01. Apr. 2010. – 13:12:24
Today used to be called All Fools Day. In parts of Europe it still is. Its origins are diverse and unclear but are thought to have been referred to in France in the mid 16th century when the country was moving from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar and those who stubbornly continued to follow the former were referred to as Poisson d`Avril, or April Fish which, to this day, remains the French term for April Fools and so the tradition was born.
There is perhaps a fishy smell about the latest news to come from the London Probation Service or perhaps it is what it appears on the surface to be........a ship of fools manned by fools. On the one hand of government the public must not think that Judges and Magistrates are too lenient in their sentencing and on the other these self same members of the judiciary are exhorted to use non custodial means to punish/rehabilitate those offenders for whom there might be some light at the end of their offending tunnel. No need to mention that the prisons are 95% - 100% full at any one time and cannot accommodate any more £600 per week guests.
Malcolm Jenkin, director of interventions for London Probation, said London Probation "has temporarily ceased using casual status project supervisors in community payback. He suggested other restrictive measures be considered for convicted offenders. This reduction in availability began on 8th February and ended yesterday 31st March. Harry Fletcher, the assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, was quoted as saying, "not surprised". He added that some officers now only had time to spend only fifteen minutes a week with offenders they were meant to be monitoring.
A spokesperson from the Probation Service said, "The effect was small and manageable, and had no effect whatsoever on the overall length of unpaid work to which offenders were sentenced. "
That spokesperson really does take us all for fools referring to the arrangement as if it were pre planned and a normal occurrence and had little relationship to the admission that cash had run out before the year end. For one thing it demonstrates all too clearly that similarly to HMCS`s pre-occupation with targets for how long to do "this" and how many days until "that" happens no mention of quality or lack of it is considered worthy of comment......after all how can quality be demonstrated or measured to show everything`s just fine.
Peter`s Principle; the theory that an employee within an organisation will advance to his or her level of incompetence and remain there, governs so many of those on the public payroll from Parliament Square to the local sorting office that St Peter should replace George as the patron saint of England......after all so many emulate him and his theory it`s a perfect fit.
No comments:
Post a Comment