CONCLUSIONS
72. After the end of the inquiry, the Secretary of
State appointed a new Director-General
of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, Mr Robin Halward. Mr Halward
is a professional prison governor and, as such, fulfills the requirement
for a "professional
leader"
for the Northern Ireland Prison Service which Sir David Ramsbotham
called for.[99]
This appointment coincides with important changes in the Service,
as we have already noted, (see paragraph 15 above) and the new
Director-General
and his colleagues face a crucial set of decisions about the role
of the Service under new political circumstances.
73. Central to the future of the Service is the question
of staff morale. No management reform can work effectively if
it does not have the general support of the staff who are expected
to implement the changes. At present, we doubt that the Service
has the capacity to implement properly any changes that lead to
improved efficiency and better performance. The only outcome that
can be confidently expected from the Prison Service Review is
a cut in jobs. The problem of staff morale, which is reflected
in the extraordinary rate of staff sick leave, has put into question
any reforms that might be imposed by the management of the Service.
The problem of staff morale is the most immediate problem which
management needs to address.
74. The combined problems of low morale and high
sickness levels reveal a basic lack of professional pride on the
part of officers in the Service. A properly instituted training
system which is geared to improvement of officers' skills can do much to change attitudes. The present training programme
is clearly failing; no training that is systematically avoided
by staff can be effective. To this end, the present arrangements
for training, which are based on training plans produced by each
establishment annually,[100]
should be supplemented by a Service-wide
training scheme with common steps which all staff see as a ladder
to promotion to the highest levels in the Service. It is vital
that such a system is perceived by staff as a route to advancement
within the Service rather than as a means only of achieving a
paper performance target. At present, it is not so regarded.
75. Northern Ireland's
prison system, especially the Maze prison, has been operating
in the public eye and has been intimately linked with the political
process in Northern Ireland. This has contributed to the immense
pressure under which prison staff have had to work and has dominated
management's
thoughts. As a result, shortcomings in other areas of the Service,
such as staff training, have been ignored. There has evidently
been little time for long-term
planning of the kind which would be associated with a Prison Service
elsewhere. Management, for understandable reasons, has had to
respond to emergencies as they have arisen. This has led to a
management culture where short-term
planning has dominated. The Service has been operating under
considerable pressure for a long time. This has left a deep mark
on the staff which it will not be easy to remove. Part of the
response to managing a prison system in such circumstances has
been a habit to react to immediate needs rather than to think
long-term.
This "make-do-and-mend"
management, for example, reached its climax in the unsupportable
decision, and, on the evidence given to the Committee, largely
unsupported decision, to combine the post of Governor of the Maze
with that of Director of Operations. The Service must move from
a management culture of thinking about short-term
problems and concentrate on the long-term
future of the Service.
99 Qq. 230, 233. Back
100 Appendix 2, p. 124. Back
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