Data Cleansing

I think it's worth highlighting yet another unwise and dangerous aspect of this TR omnishambles raised yesterday. It concerns the direction to staff for the wholesale destruction of records, euphemistically referred to as 'data cleansing'. 

In my experience, the retention of comprehensive and accurate records has always proved both valuable and often vital in dealing with 'difficult' cases and this erasing of the corporate memory will have serious consequences further down the line.    

How are people getting on with getting rid of years worth of data both paper and electronic? How many are filling out the destruction forms when deleting information? Preparation for share sale is being done recklessly and I imagine illegally. Where do we report this to?

I'm not sure what you mean, could you clarify? Thanks

CRCs are being told to get rid of any information they have that should go to NPS i.e. old files, old paperwork etc. Anything that has a trust logo or should belong to NPS. Apparently there are legal implications if not done properly and I can tell you now, the deadlines are so tight, I don't see how it can be done properly.

Don't worry - just dump, delete & job done. Someone will cover for you. No-one wants to put their corporate hand up & say "we screwed up".

Not so long ago (pre-2014, but post-2006 - a time when I was allowed to write reports) one of my "very worrying" ex-clients re-appeared having committed a very serious offence. I referred to relevant and significant background papers which couldn't otherwise be located, but were in an old file I had kept back. After that file was taken from me I was subsequently disciplined ("failure to follow policy & procedure") for retaining paperwork which should have been shredded or otherwise destroyed per the "new" Trust guidelines. No-one else involved previously had kept their paperwork, which led to further discomfort (for me) as the Judge asked NHS, social services and another partnership agency why they didn't have any record of their past involvement this person? That went very quiet very quickly. The case was reallocated to another PO and the records were made 'sensitive' (limited access only).

So please don't worry about deleting. You're doing the bidding of your paymasters. Keep a copy of the instruction, policy or direction. If, as or when you're asked in the future, just produce that copy. Me? Oh, I'm just happy flipping burgers these days.

I have no doubt someone would cover. There is already talk of denying all knowledge paperwork ever existed. Thing is, if someone reports it now whilst it's happening, perhaps share sale will have to be put off for a little while. So where would someone report it to?

Perhaps one might compose a letter containing such concerns to the MoJ, with copies to The Independent, The Guardian, the Public Accounts & Justice Committees, Russell Brand, Ian Lawrence, MD of Sodexo & HMI Probation? Don't forget to include your name, rank & National Insurance number. I have also failed to find the "sarcasm" font.

Well, that looks like the end of all my detailed records which I had on file as well as on screen. Some high risk cases had numerous old files. One case (sibling sex offender) had 6 files, separated into personal data, part C's, forms, PSR's, letters, CP reports, MAPPA, for ONE current Order! As I had worked on cases in the mid 90's, which had dead files going back to the early 80's, there was nothing like a good rummage to really get to know a person. It's a sad, sad time.

Going off on a tangent about old records, as an old records admin, I used to field requests from out of area and the request always was for the last PSR and little else. Got me wondering how many times an author wrote 'would like treatment and has a job offer dependent on sentence handed down'?. Because, with a little digging, I imagine it would show up the same aspirations are proffered time and again for the same cases. With the split between NPS and uncle Tom Cobley and all, who knows what horrors will not see the light of day.

Smile

Every now and then, when stuck trying to find a new angle on things, I have a habit of coming across something on the interweb that truly takes my breath away. It's happened again in the form of a blog Probation Officer Toolkit - 'Smiling Sonia's Tips and Shortcuts to ease your working life'.

Now I have to say straight off that I thought this was a spoof because I recall doing something very similar way back in the 90's when computers first made an appearance in the office in the form of a glorified word processor. I remember we had a stab at a house magazine, complete with spot the ball competition, readers letters and 'handy hints and tips'. There was only ever one edition though and the joke wore thin and we soon got bored. It had amused us for a short period of time, but as we now know, the bloody computer was to have the last laugh.

Anyway, back to Smiling Sonia. She strikes me as someone who has way too little to do. Indeed her biography proudly confirms that she only managed five years as a PO before moving onwards and upwards, eventually to Head Office and to investigating SFO's. But it would seem that her career to date has given her quite an insight into the trials and tribulations faced by PO's and PSO's, so much so that she has been moved to publish helpful guidance on a range of issues such as burnout and that ever thorny problem, records:-
       

Record Keeping Skills – 7 Steps for Easy to Read Records for Probation Officers

As a Probation Officer are you confident about your record keeping skills? If you went off sick tomorrow would your colleague know the current situation?

Think about the following scenario.

This has been one of those days when you have seen one service user after the other. You have no time in between to write up the sessions. You are in a rush so write down brief notes to give a gist of what has happened. You tell yourself that you will add more details tomorrow when you have more time. Of course when tomorrow comes you’re straight into a new crisis.

When you do get round to it how much will you remember?

How Do You Rate Your Record Keeping Skills?

Do you proof read all your case records? Would someone else understand what you wrote? Do you check for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors? If you hand write a record could someone decipher your hand writing? Most people assume that Probation Officers have a good understanding of the English language. This is not always the case.

What about your colleague’s record keeping skills?

Smiling Sonia’s 7 Steps for Easy to Read Record Keeping for Probation Officers

1. Proof read. Read your words out loud because this will help you detect typos and grammatical mistakes. It will also help you to check the flow. This is not full proof. When you proofread your own work you automatically read words you think should be there when they are not. You become word blind. It is better to ask someone else to proof read your work.

2. Avoid abbreviations. Don’t be tempted to shorten words because it is quicker for you to write. It will not be quicker for the reader to read if they don’t know the full term being abbreviated. You won’t always follow this rule when the abbreviated term is more familiar than the original phrase. OASys pronounced OASIS is more often used instead of saying Offender Assessment System.

3. Use acronyms carefully. Remember to put the acronym in brackets after the term the first time you use it. Use the acronym in the remainder of the text.  Some acronyms are so familiar that they do not need explaining. National Offender Management System (NOMS), Ministry of Justice (MOJ), and Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP).

4. Use the spell checker. Use the computer spell checker but don’t rely on it 100% as a method of proof reading. Keep a traditional dictionary handy.

5. Use paragraphs with headings. You want the reader to be able to locate information quickly by skimming the headings to find particular information. If the reader is interested in only one bit of information they do not have to read the whole text. Separate different ideas/issues by breaking up the text. This makes it easier to keep the information organised. 

6. Write short sentences and short paragraphs. Make it easy for anyone to read your case record. Sentences that are too long tend to lose their thread. The average sentence length should be 15 to 17 words. Limit one idea to a sentence. Limit your paragraphs to 3 to 5 sentences.

7. Use plain language. Do not assume that your records will be read only by colleagues within your organisation. Use of plan language means anyone will understand your message. Don’t use “utilise” instead of “use” it means the same thing.

I feel the urgent need for a lie down and can't help wondering if Sonia would still be smiling if she had to use N-Delius?

Delius Road-tested

In amongst the astounding news that Home Secretary Theresa May is going to abolish the lamentable United Kingdom Border Agency due to woefully poor performance, I spotted this interesting revelation:- 

In other changes, Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill has been asked to revamp its "inadequate" IT systems

So that makes another government department with a crap IT system! There have been some monumental IT failures in recent years both at the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, including our very own aborted C-NOMIS intended as a universal case recording system. It didn't work, cost a fortune and each probation service opted for differing systems such as CRAMS, ICMS or Delius. 

With impending privatisation of probation, clearly someone at the MoJ thought a standard case recording system would be a good idea and it's intended to roll out nDelius (n for national) to all service's shortly. Clearly a reliable, universal and efficient IT system is crucial to the success of privatisation, so how's it doing? The following is one person's experience, and it doesn't look promising:-  

In a word `chaos.' No one knows what they are doing. For example, to add a contact you run a national search then when you have found the person you must not click on `add contact', No you have to click on `view' then contact log, then scroll right down to the bottom of the page and then you can click on the other `add contact' button and click click click again.

To make it more complicated the Delius page is designed for a wider screen so it does not fit on a square computer screen so you have to keep moving the page around to see what is in the corners. 

When making a contact you can only see 4 lines of what you are typing. Then when you have made a contact there is no button to add the next appointment, Oh no, you have to do the whole search again and programme the next appointment in, around 20 clicks of the mouse, it gives you repetitive strain injury.

If you want to send a letter, god help you, you might as well write it by hand as that would be quicker, I have been shown how to build a letter 4 times but still loose the letter every time. And if you dare to want to see a letter that has migrated over that is nearly impossible as all migrated documents are named, wait for it as `migrated documents', so unless you know the date you sent it you cannot find it. 

Then if you want to breach some one it is such a complicated process that only those with a PHD in computing science are able to do it. The OGRS score is hidden deep in the recess of events, and the actual order is not clearly shown. 

Flags are not clear and some DV perpetrators migrated over as DV victims! Caseloads are not accurate ie I had 40 cases pre Delius, but now appear to have 22, the 18 others have just migrated to random people who have had something to do with them at some time in the past. 

Delerius -  it is not fit for purpose and feels like we have been given a case record system from the eighties, Remember when you had to press all the function buttons? Beaumont Colson have a lot of work to do to get it more user-friendly. Lets hope they are paid lots for all their effort. 

The problems will be highlighted when there is an SFO and then the managers will have to try and decipher what has been going on with the case. Can't wait until you get it and see what you have to say.

Beaumont Colson are the designers of nDelius and this is what they say about it:-

In 2009 a new, national Delius system, was commissioned by the MoJ and BCL's development of this system was completed in late 2012.

The National Delius application is a browser based, national probation service case management system, designed to include the required probation business logic and appropriate security, and will be rolled-out across England and Wales during 2013.

A large part of the work in delivering National Delius has involved the preparation of migration tools - required to move existing legacy data from a number of different types of case management system. Current migration successes demonstrate our capacity to manage this activity through a standard, repeatable process. There is clear potential for these techniques to be applied in any project concerned with the mapping and movement of data between systems. 

No hint of any problems there. In the end history tells us that it's crap IT systems that often frustrate the aspirations of government, so it's as well all those prospective bidders for our work know what they are in for. Yes you guessed it guys, the IT really is crap. The system often 'crashes.' The servers can't cope. It's regularly on a 'go slow' and you regularly lose your work.

Sign the No10 petition here..  

Probation Records

Now it would not be fair unless I started this piece by being completely up front and saying that I come from a time when record-keeping within the probation service was, well, problematic. There was a long tradition of being well behind with part 'C' entries, (record of all contacts) with an enormous push necessary when an inspection was due. At such a time you had to hope that you had a brilliant memory, decipherable diary entries and some friends amongst the clericals. Of course it fell to them to listen to endless rambling audio recordings, make sense of them and transcribe them into print via a good old-fashioned typewriter. If you were really lucky, and to get you out of a tight spot, a friendly clerical would take dictation from you in shorthand so as to have some evidence in front of the Inspector in time.

According to folklore, there were officers who just didn't do records. There were stories of files mysteriously disappearing, only to be found years later either under carpets or behind filing cabinets. It was even rumoured there was an officer who kept all his records in the boot of his car, for fear of them being required by management for some reason. Another was known as Mr Memory Man due to his legendary ability for near-perfect recall of events months before. All or none of this might have been true, but it has to be said the system was not brilliant and doing the work always seemed to get in the way of record-keeping.

As time passed and in order to save money, we were encouraged to hand write records and for a period things seemed to improve. The problem as always was if you started to get behind the situation just got worse because you couldn't always judge how big a gap to leave in order to be filled in later. Then there was always the small matter of trying to remember what happened and when, several months down the line. In all honesty there was a degree of creative writing, albeit informed from clues from your diary. This is not something I'm particularly proud of, but the practice was endemic and as I said, the system was still not that much better than when I started.  

But then we entered the computer age. Initially the office was equipped with linked word processors and a modem attachment to Head Office. Someone invented a 'word' document form that passed as a running part 'C' and suddenly for the first time we had a workable system for recording events easily and quickly, if you could get to a terminal that is. Information was now available to anyone, anywhere on the system and the old card indexes began to fall into disuse.

Such a simple system couldn't last of course and eventually we were saddled with CRAMS. It could be worse I suppose, but at least it allows entries to be made out of sequence, thus saving us from returning to the nightmare of the original paper system when everything had to be recorded in sequence. The only problem I have with it now is the urge to continually correct other peoples spelling, lack of punctuation and try to resist the urge to re-write 'text message' style entries. But I guess that's an age thing. I wonder if the impending new Delius system will encourage better entries? Somehow I doubt it.