Examination of witnesses (Questions 325
- 339)
WEDNESDAY 15 JULY 1998
MR BRIAN
GORMALLY and MS
JAQUELINE IRWIN
Chairman
325. We are delighted to see you. We gather
that Reverend Good is not going to be with us?
(Mr Gormally) No, I am afraid not. He sends his
apologies.
326. I am sure you will be more than adequate
to answer the questions we have. We have certain ground rules
which I repeat at the beginning of each of these sessions. First,
you are most welcome. Second, the questions may come from different
corners of the horseshoe because we try and follow a logical sequence
of questions. If at any stage you want to gloss anything you have
said either later on in the session today or indeed in writing
afterwards, please do not hesitate to do so. Finally, although
we are already grateful to you for what you have sent us, I do
not know whether there is anything you would like to say of an
introductory nature before we begin?
(Mr Gormally) Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.
Thank you for the invitation to come here today. I think the submission
we have put in speaks for itself but I will perhaps make one or
two introductory points. The first thing is that this submission
very much looks to the future and is looking at the potential
future of the prison system in Northern Ireland in the light of
the Good Friday Agreement and the inevitable changes which will
occur then. I think that the themes, if you like, of our submission
are perhaps three. First of all, the need for openness in the
Prison Service. There has been a major change since the 1980s
in the style and the openness and communicativeness of the Prison
Service, and we would like to see that continue, and in what we
hope will be a peaceful situation, or at least a much more peaceful
situation, openness of the prisons to the community to be increased.
Then there is the question of the people in the Prison Service
and we have addressed a number of issues, some of them controversial,
in the submission that we have made, but certainly there will
presumably have to be a down-sizing of the Prison Service in terms
of numbers. We would like to see that accompanied by a commensurate
increase in the quality and range of the work that the Prison
Service undertakes within the prison. Then I think the third point
would be the question of regimes and the opportunity that there
is in a relatively small jurisdiction like Northern Ireland of
developing new and innovative ways of handling what hopefully
will be a much reduced prison population. Again, I think we have
addressed some of those points. The only other point I would like
to make in the introduction is that since this evidence was prepared
we have prepared a short paper on the re-integration consequences
or issues around the question of accelerated release, and we are
quite prepared to speak to that today if you are interested, and
we will certainly pass that paper on to you afterwards. That is
on the various practical considerations around the question of
early release rather than the principled issues which we have
dealt with in other reports.
327. Thank you. If I can pick up one of
the resonances of what you have just said from your original observations
when you alluded to down-sizing, you specifically a moment ago
referred to it in the context of improving the quality of work
being done within the Service, but because you are also conscious
of the under-representation of parts of the community in the Service,
how do you think a correction of that condition would work during
a down-sizing period?
(Mr Gormally) I think one of the big problems
in Northern Ireland in trying to redress imbalances in the composition
of any workforce is that it is very difficult where employment
numbers are falling rather than increasing. Having said that,
it is important to make a start and I think that in a number of
leading industries, e.g. the engineering industry in Northern
Ireland where overall employment has probably been falling over
the past number of years, nonetheless imbalances are gradually
being corrected. So the first point to make is that we would like
to see a declaration of intent and it is disappointing to see
the Prison Service's strategic plan makes no reference to this
issue and that takes us past the year 2000. In terms of the practicalities
of it, clearly in the downsizing situation I think it is necessary
to be generous in terms of severance arrangements. How many people
that will involve, at what age, what ranks and so on is obviously
a very detailed question, but if there is a generous severance
package then I think we might see the potential for recruitment
patterns to change and for there to be a gradual change in the
composition of the Prison Service. I do not think anybody expects
massive moves suddenly.
328. Would you be able to give any instances
where the under-representation of part of the community had actually
affected the way the Prison Service had historically worked?
(Mr Gormally) I think that is a very difficult
matter. In these circumstances you are often dealing with perception
rather than necessarily objective reality. I think, also, to be
fair, there is a major distinction, for example, between the Prison
Service and the police service. Given that the people with whom
the Prison Service are coming into contact on a daily basis are
convicted prisoners, I think the religious background of those
prisoners is likely to mean less to prison officers. In a situation
where the police service is coming in contact with the community
as a whole then I think the issue is rather more urgent and rather
more sensitive. We are not making any accusations of sectarian
behaviour here, but in common with every workforce, including
our own in NIACRO, we have to monitor our religious composition
and if there is an imbalance then we are obligated by law to do
something about it. When you are looking at the coercive organisations
of the state then it seems to us that the issue is more urgent
than in other areas rather than less.
329. To what extent do you think the Prison
Service is cut off from the society of Northern Ireland?
(Mr Gormally) There is an extent to which that
is bound to be the case because there are security questions,
there are questions of the standard of living and the fact that
on the whole prison officers will move out of areas because they
get quite a high income and therefore they will be buying houses
in areas they do not come from originally. I think as well there
is in any custodial service a danger of the attitudes of custody,
the questions of control, the idea that everybody they are meeting
in terms of their customers in their working life are held to
be bad people, are seen in opposition to them. That can create
a particular kind of culture which can be negative in terms of
an open-minded approach to new developments. I think that is a
common danger. I do not think there is anything particular about
the Northern Ireland service in respect of that. Certainly we
would like to see prisons being open to a much wider range of
organisations and people from the community in terms of voluntary
organisations with specific expertise in the realms of welfare
rights or treatment of alcoholism or whatever so that the community
in general is better informed about what goes on in the prisons
and so that there is a counter to the possibility of the service
becoming closed off from the community.
Mr Hesford
330. In one of your submissions to us at
paragraph 3.5 you talk about the small pool of management and
you use the phrase "closed world". Can you expand on
what you mean by a closed world?
(Mr Gormally) I think at the beginning of the
submission we talk about the Prison Service being a closed world.
I think one has got to remember that over the last 30 years the
prison system has very often been at the very centre of our violent
political conflict. It has been the cockpit of many of the most
distressing and violent episodes in the course of the troubles.
In those circumstances it is very clear that the Prison Service
felt itself to be under siege. Certainly it would have identified
only with one section of the community and would have identified
with those who feel themselves under threat from terrorist violence.
In a situation where high security was necessary, in a situation
where prison officers were being intimidated and killed, then
it is inevitable that there is an aspect of a closed world. As
I mentioned earlier, I think from the mid to late eighties onwards
the Prison Service did make a very serious and effective attempt
to become more open at least at management level and plans were
discussed with a range of stakeholders, were published and openly
argued about in the media and the Controller of Prisons and the
Chief Executive then later started appearing in the media and
so on. So I think there have been major developments. In a situation
of transition from a violent political conflict to a new society
that we hope we are building now in Northern Ireland, then the
Prison Service is one of those institutions which has to open
up and in a sense has to take a lead in opening up. I think we
have seen how many of the political developments over the past
period have been paradoxically led from inside the prison in terms
of the paramilitary organisations and their prisoners. I think
we now have an opportunity, in terms of a state institution taking
on a new culture, to give a new openness, a new pluralism and
a new diversity and quality of work.
331. Some might say you make a surprising
suggestion of secondment in terms of management issues from prisons
in Britain, certainly one can understand that, southern Ireland
and mainland Europe to boost the calibre of management. Can you
just explain how that might work, particularly in relation to
southern Ireland and mainland Europe?
(Mr Gormally) I think the first question is why
not? What is so special about a prison system that it is not open
to any member of the European Community to apply for the jobs?
It may be that there are some security reasons for that being
the case. I am not sure what they would be given that presumably
vetting can be carried out in the same way on any citizen of the
EU. The Narey Report has identified the difficulty of developing
a pool of management in such a small system and has talked about
opening it up to the rest of the UK. In principle I do not see
any reason why it should not be opened up to the rest of the EU.
332. In terms of post-the Good Friday Agreement,
do you see that there are any significant weaknesses in the current
management and/or management structure that may need to be addressed,
so that post-the Good Friday Agreement situation they have a better
chance of bedding down?
(Mr Gormally) I am not sure I would put it so
much in terms of weakness, but one has to understand the very
great difficulties involved in making a transition from a situation
of violent confrontation to a situation of a relatively peaceful
society. In those circumstances I think it is going to be extremely
difficult for those people who have spent most of their working
lives in a situation where their main aim, if you like, has been
to contribute to the suppression of terrorism, to change to circumstances
where their main aim is to serve the community in a somewhat different
way. I think we have seen a difficulty in officials and other
people making adaption, for example, to the change of policy in
regard to accelerated release of politically motivated prisoners.
It is very difficult to argue vociferously and hard for one policy
and then implement and argue for its opposite. In those circumstances,
the normal process of change may very well be helpful. I stress
I am not casting aspersions on any individuals here, only that
the process of transition, of transformation of society in Northern
Ireland is extraordinarily difficult for everybody and particularly
difficult for those in institutions of the state, I would suggest.
333. I saw when I was formulating the question
to your colleague, Ms Irwin, you were nodding. I wonder if you
have any comments in addition to what Mr Gormally has said?
(Ms Irwin) No, I do not think so, not on that
issue.
334. You yourself, Mr Gormally, used the
word "calibre", that you need a higher calibre of management,
and yet when I asked you about weakness you declined to adopt
the word weakness. In what way do you need a higher calibre of
management if there is no current weakness?
(Mr Gormally) I think you must understand, first
of all, that Northern Ireland is a very small place. If you are
talking about management, you are not talking of a generality
but a handful of individuals, so I do not want to have anything
I say taken to be particular individual criticisms.
335. So you are ducking the question?
(Mr Gormally) No, I am about to answer it, but
I want to explain why I am not happy with using specifically critical
language in that sense. I think a higher calibre of management
is needed in the sense that we are moving to a new situation,
we are moving to a situation where pluralism and diversity is
the order of the day, and we are also moving out of a situation
where I would suggest that the prison system, and particularly
the holding of politically motivated prisoners, has been based
on a kind of organised hypocrisy for the past certainly decade
or decade and a half. That has been under the cover of what is
supposed to a normal prison system, in fact politically motivated
prisoners have been treated as belonging to cohesive groups, having
negotiations with their command structures and so on. The difficulty
of managing that process has been immense, but it is a very different
situation where reports like the Narey Report and the views that
the Chief Inspector of Prisons has put forward, are saying, "Look,
let's come clean about what the prison system has been like and
is like at the moment in respect of politically motivated prisoners,
let's build on that openness and go forward into a situation where
hopefully that kind of accommodation will no longer be necessary."
In that sense I think it is a different calibre at least, shall
we say a different style, of management which is required. It
needs to be more open, more flexible, and if you like more professional
in strictly management terms as opposed to situations in which
people have been managing a politically charged situation where
the main criterion has in fact been the overall political situation
rather than the day-to-day management of a very difficult institution.
336. Ms Irwin, not only did I see you nodding
this time, I saw you making notes. Do you have anything in addition
to your colleague's answer?
(Ms Irwin) You are very suspicious of me! I made
a note of what the query was, that was all. In respect of what
my colleague has just said, I agree with that. On the question
of higher calibre I guess a broader experience or different experience
is the issue we are looking at here, and it is the same in any
management system. It is the opportunity to get new blood and
new ideas and new thinking, so it is not a reflection of what
goes before, it is simply about circulation of ideas and philosophies
and approaches.
337. What level of management are you thinking
of here?
(Ms Irwin) The Narey Report particularly made
reference to middle management, but I think all management systems
depend on what comes above and below them to be able to operate
well. So we could apply that to almost any part of the system.
Chairman: I am sure
Ms Irwin does not need to maintain a marmoreal aspect to protect
herself from any questions from the Committee.
Mr Hunter
338. Can we return to the theme of transformation
which you were talking about a moment or so ago? On the assumption
that the early release goes ahead and within a relatively short
time virtually all or perhaps all the terrorist prisoners are
released, what is going to be the knock-on effect in your judgment
and your opinion on the others, the so-called ODCs who are left
behind? Is this going to give rise to a novel form of problem
within the Prison Service?
(Mr Gormally) A novel form of problem in terms
of handling the ODCs?
339. Novel in the sense on this scale it
has not arisen before.
(Mr Gormally) First of all, one has to remember
that the vast majority of people who go through the prison system
in Northern Ireland are ODCs, if you want to use that term. While
between two-thirds and three-quarters of the daily average population
have been politically motivated prisoners, in terms of the 2,000
or so who pass through the system in any given year, then most
of those are ODCs. So the system has a lot of experience of dealing
with ODCs and clearly what we would want to do is to stress the
refocus of the Prison Service on the particular needs of this
population, to look again for example at the fairly high number
of sex offenders we have in the system, to intensify and make
the regimes better and indeed more demanding for such people,
as I think we argued in the paper. So in that sense, there has
to be a transformation of the main goal of the Service, and it
will be to deliver a flexible, varied and demanding regime for
on the whole ordinary prisoners. There is what we would hope to
be a short-term issue, which I thought you were going to address,
with those politically motivated prisoners who will not be eligible
for release.
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