Offender Management Bill

moved Amendment No. 13: 13: Schedule 1, page 28, line 27, leave out ““are for the trust to determine”” and insert ““shall be determined by the Secretary of State”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a return to a subject discussed in Committee that is extremely important to me, to the National Association of Probation Officers and to trades unions generally: collective bargaining. Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 transfers the determination of terms and conditions for probation staff to probation trusts. This amendment keeps collective bargaining at national level and retains the status quo. I make no apology for that. National collective bargaining for the Probation Service is a necessary prerequisite for the maintenance of probation as a profession across England and Wales. If each trust were allowed to have different terms and conditions for probation staff, it would not only be detrimental to the efficiency and effectiveness of the service but would also cause chaos. It would not be good for the well-being of workers in that service. In Committee, I said that it is always difficult and demoralising for staff who are carrying out the same jobs to be paid on different pay scales. That has been proved time and time again, and that does no service to probation as a whole. I make no apology for reminding the House of what was said in Committee because it is crucial to the aims of this amendment, which is not designed to produce what was described by my noble friend Lord Bassam as, "““an ironclad straitjacket for the service””,—[Official Report, 5/6/07; col. 1075.]" but to ensure that something that has worked well, efficiently and effectively is not destroyed in future. Although the Probation Service has always been made up of a number of local probation employers—there are currently 42 probation areas in England and Wales—since the 1940s there has been national collective bargaining. There is also continuous service for staff moving between different areas. For example, service-related entitlements, such as annual leave, are not affected by moves between probation areas, and all staff are covered by the local government pension scheme. This means that there is a national professional career structure which enables them to move between probation areas without detriment. This free flow of staff between areas has been to the benefit of the service as much as the staff, enabling enhanced professional career development for staff, reducing staff wastage and ensuring maximum benefit from the training investment made in staff. In other words, national collective bargaining underpins the very existence of the national probation profession. Probation Service pay and conditions have been recently modernised and, with effect from April 2006—only last year—the Probation Service pay modernisation agreement was implemented. This modernised pay structure has introduced harmonised terms and conditions for all grades, new flexibilities—an ““in”” word—for employers and a job evaluation system for all grades. Geographical and market forces arrangements are also in place to enable employers to take account of the circumstances in which they find themselves without needing to move away from the national agreement. Separate collective bargaining arrangements for each probation employer would be inefficient: it would necessitate an increased role for human resources and industrial relations for each separate employer. Such separate arrangements would be particularly inefficient for a relatively small staff group, with the Probation Service covering just over 21,000 staff across the whole of England and Wales, and having only 6,500 qualified probation officers. In the interests of efficiency and effectiveness, and to ensure the continuation of the probation profession, it is therefore important that national collective bargaining for the Probation Service be retained and provided for in the legislation. In response to my amendment in Committee, my noble friend Lord Bassam said that the Government, "““have no plans to change the current arrangements whereby pay and terms and conditions for probation staff are negotiated on a national basis through a national framework and national machinery””." Naturally, I was pleased to hear that. However, he then went on to talk about an element of flexibility being needed, "““to respond to future local circumstances which by their very nature””," cannot be anticipated. Of course they cannot. But then he went on to talk further of flexibility and localism. Alarm bells rang even louder in my head, as they would in the head of anyone who has ever been involved in national collective bargaining, and that applies to either side of the industry. Elements of flexibility and recognition of the localism of the service cannot sit alongside national collective bargaining in relation to pay, pensions and leave. The two are totally incompatible. It is no good saying to me that the Government’s intention is not, "““to undermine in any way the national negotiation process or machinery””—[Official Report, 5/6/07; col. 1075.]," and then to go on to enthuse about elements of flexibility and localism—the very elements that would destroy national collective bargaining once and for all. Unfortunately, I was not reassured by my noble friend’s response in Committee and neither werethose working in the probation services, hence the reintroduction of this amendment. In Committee, I spoke about what happens when there is not collective bargaining and used the car industry as an example. Tonight, I shall give an example of what I think could happen in the Probation Service if the amendment is not accepted. Probation officer A is based in Liverpool and is responsible for John Brown, who is serving his sentence in Walton prison. After 15 months there, John Brown is sent to a prison on the Isle of Wight. Probation officer A, under this new system, still has responsibility for John Brown, so he has to visit him on the Isle of Wight. During that visit he meets probation officer B, who tells probation officer A that he and his colleagues have just negotiated a good pay rise and more holidays. Probation officer A returns to Liverpool and tells his colleagues about this, and they immediately put in a pay claim, and a claim for additional holidays. From an industrial relations point of view, this would be a disaster. There would be anarchy to the detriment of all concerned. I maintain, as I did in Committee, that unless pay, pensions and holiday entitlements are negotiated nationally, there will be chaos. At this point, I mention the position of the Probation Boards’ Association—the employers, in other words. This morning, the PBA reaffirmed its support for national collective bargaining, and that it wished the stability of current arrangements to remain. This is the amendment that I, the National Association of Probation Officers and the TUCcare most about. I hope that none of us will be disappointed in the Minister’s response to this debate. I beg to move.