probation officer

administrator

correctional officer

administrative officer

business administrator

Ministry of Justice

I enjoyed working for HM Prison Service as it encouraged people to work well as a team. It is a diverse environment where something new could be learned everyday. IThe service prided itself on maintaining security and maintained a good health & safety policy. It provided good job security and pension benefits.
However, when the Public sector cuts were announced, the Senior Management team became more focused on retaining their employment and so their physical presence within the prison diminished, lowering moral.
A typical day would be to ensure the safety of staff and prisoners, whilst maintaining security. I was also responsible for ensuring the staffing levels of my dept. were correct, resolving any shortfalls. I line managed 8 officers and encouraged their development. I gained a vast amount of experience in the Security field and am confident in carrying out investigations. I worked well within a team of 24 officers, and I'm also very good working alone. I did not find anything particularly difficult, however, there were times when I personally was responsible for addressing the negative behaviour of prisoners with a violent history. I was given minimal support from the Senior Management team, and learned to deal with any situation with the staff I had to hand. I gained excellent de-escallation techniques. The most enjoyable part of the job was helping distressed prisoners by way of contacting family or outside agencies on their behalf. I also enjoyed helping my staff with any personal or development issues.
Due to Public Sector cuts, I have taken voluntary redundancy. However, due to my experience, I am looking for further challenges or new opportunities within the Security Sector.

Warning: the rota for the full-time role is horrendous and will jeopardise your health in the long run. If you have a partner/family then don't expect to see much of them, and when you do you'll most likely be shattered. 

The salary is okay when factoring in the unsociable hours enhancements, but I don't consider it a worthy trade-off for the detrimental affect the job has on health and life outside of work. 

Expect a small-office mentality, with the usual back-stabbing, insecurity and pettiness that can come with such environments, and working conditions only look set to worsen if the rumoured government plans to sell-off Approved Premises to a company of dubious repute, turn out to be true. 

There is a tendency amongst some managers to give out lucrative weekend cover-shifts to their greedy friends who already earn 30k-plus a year as probation officers, yet also want to grab time-and-a-half shifts at the expense of regular sessional workers for whom that work is often a means to make ends meet. 

New staff retention levels are not good, primarily due to the rota, but also because of arrogant, bullying, control-freak managers in charge of some Approved Premises.

There have been instances over recent years where staff are known to have not only stolen from the Approved Premises they work at, but also from ex-residents who've been recalled and whose property has been placed into 'safe' storage for later collection by relatives - yet the matter has been swept under the carpet by management. And they're the one's supposed to be helping to rehabilitate offenders? 

As a stepping stone or means of acquiring relevant experience en-route to more specialised work, this is okay, but long-term? I'd look elsewhere.

A typical day in my current job role is dealing with a teams daily work load. i have targets to reach and ensure all the filing gets put in the files quickly. our aim is ensure all the work remain in targetd which is 5 days and anything over must be actions as a priorty. 
The hardest part for me was to take on a big team with have not had a proper manager and having difficult conversation with them. the team were not to use change so when i came along i wanted to change some thing in the office i.e, how staff worked, putting rota in place and most importantly changing the morale in office because the staff there concerns were not getting heard.
I started the daily TIB meetings with the staff and doing this has enable the staff to voice their concerns and think of new ways of making the team betters.
Another part of the job was looking for missing files for upcoming hearings. if the files were not found then we would have to pay compensation so i have encouraged staff to look for missing files and i have also got involved in looking for them as well. 

The most enjoyable part is seeing the team working together, and within me feeling that i am bringing something positive to the team. 
I feel the team is more structured and they all know what they are doing on a daily basis. 
I feel like the staff can trust and appraoch me with any personal/work related issues they have and i will try my best to resolve them.
This is my first role as a team leader and i didnt know i was going to take on a big team, however it a challange i took on and it a good that i took it on as i feel i could take what i learnt from my previous role and bring them into this team.

If you’re working in Money Claims - you’d be speaking to lawyers and solicitors asking simple questions like, updates on the case or what application is required. You’d be speaking to the elderly which can become a mouthful or an earache. Because they’d want their cash back ASAP. If you’re working in divorce - you have people asking how long left before the procedure processes through. Which is 6 weeks. But Civil and Family is by far the hardest. You have customers that have unexpected evictions, eviction without notice, language barrier problems, recently homeless families, suicidal customers, threatening ones too. That division is not for the faint hearted as that’s the division where you’d be reporting a lot of problems to your team managers and depending on what time of the year - sometimes they receive violent threats like; this guy owes me £1000, if he doesn’t pay up I’ll chuck him off the bridge. It’s not a laughing matter, as you have to be in that position to advise them not to go ahead. Same goes with those being suicidal, you have to calm them down and get as much info as possible. We have contacted the cops before as we have received the terrorism threats from those idiots. Some like to play it as a hoax, others are serious. You as the agent, have to ask what’s the package, where is it, is it a grenade or bomb? You have to stay vigilant as the minute you are available and that caller comes through you have to be ready because you may be speaking to a criminal that’s about to ruin someone’s life.

Pros:
- Good management at a local level, they care about their team and are helpful 
- Brilliant and dedicated colleagues who go the extra mile to help each other and truly care about helping others
- Good flexibility with hybrid working, given a lot of autonomy in how you work
- Decent training, although fitting it in to your schedule can be difficult
- Opportunity to specialise in areas of interest 
- Being able to help people make and sustain positive changes
- Working with dedicated colleagues from different fields such as mental health, policing and social services and learning how each organisation operates 
- No two days are ever the same, it is a varied and interesting job requiring creative thinking and ability to cope with frequent crises 
- Outstanding pension scheme

Cons:
- Excessive caseloads, leading to stress across the service and hard decisions having to be made regarding what your prioritise and how you manage your time, can often feel like you are firefighting and never on top of things
- Lack of resources in the community, particularly housing, that create difficulty in helping people on Probation and managing risk
- Policy frequently changes which you need to keep on top of, it can get very complicated and finding the right answer can be difficult
- Excessive paperwork and mind-numbing beaucracy, much of it unnecessary which limits your available time to see people on your caseload and carry out meaningful work
- High turnover and understaffing, although some areas are better than others
- Salary stagnation over the past decade, although the recent pay rise was welcomed 
- Numerous targets that get prioritised, but rarely reflect what really matters or actually help to rehabilitate people 



I started at MoJ, at Leeds Combined Court Centre, in September 2009. Initially it was a good environment to work in but I noticed as the years went by that it rapidly became a hub of hostility, and a bullying and victimisation culture soon took hold. As well as the bullying by middle management a good proportion of fellow same pay band colleagues were also averse to singling out and being openly hostile to colleagues. It's also unwritten management policy to identify subordinates weaknesses, and subsequently compel to train and work on tasks that they are unable to undertake, or knowingly causing of undue stress. The pay is low taking into consideration the hostile, heightened stress involved in every day work at Leeds Combined Court. I don't know if this is the norm at other Courts, or other areas of the Civil Service as a whole, but anyone prone to nervous breakdowns or other mental health difficulties this could be a minefield. I don't know if this victimisation culture has emerged owing to a change in government in 2010, or if it was something that has always been rife but when I departed in 2017 it was a bitter sweet emotion of disappointment and relief. If the poisonous victimisation policy of middle management and certain colleagues, and the ongoing austerity pay freeze by the government has been eradicated then it would be a good place to work.

You have to provide EVIDENCE of all this mince?  Evidence that you don't hate people who are different from you?  Evidence that  "I use resources appropriately and am aware of how these affect the organisation's costs."?  I think I fit the bill but I don't know what evidence I'd have...

"You will be required to provide evidence of the following Competencies:

Focusing on the Customer

    I listen to and respect all customers and ask questions about their needs.
    I respond to customers’ requests quickly and politely.
    I work with my team to help deal with customers' questions.

Developing Our People

    I keep my area of expertise up to date.
    I behave in line with civil service code of conduct and the Ministry of Justice equality and diversity policy.
    I am aware of my individual strengths and weaknesses and take responsibility for my continuous personal development.

Using Evidence to Make Decisions

    I base my decisions on as much evidence as is realistically available.
    I use various sources of evidence to get information.
    I understand where to go and who to involve when making decisions to achieve my goals.

Planning and Managing Resources

    I prioritise tasks to achieve my goals.
    I manage my time through effective planning.
    I consistently complete my tasks on time.
    I use resources appropriately and am aware of how these affect the organisation's costs.

Working as a Team

    I value diversity and support different ways of working.
    I give individuals helpful feedback and treat people with courtesy and respect at all times.
    I take responsibility for my own actions and deliver my commitments to the team."


Currently working as a Unpaid work supervisor.  Working with individuals given community orders. The job has gone from a pleasure to a absolute Horror in 2 years . The expectation of supervisors is way above the pay grade band 3 . I deal with High risk individuals daily and when you have 8 of them it can be extremely difficult to engage them too task . The management are all about bums on seats and regardless how many times you are threatened or abused absolutely nothing happens in regards to them ie Offenders being further punished. The job is definitely a 40 k a year position no way the measly 24k starting salary then the 5 years it takes to get you up to 30K as of 2028 . You have to work every Sat or Sun then 4 week days so you weekend is pretty much a non event. The extra responsibilities we have with Admin , fleet management etc just makes the pay look horrendous. Staff have left in there droves due to the nature of the job . Staff retention is also non - existent.  Case loads are at a all time high and with short term prison sentences likely to be scrapped the only other option is to give Offenders probation Unpaid work etc so numbers are gonna sky rocket . I used to enjoy the challenge and the fact I was helping people turn there life around,  now I haven't time or support to even have a conversation with people on Probation . I personally can't wait to leave , as current things stand stay well away ! A already challenging environment made practically impossible by the terrible decisions of the management. 

A great amount of varied and vital work is undertaken by the MOJ. It's been under huge financial and political pressure to modernise the Courts & Justice system in a climate of massive cutbacks in spending across all government departments. This has impacted staff numbers and ways of working. Be ready for remote working. MOJ has embraced technology wholesale; especially to find ways of working 'smartly', i.e. with fewer people doing the same and more work. Everyone is issued with a laptop and must learn to work remotely and to hotdesk.  
  
Be ready for constant change. Can be a very exciting place to work. I learned a lot about how to work under pressure to meet deadlines. I was liaising with stakeholders and colleagues on a daily basis. The workload could be relentless. The hardest part of the job was having to meet deadlines at short notice, especially when key people were away from the office.  

Loved the culture of treating every major piece of work as a project and using a project management ethos from start to completion. We embraced Prince 2 and Agile methods and this is really effective. Also love the transferrable skills that you gain.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Probation officer 36 salaries reported	£27,417 per year
Administrator 249 salaries reported	£24,397 per year
Correctional officer 1 salary reported	£30,902 per year
Administrative officer 9 salaries reported	£24,021 per year
Business administrator 15 salaries reported	£26,738 per year

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