Deer Officers working for the Forestry Commission are paid more than a slew of the most common probation role in the Prisons and Probation Service. Doe!
The forestry quango, which is a DEFRA agency, is hiring a deer officer to “lead work to improve protected sites under the DEFRA Protected Sites Strategy (PSS)” in the New Forest and “identify where deer are contributing to unfavourable site condition or constraining the recovery of designated features and habitats, then help translate that evidence into coordinated and proportionate action.” The easy way to solve the deer problem is to let hunters shoot more of them…
That role is entitled to a plum £40-43,000 salary. Meanwhile HMPPS is hiring for Probation Service Officers, who handle a large bulk of probation casework, for only £25-27,000. Some PSOs hired to deal with specific offences are paid a few thousand more. Worryingly, the Probation Officer Returner Scheme, which encourages former qualified probation officers to come back, will pay staff only £35-£42,000 per year. Less than the deeries…
The existence of that scheme points to the difficulties in the probation service, which has a staff shortfall of circa 10,000. All of Labour’s proposed mitigations for its new prisoner early release scheme place additional burdens on probation staff, who will have to monitor where released convicts go and what they are up to. Or you can get doe-eyed for more cash…
Asked by Lobby hacks about his past comments on Trump (“any UK politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now”) Burnham was blithe:
“Politicians say things throughout their career, but now the important thing is to focus on the moment you are in.”
Were it so easy…