Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-154)
15 SEPTEMBER 2004
PROFESSOR ROD
MORGAN AND
MR ROBERT
NEWMAN
Q140 Chairman: Why is there that great
disparity?
Mr Newman: For historical reasons,
the investment in local authority secure homes was always greater
than the investment in the Prison Service where numbers were much
greater, so a prison, for example, would generally have 300 or
400 inmates, whereas a local authority secure home designed for
children would deal with a maximum of 30, so the resourcing for
that was much greater. We inherited that situation and I think
Mr Holmes is referring to the research we did in 2001 where we
found that the average education funding in a secure home was
about £28,000 and about £1,800 in a YOI for a young
person. That figure has now gone up to £6,000 in a YOI, so
we are redressing the balance, but because of the numbers, there
will never be absolute equality.
Professor Morgan: This is reflected,
Chairman, in the overall costs of the three types of institution
to which I referred at the beginning. It costs roughly £55,000
on average to keep a child in a YOI, £150,000 per annum approximately
to keep a child in a secure training centre and £185,000
approximately on average to keep a child in a local authority
secure home, so the cost differentials are huge.
Q141 Paul Holmes: Are those huge differences
simply to do with economies of scale because of the larger numbers
in young offender institutions or are they due to the different
attitude and approach to what you are trying to achieve?
Professor Morgan: Local authority
secure homes are small and they have a high staffing ratio. The
STCs are larger but very small living units and once again have
very intensive provision of education and a very high staffing
ratio. YOIs on the other hand tend to be larger and to have large
living units, which is reflected in some of the criticisms in
the Inspectorate of Prisons' report.
Q142 Paul Holmes: Are the smaller units
more successful than the bigger units in what they achieve for
the people that go into them?
Professor Morgan: It is very difficult
to compare them because they are dealing with slightly different
age groups. In terms of long-term outcomes I do not think we have
the data. It depends how you want to measure them. We are obviously
dealing with very different age categories here when it comes
to educational outputs into things like the acquisition of basic
skills qualifications, for example, so that, overall, 26% of all
of the children in custody are below the statutory school leaving
age. The bulk of them are 16 or 17 and most of those of course
are in the YOIs.
Q143 Paul Holmes: Although you say that
it is very difficult to make those comparisons, however difficult,
is that not something that is worth looking at because surely
if the evidence is there that the majority of people in young
offender institutes and then in adult prisons have got very low
educational levels, it would seem fairly obvious that it is worth
putting a lot of money into trying to improve that in order to
stop them reoffending? Again, some of the evidence you have provided
seems to indicate that sort of link. If you can prove that it
works would that not justify putting more money into that preventative
work? Surely it is worth trying to research these links even if
it is difficult?
Professor Morgan: We would very
much like to have more child-centred, smaller living units for
some of the older young offenders but the cost implications of
that are vast.
Q144 Paul Holmes: Is the Government convinced
that it would be a good investment?
Professor Morgan: I am not sure
that it is because in terms of reoffending rates I am not sure
that there is the evidence to suggest that children who have gone
down one track and have been cared for and then those in local
authority secure homes necessarily in terms of their offending
careers are very different.
Q145 Paul Holmes: It is difficult to
reach the judgment but over 20 years of research it does seem
to be generally shown that young people who participate in custodial
education programmes are more likely in later life to be employed
and less likely to go back?
Professor Morgan: Absolutely.
Q146 Paul Holmes: So the evidence is
there?
Professor Morgan: Absolutely,
but then we would argue further that it would be very much better
if we tried to do that within the community and within the framework
of the community to access mainstream facilities.
Q147 Mr Pollard: I am concerned that
there is a tension, it seems to me, in prisons between training
and detention. In prisons I have seen—and I was a magistrate
for donkey's years like you so I have been to a lot of young offender
institutions—there was always lip service, it seemed to
me, paid to training and you always had a training education manager
or director but really it was about containment rather than education.
Have we got the collective mind-set right yet in the Prison Service
that suggests that training is absolutely core and vital to doing
what we would all require which is to stop reoffending where we
can and stop children going into prison in the first place?
Professor Morgan: The staff that
I have visited, the institutions that I have visited, the YOIs
that I have visited since I took up post in April I have to say
indicated to me a very high level of commitment and really wanting
to change things. I am not going to pretend that there are not
some staff cultural issues that we have got to overcome but I
think at senior management level there is a serious commitment
in most YOIs to move in that direction. If you look at the Inspectorate
Reports it is quite clear that they have made a huge amount of
progress over the last four years but there is a long way to go.
Q148 Mr Pollard: I went to Feltham not
long ago and I saw the list of senior managers and then it gradually
tails right down until you come to head of education right at
the end of the piece. Why is that? If we are saying as a society
that education, training—vocational and academic—is
so important why is the director of education not equal or why
is it not the "governor and director of education" so
that we send out the right message?
Mr Newman: I think that is a very
valid point. I think we challenged that notion quite successfully
when we pioneered the introduction of the head of learning and
skills as a new post. We required through our commissioning arrangements
the Prison Service to appoint heads of learning and skills. This
was a new post to them. We required that that was a very senior
post accountable directly to the governor. They were implemented
initially about two years ago and there is now a head of learning
and skills in every juvenile establishment with a specific remit
to try to resolve some of the tensions that you describe between
the security considerations of the regime and the grinding logistics
of having to process people and the much more complex needs of
delivering an education programme. We believe that is showing
signs of success and in fact we believe it is so successful that
the idea has been copied by the adult sector and there is now
a head of learning and skills in each of the adult prisons as
well. We believe that that goes some way towards resolving this
tension but it is not a panacea.
Q149 Mr Pollard: You mentioned one-third/one-third/one-third
which I was quite excited about. Is that flexible? You talked
about "smuggling in" which again I thought was a very
apt description because my experience is they are more excited—using
your terms—by the vocational laying of one brick on top
of another and actually creating something than they are by the
academic bit of it, so there is flexibility, is there?
Mr Newman: Yes, this is the National
Specification for Learning and Skills which is the template for
what should be delivered and that sets out this third ratio. We
do stress in that specification that the ultimate decision about
the curriculum mix should come from the individual learning plan
so this is the practice guide, it is not a straitjacket and we
think that the interpretation of this should be made by the practitioner
in relation to the individual learning plan.
Q150 Mr Pollard: Just lastly, is it the
YJB's fault that YIOs become more like secure colleges in order
to become learner centred?
Professor Morgan: I am picking
up on your last point, in the same way as at the beginning of
the 19th century when it was thought that putting a prisoner alone
in a cell with the Bible was the best way of transforming him
and you decide that chaplains should be running prisons so there
were quite a few reverends, then I certainly would not object
if the Prison Service decided that some governors should be educationalists
so that was represented in the sort of culture of what we are
trying to achieve. Everything is geared very flexibly to the individual
and every prisoner now has a sentence plan and within it an individual
learning plan as part of that component and it should be flexible.
I am sorry, I have got a feeling I have not answered the question.
Q151 Chairman: Can I ask you two to stay
there but just ease over because I would like to hold you there
in reserve while we talk to the Howard League in case there is
something that comes up.
Professor Morgan: I have a slight
problem in the sense that I have got another appointment at 11
o'clock.
Q152 Chairman: Can we hold Robert Newman
in custody.
Professor Morgan: If you would
excuse me I would be very grateful.
Q153 Chairman: We could keep you here,
Professor Morgan.
Professor Morgan: I know! Thank
you for giving us the opportunity to speak with you.
Q154 Chairman: We would like Professor
Morgan to remain in contact with us.
Professor Morgan: If you decide
that it would be helpful to have a written memorandum from us
on any of these issues we would be happy to provide it.
Chairman: We are going to make this a
very thorough inquiry and we will need your help on this.
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