Amy Rees – Director General Probation, Wales and Youth

Update message to staff – Friday 11 March

Amy Rees - Director General for Probation

My thoughts continue to be with people effected by the dreadful situation in Ukraine.  It is so difficult to watch the news coverage of these terrible events.  I know many of you will have friends or family members who are directly impacted, and I thank you for all the kindness and support you are showing to each other.  Please do remember that we have the Employee Assistance Line available for staff members which can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on: 0800 019 8988 and speak to your line manager if you have personal concerns. Please also continue to consider how we best support people on probation impacted and the organisations based in your region which may be able to help.

In response to recent announcements by the UK and Welsh Government regarding the removal of COVID restrictions, we have been reviewing what this means for how we all work and deliver probation services. We do need to now learn to live with COVID and safely manage the risk to ourselves and others.  We are developing new health and safety guidance which will be coming out to you soon but in the meantime, please do continue to follow the processes in place where you work.

As you will be aware, we are focusing on two key areas in response to your feedback from the People Survey:  Pay – we are continuing to do all we can to move forward our plans to secure a multi-year pay deal for probation staff effective from April 2022 and we will keep you updated on this.  Prioritising the frontline – Kim and the Prioritsing Probation team are working on a range of issues to try and reduce the pressure on front line staff.  You can read more about solutions they have found to speed up recruitment so new staff can join us more quickly with a particular big win being securing conditional offers – find out more here. I am also really pleased that we are on track and expect to meet our target of recruiting 1500 PQIP learners for 2021/22 – which will be verified by analysts shortly after. This will further strengthen our future workforce and look I forward to meeting lots of new joiners to the Probation Service over the coming months when I visit regions.

One of the best parts of my job as Director General is having the opportunity to present our staff with awards to recognise their brilliant work so I was so pleased to be able to do this last week when I joined colleagues in Cardiff for the annual HMPPS in Wales awards. It was lovely to hear the nomination stories and I was very moved to meet the widow of Allan Maguire who bravely attended to collect his posthumous award for the support he had provided probation colleagues in the Dyfed Powys probation region. Thank you to everyone involved in arranging the event and huge congratulations to all the deserving winners.

Finally, a few reminders of important dates for your diaries:

The festival of learning that is the Insights festival is back, running from 9 May until 20 May. There are over 500 free opportunities available to:

learn about the latest evidence and research

share good practice

connect with people across the criminal justice service (CJS)

celebrate success

Registration is now open to book the tickets for the events you are interested in via the Insights website

LGBT+ History Month – Art Exhibition 28.03.22

As part of the celebration of LGBT+ history month, an art exhibition focusing on the theme of “What does Belonging & Inclusion mean to you?”. It is being held at Newbold Revel Prison Service training college 10:00-12:30, event info & booking link is: here and is open to all staff across MoJ,

All Probation Staff MS Teams Live Event 30.03.22

We are holding our next all probation staff MS Teams live event 30 March at 10.30 – 12.00 where we will be updating you on a range of topics including the Race Action Programme and our Lived Experience work. I look forward to speaking to you then – please join via this link  All Staff Event

Digital Events 04.04.22

On Monday 4 April, Sonia Flynn, Chief Probation Officer together with Mark Stanley, Deputy Director, Digital Probation will be introducing two sessions focusing on the developments in Probation Digital which are aimed at making things simpler, clearer and faster for frontline staff.

To join the 10am session please click here – Link to 10am Session

To join the 2pm session please click here – Link to 2pm Session

As always, thank you for all you are doing.

Amy