Though we feel this is a welcome and positive development - when thought of this way - our paper has helped to document how a staff group who are still coming to terms with the legacies of profound organisational change struggle to find the capacity to fully engage with Professional Registration, its aims, and longer-term ambitions.
The article will feature as part of a Special Edition of the Probation Journal that will focus on Professional Registration.