Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
WEDNESDAY 18 OCTOBER 2000
MR MIKE
NEWELL, MR
DAVID RODDAN
AND MR
EOIN MCLENNAN-MURRAY
320. It is an odd situation when the Government
are asked in the House of Lords on 23rd May what notice Mr McLennan-Murray
was given as a result of a decision to remove him from the post
of Governor of Blantyre House and the answer from Lord Bassam
of Brighton was, "Mr McLennan-Murray's career move to a different
type of prison had been planned for some time". Does that
square with you?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I can believe it may have been
planned for some time, but I was not part of that planning process.
321. At no stage.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) No.
Mrs Dean
322. Can I go back to the relationships between
governors and area managers? Perhaps this is a question for Mr
Newell, are you aware of many other prisons where the relationships
are quite as tense as they were at Blantyre House?
(Mr Newell) I am aware of an increasing tension amongst
some governors and area managers. We have to look at what is happening
in our performance culture in the Prison Service at the moment.
Area managers are being tasked in an increasingly tougher way
to deliver their targets. Within their remit they may have eight
or ten prisons. If they feel that two or three of those prisons
are going to let them down on performance, then they pay increasing
attention to those particular prisons. A lot then depends on the
personal skills and characters of those area managers. You can
either support establishments through difficult periods or you
can bully.
Chairman
323. That extra tension would be triggered by
failure, too many people going over the wall.
(Mr Newell) It would be triggered by numbers, but
that is not necessarily failure. There are many establishments
where there are long histories of poor performance, long histories
of cultural matters and long histories of under-resourcing. They
cannot be turned around overnight but if people have to deliver
a set of figures for the year, then you can see that the effect
is likely to be that there is unrealistic pressure brought to
bear on governors. That is the situation as it appears to our
Association, from the number of complaints and the number of governors.
One might add, who are at the moment suffering with sickness.
The growth of sickness rate for governors has doubled in the last
twelve months. I think all that is symptomatic. There are more
governors who have been assisted out of establishments in the
last twelve months than, again, probably in modern history. The
relationship has changed between area managers and governors.
One has to be careful because there are some outstanding area
managers. This is not a generalist term. This is simply to say
that it has worsened over a period. As an Association we believe
that that is to do with the number scale and the targeting of
area managers.
Mr Malins
324. To be absolutely blunt about it, would
you say that the core of the problem was this particular area
manager? If there had been another area manager such a problem,
as we are now looking into, would not have arisen?
(Mr Newell) I think there is a long-standing issue.
The question of when and how it should have been resolved was
not by the removal of the Governor on that day and a search by
84 people. This was something which, over a process, over a period
of time should have been resolved. It was apparent to people.
It would be wrong for me to sit here and cast blame in that way.
I am not party to the day-to-day events and operations of the
particular area manager. What I am party to is—standing
outside in this particular case—a set of events which are
unique, in my experience, and where we feel, as an Association,
it was a completely disproportionate response to what the problems
were in respect of Blantyre House.
Chairman
325. It is likely, is it not, that somebody
with the Area Manager's background, including at one stage governing
the Maze in Northern Ireland—which arguably has to be probably
the most difficult prison in the United Kingdom—and the
subject of terrorist threats while he was working in Northern
Ireland, would have a certain difficulty in understanding what
Blantyre House was about?
(Mr Newell) I think that is true. Yes, I think that
is absolutely true.
Mr Howarth
326. I was going to ask Mr Newell whether other
governors for whom the Area Manager has responsibility have had
a difficult relationship with the Area Manager, maybe not to the
same extent as Mr McLennan-Murray, but whether you as the PGA
have received expressions of concern or are they happy with their
arrangement?
(Mr Roddan) As General Secretary I am the receiving
point for people contacting the office. Generally speaking the
people we represent do not complain. Part of the reason for that
is because they are afraid to complain. They are afraid to confront
what they see as harassment and bullying. I make no judgment about
this. I can tell you we have had more calls from governors in
this Prison Service area than in any other.
327. I think that speaks for itself.
(Mr Newell) I cannot give names.
328. I am trying to get the overall picture.
Can I ask you, Mr Roddan, did you have any complaints from Mr
McLennan-Murray during the lead up to his enforced movement on
5th May?
(Mr Roddan) Mr McLennan-Murray took advice from the
Association at an earlier stage, some few years ago. We decided
to try and play the problems at the time, I think, correct me
if I am wrong Eoin, as low key as possible and try and get on
with the normal business. We, like Eoin, had no knowledge that
Eoin was going to be moved in the way that he was. It is entirely
normal for governors to move on. You were asking about processes
before, it is Prison Service policy to have succession planning.
You would actually sit down, particularly with somebody of Eoin's
age, who has a long way to go, and say, "What is the best
career path to get you to senior Civil Service or the Prison Board",
or whatever. These events certainly came out of the blue. Eoin
had not contacted us before they happened, because he did not
know about them. I think I am right to recall that my President
and myself were out of the country at the time, when our duty
vice-president informed us what was happening. I thought she was,
well, perhaps to use a phrase of the Area Manager, winding me
up.
329. You said in your Report to us, "The
removal from post of PGA members without a reasonable explanation
is unacceptable to us". Is there any question that the Director
General has the authority to appoint and remove governors, but
such measures must be taken with reasonableness? What representations
have you made to the Director General in view of the action taken
against one of your members and what discussions have you had
with your ministers?
(Mr Newell) We made substantial representations to
the Director General about the matter. We obviously expressed
our views about it but we also requested release of what the intelligence
and the reasons were, and we were denied that. We subsequently
asked for an independent inquiry because like Sir David we were
concerned with the integrity of that inquiry being held within
the area. We suggested Mr Mitchell, who is the Area Manager for
the north-east and therefore has experience in relation to Kirklevington.
He is the manager referred to earlier. That was refused, although
there was a change from it being an internal accounts inquiry
to the appointment of another manager from the southeast. We repeated
our request for an examination of the reasons and the intelligence
and the weight. We reminded the Director General of our own circular,
which requires that in the investigation of any incident one of
the reasons for investigation is to ensure that a proportionate
response to the action taken to resolve the incident is appropriate.
We were denied that on the basis that this information was too
sensitive. We made very little progress on that. In relation to
ministers, we have not had direct discussions with ministers on
that subject. The Director General made it clear to us at our
very first meeting with him that it was entirely his decision
and responsibility. We took that as an appropriate signal. We
obviously do not talk to ministers about unnecessary matters.
They were internal procedure matters.
330. Can I ask you about the general feeling
amongst prison governors as to what happened at Blantyre House
and what happened to Mr McLennan-Murray? What view do they take
of the Blantyre House regime? Do they regard it as quixotic in
Prison Service terms, a bit off-the-wall and therefore, perhaps,
do not have much sympathy with him or do they feel this was a
worthwhile project and they are appalled at what happened?
(Mr Newell) I would say that naturally governors historically
have been about rehabilitation and about moving forward. That
is where our belief in the work that we do lies. Therefore, the
vast majority of people have always seen the work that is going
on in Blantyre House or other resettlement prisons as a vital
part of the national structure of reintegrating people back into
the community. Yes, there may be other internal jokes that we
would make about what happens with our colleagues but that I think
is all-round support. On the first part of the question, the reaction,
I think shock sums it up in really one word. From our viewpoint
why this matter is so vitally important is that to all intents
and purposes here was a governor doing an outstanding job, and
one could be removed from one's post for doing an outstanding
job with no real reasons given. For people who are working around
the Service everyday, trying to deliver an extremely difficult
job, many of them with not the results behind them that Eoin has
produced, that sent a wave of shock because people are fearful
of how they might get treated in similar circumstances.
331. Can I turn to Mr McLennan-Murray then.
On the question of resettlement policy, you will have heard earlier
there are no resettlement policy guidelines. How was it that you
managed to operate Blantyre House? Were you flying by the seat
of your pants, to use a northern expression? Did you have a hand
book? Did you take the bible according to St Jim Semple? How did
you approach the task? Were you given any guidance from the Prison
Service?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I was not given any guidance.
I was not given any particular steer at the handover or a briefing
from the Area Manager. I did get a handover from the previous
Governor whom I succeeded. You will know that Blantyre House did
have some history in terms of one or two serious incidents which
occurred in the previous years to me taking over command. I decided
to look fundamentally at what Blantyre House was all about. I
rediscovered a lot of the work that Jim Semple had originally
done, and that impressed me enormously. I decided that my way
forward with Blantyre House, particularly in the light of what
happened previously, was to rediscover and renew the values on
which the establishment was first set up. That is what I set about
doing. I transmitted that very clearly to the staff and to the
prisoners. I heard someone talk about the logo before, it was
enabling resettlement. Blantyre House Enabling Resettlement, that
was our logo. That is what our mission was. That is what we did.
We had it embroidered on uniforms, and all sorts of things. We
had a real sense of purpose, very much guided by those initial
principles that Jim Semple put in place when he set up the establishment.
332. Had you been aware of Blantyre House before
and what it was doing? What did you think of it from the outside?
Did it enter your consciousness as being something different from
the rest of the Prison Service?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I had visited Blantyre House.
I was the Staff Officer to the Director General for an early time
in my career.
333. Which Director General?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Derek Lewis. I visited Blantyre
House with him and met Jim Semple. It struck me as being a very
different kind of establishment, it just feels different as soon
you walk into the place. To understand Blantyre House takes considerably
longer. My background has been in secure prisons. I have worked
in dispersal prisons. I have worked in big locals. The model I
carried around in my head about how prisoners behave and what
they do was very much shaped by the experiences I had. Those experiences
and that model did not fit with what I saw in Blantyre House.
I was certainly confused when I first got there. You are just
presented with such a different culture, and you either reject
it and be cynical about it, and say, "It cannot be real,
it is big", or you say, "Hang on, is there another explanation
that can help me understand what is going on here?" I chose
that latter route and looking at Jim's previous work helped me.
It took me probably four to six months before I began to understand
how Blantyre House worked. Although I had seen it before I had
no real understanding. It was very superficial. You have to be
there and be part of it to make sense of it.
334. Do you think, as Mr Semple suggested to
us yesterday—and the question I put to Sir David Ramsbotham—that
there ought to be a separate category to take away from the constraints
that are imposed by the current categorisation? Sir David suggested
that somebody ought to be responsible and accountable for this
particular type of prison. Do you think that would be a way forward?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Yes, I do. I have been doing
a research project at Cambridge University on resettlement, trying
to understand some of the mechanisms that are working to produce
the results we had at Blantyre House. If you have security within
a prison—you do need secure prisons, I have no doubt about
that, particularly when men are in the early parts of their sentence—you
have to have control, you have to have some kind of rigour. We
know that people get damaged by that process, however that is
an artifact of imprisonment, it is a sad fact of life. We also
know that these people are going to be released. It seems to me
when you are looking at people to be released we need to undo
some of the damage, some of the pains of imprisonment—as
Gresham Sykes described it—that they have acquired through
their process of imprisonment. Blantyre House is very much about
undoing some of that damage and re-socialising people, so that
when they go out they are going out with pro-social attitudes
and not anti-social attitudes. As Sir Alexander Patten said, "You
cannot train men for freedom in conditions of captivity."
You have to stand back and if that means we have to re-look at
how we classify resettlement prisons, I very much support that
as an issue.
335. There are only 120 places in Blantyre House,
and there are something like 63,000 prisoners in the total prison
population. If you were to have a free hand, how many such institutions
do you think that Prison Service could use? Consistent with some
recognition of the financial costs, do you think 120 places is
the right sort of size?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Just dealing with the last point
first, I think the size of the establishment is very important.
Once you get above a couple of hundred you cannot maintain the
intimacy and the levels of trust and the intimate knowledge that
we have of one another, above that it becomes too impersonal.
There has to be a limitation on size. In terms of the number of
people that could benefit from a regime like Blantyre House, unlike
Kirklevington—and, perhaps, not quite so much with Latchmere
House, which caters for long-term prisoners, Kirklevington takes
short term prisoners—Blantyre House specialise in long-term
prisoners. Long-term prisoners are making an ever-increasing large
proportion of the average daily population. In the last fifteen
years the numbers have rocketed from something like literally
a few thousand to tens of thousands of prisoners who are long-term.
As research has indicated long-term have different needs from
short-term prisoners. There is not a blueprint for resettlement,
to say one size fits all. You have to tailor it to the needs of
the prisoner. We have not defined what resettlement needs are.
Most people think it is accommodation and employment. My own research
at Blantyre House demonstrated that most of the men were in full-time
employment prior to conviction and most of them had stable accommodation.
Just having a job and a place to live did not prevent them committing
further crime. There were other needs that they had. Those are
the needs we need to address. Some of those needs come about because
of the process of imprisonment in our secure estate. We have to
recognise that problem. I could not put a figure on how many people
could benefit from the Blantyre House experience, that in itself
would require a little bit of research, and I have not undertaken
that. I would be reluctant to guess what those figures might be.
336. You mentioned that the Area Manager sought
to wind you up by suggesting there might be press reports, that
somebody was hanging around. It is very easy for the tabloid press
to pick up some of these matters and really wind up the public,
not to mention Members of Parliament. The idea is that people
who have committed some absolutely disgusting crimes are able
to be enjoy the freedom of a mobile telephone, bank card and a
job when their victims are still suffering. How do you address
that? Are you confident that the kind of regime you were operating
was as secure as it could possibly be for the protection of the
public?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I can never make a guarantee
that it was as secure as it could possibly be.
337. Was it consistent with the regime you were
applying?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) It is a bit like chicken and
egg. I monitored the outputs of the prison. I monitored what our
temporary release failure was. I monitored what our police interest
was. I had regular information from police liaison. I kept an
eye on what the media were saying. These inputs, if you like,
moderate what we do in the prison. If things were going very well,
if everything was going superbly well I might think I can be a
little bit more adventurous, I can take a little more risk here
because it seems we are in acceptable bounds. It is very much
a dynamic situation. The whole concept of risk assessment is quite
a complex business and it is not an easy thing, so much of it
is subjective. You cannot go and say, let me score this prisoner
and see how many points he presents. A lot of it is very, very
judgmental. People have different judgments about these things.
My prime aim was to protect the public. I took that very, very
seriously. I knew that if a prisoner was to do something that
he should not do when he was outside that the consequences for
me and for the prison would be enormous. The prisoners also understood
that. There was a great deal of self-regulation, self-control
and self-discipline. They had a stake in what was going on. They
were ambassadors of Blantyre House.
338. The taxi driver who drove me to Goudhurst
on Monday night said they had no problem with the prison system
in Blantyre House. He said they are extremely courteous. They
do not like to wait for the bus to get back to prison because
the bus often gets them back late and they do want to be late,
so they club together to get a taxi. They always pay promptly
and they give you a good tip. Unlike the ladies' prison, where
the chap said they dish out all sorts of change they have in their
pocket, very often foreign coins. Can I just ask one final question
on your own personal position? We have been impressed, you know
that. We have heard that the ethos of the place has plummeted
since your departure. Do you think that it is possible to recover
from this present position? Would you like the Prison Service
to recognise what you think you have achieved there? Do you think
you have a role to play and do you want to play it in trying to
take forward the project that you managed, some would say, so
successfully between 1996 and this year?
(Mr McLennan-Murray) I think that sometimes events
happen and they are defining moments. It is very difficult to
put the genie back in the bottle. I think Blantyre House can recover.
I think it needs to have very clear and highly motivated leadership.
It needs to have the support of people above governor level as
well. There are many individuals in the Prison Service that could
fulfil that role. For me to play a part in that, although it pains
me to say so, I think we are just too far down the road now. It
would never be the same. I have been changed by what has happened.
339. Do you think you have experience, backed
up by very hard empirical evidence of the genie? We heard earlier
that the litmus test by which prison governors are judged is by
the number of escapes. I put it to Sir David earlier that you
were rather successful.
(Mr McLennan-Murray) Yes. I would like to think I
could make a useful contribution to the formulation of policy
in terms of resettlement. I have a number of ideas which have
been shaped by practical experience. I have first hand knowledge
of that. It surprised me greatly that I was not invited to be
a member of the Committee that was looking at this, when that
Committee was convened I had been the longest serving governor
of a resettlement prison at the time. I was very surprised I was
not invited to join that Committee. What I deduced from that was
that my experience was not valued and would not be welcomed, because
it might be going against what others might see as the future
for resettlement. I am a firm believer in that what we do should
be evidence based and it should be based on empirical outcome.
I spent some time developing or helping to develop cognitive behavioural
programmes in the Prison Service. I was a passionate advocate
for that. Those programmes were based on research outcome. They
were evidenced, very much based, on the "what works"
philosophy. I believe there is a similar philosophy to be developed
for resettlement. I have a number of ideas, supported by evidence,
which should be taken into account. Some of it needs to be validated
by further research, because the research that I have done is
very small-scale. As you know, small-scale projects can be very
misleading, I accept that. There is a call for more things to
be done and I would certainly like to be part of that process
and, therefore, help the development and resettlement of prisoners.
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