Examination of Witnesses (Questions 701-719)
6 DECEMBER 2004
MS CAROLINE
NEVILLE, MR
JOHN GAMBLE,
MRS JANICE
SHINER AND
MR CHRIS
BARNHAM
Q701 Chairman: Can I welcome the four
of you to our proceedings and say how pleased we are that you
have been able to respond at quite short notice. We enjoy all
our inquiries but we are particularly enjoying this one. We are
learning a lot and getting around the country. We have looked
at three prisons in the UK, one in Finland and one in Norway.
We are going to take evidence in Feltham Young Offender Institution.
We are not only seeing but we are getting some very good quality
evidence as well. Thank you very much for coming before us. I
am going to give one of you on each side two minutes if you want
to say something to start, otherwise you can go straight into
questions, it is up to you. Why do I not start with Janice Shiner
or Chris Barnham, whoever wants to start, and then switch, but
only one of you for two minutes?
Mrs Shiner: Thank you very much
for giving me the opportunity. We thought it would be helpful
to say something more about how we are going to deal with the
issues that you have raised, and in particular to look at planning
and funding. Perhaps I can start by saying I recognise that there
remain considerable pressures in the delivery of high quality
consistent offender education but we believe that from a low base
we have put some important building blocks in place. I think the
Adult Learning Inspectorate has acknowledged that. In that list,
I would probably put the appointment of the Heads of Learning
and Skills and it is early days but there are some real signs
of value added, increases in funding, achievement of basic skills
qualifications, some quite significant capital projects and the
work that is going on to build the project REX and to deliver
that service, a service that we want to be as good as anything
you would get in the mainstream and, in some cases, perhaps even
better. There has been improvement in teaching and learning. We
know that 71% of teaching and learning sessions are satisfactory
or better. Significantly, there are two prisons that have now
got a grade two or good grade for leadership and management. We
are not hiding behind these achievements, however, but want to
acknowledge the progress made and give credit to those who have
worked tirelessly to move things on, but there is much that we
need to do. We know that it cannot be right that 29% of classes
are less than satisfactory. We know that we have got to integrate
vocational training and basic skills. We know we have got to have
learning taking place not just in the classroom but enable it
to take place in the cells, in the workplace and wherever else,
so it is not just about three or four hours a week. I hope you
recognise the extent to which the issues that you are raising
are at the heart of our agenda. There are just a couple of other
things. It is important to remember that this is the most challenging
cohort in education terms: of regular truants, 3% compared to
30% offenders; those excluded from school, 2% compared to 49;
and in terms of unemployment 5% compared to 67. We believe we
are working on the agenda that has been set out but we look forward
to the comments that you might make to help us take this forward.
Finally, this is my day job. I am responsible for post-16 education
wherever it happens, therefore the quality of education in the
Prison Service, in communities, is absolutely key for me. One
of the benefits of it being my day job is that we can learn from
what works in mainstream further education and also we can learn
from what happens in custody and transfer that. We welcome your
inquiry and look forward to the questions. Thank you.
Q702 Chairman: Thank you.
Ms Neville: Thank you for this
opportunity. The Learning and Skills Council's role is to transform
post-16 learning and skills in this country and make it a better
skilled and more competitive workforce. Offenders in custody are
one of the most disadvantaged groups in terms of accessing learning
and skills. We believe that boosting the skills of offenders will
enhance the employability of those offenders and employability
increases the chance of sustained employment and sustained employment
reduces recidivism. We are delighted that we will be taking on
a growing and developing role in relation to offender learning
and skills and we will be taking a lead role from January 2005.
Q703 Chairman: That is an excellent introduction.
Can I say, I was feeling really positive about this session until
this popped through my letterbox in Yorkshire on Saturday Morning.
It is The Skills We Need: Our Annual Statement of Priorities
by the Learning and Skills Council. Because I was preparing myself
for today I took some time to read it and prisons are not mentioned
once. It seemed disappointing that we have got this statement
of your priorities and you have just said that prisons are very
important but it is not there at all.
Ms Neville: It is there.
Q704 Chairman: Where?
Ms Neville: It is there as an
action in terms of the transfer of responsibilities from DfES
to the Learning and Skills Council for 2005-06. This is an annual
statement of priorities and the full roll-out in terms of the
LSC's role will be from August 2006. For 2005-06 it will be to
ensure that there is effective transfer of responsibility from
the Department to the LSC.
Q705 Chairman: The prototypes are up
and running, yes?
Ms Neville: The prototypes are
up and running from January 2005.
Q706 Chairman: So that is one of your
priorities.
Ms Neville: That is right.
Q707 Chairman: It must be an ongoing
programme if these are the priorities that you are flagging up.
You have got a very exciting year ahead of you according to what
we have had from your other evidence and there will be a transfer
in September of next year.
Ms Neville: Yes. The prototypes
start in January and there are two phases effectively.
Q708 Chairman: Are they all planned?
They are ready to go, are they not?
Ms Neville: They are planned and
ready to go for January, yes, in the three regions.
Q709 Chairman: Do you not think it is
disappointing that you have not put much in there?
Ms Neville: There are two points.
One is that we have specifically mentioned the transfer of responsibility
for offender learning and skills on more than one occasion, but
it is the whole Annual Statement of Priorities which has
relevance in terms of developing regional capacity, developing
the role of Learning and Skills Council in economic regeneration,
and the integration of the service, bringing together the vocational
and educational services that are provided, that we see as the
heart of the local community. It is specifically mentioned. The
document is designed to be brief and to draw out those priorities
for 2005-06.
Q710 Chairman: In a sense, did Mrs Shiner
not let the cat out of the bag by talking about her day job, which
encompasses a vast area, of which prison education is a small
part? How do we expect prison education to survive when it gets
into the hands of the Learning and Skills Council when prison
education is a very small part and there is an enormous other
day job and now we are not going to have any ring-fenced funding
within the LSC? This Committee takes evidence from an awful lot
of people demanding more money from the Learning and Skills Council,
are they all going to be fighting for that money? Is it going
to survive? Is it going to get a serious amount of funding?
Ms Neville: The Department has
determined not to ring-fence the funding for offender learning
and skills and I think that is in line with the overall trend
of reducing ring-fencing. The Learning and Skills Council has
quite a heavy involvement in offender learning and skills already.
From April 2004, the Learning and Skills Council took over responsibility
for offender learning and skills in the community. I quote the
North East but a number of our regions have longstanding partnership
arrangements with the Prison Service and established protocols.
I think it is around 74% of Learning and Skills Councils already
have heavy involvement with their local prisons, they are a part
of the community.
Q711 Chairman: How does that work, because
we are halfway through this inquiry and we are getting under the
skin of it, we think, but the evidence we have got, and the visits
to prisons back this up, is that the Learning and Skills Council
is very rarely mentioned. They mention the partners that they
are working with and the relationship with people employed by
the Prison Service but—I am looking round the Committee—the
Learning and Skills Council is rarely mentioned and you are saying
there is a positive partnership already.
Ms Neville: There are examples
of positive partnerships across the regions but, as I said earlier,
we take a lead in January 2005 with the three prototypes. That
is entering into a different phase at that point.
Q712 Chairman: How do we make sure that
prison education still gets the funding?
Ms Neville: We will be measured
by our performance. Obviously we will be responsible for increases
in achievements of learners, for example, and we will be responsible
for securing high levels of sustained performance. There
will be key performance measures for which we are responsible
and we will want to deliver on those. Indeed, in the offender
learning and skills population we already contribute to our targets
in terms of Skills for Life and Level 2. The prison community
is, in fact, core to our work in local communities already.
Q713 Chairman: It has been difficult
to be core up to now because of the arrangements for contracting
out and very often it is not the local college that is providing
the service, it is someone at some distance, is it not?
Ms Neville: It can be, yes. I
was involved in providing prison education as a college principal
for nine years and we provided for eight prison education departments
across three counties.
Q714 Chairman: The local link is difficult
sometimes, is it not?
Ms Neville: I think the local
link can be strengthened. That is the advantage of the integrated
approach that we will be taking. One of the main limitations of
the current regime in the broadest sense of the word is lack of
continuity. It is about progression and the problems that offenders
face in terms of progression either between institutions or coming
out of an institution into the community. The Learning and Skills
Council, which has responsibility not only for being on top of
local labour market needs and regional labour market needs but
also the labour market in terms of the supply of education and
training, I think is very well placed to try to ensure that the
shape of that provision is one which allows offenders and ex-offenders
to progress. There are many advantages of the local nature of
the Learning and Skills Councils developing not just a good relationship
with the local employers, as might be the case currently, but
actually ensuring that there are pathways, both vocational and
Skills for Life pathways, to higher level qualifications
within the community and within the region. I am not saying that
it is going to be easy but I think our core purpose and our core
mission and our experience in relation to post-16 learning and
skills is unprecedented really.
Q715 Chairman: Mrs Shiner, could I ask
you and your team if you are confident because there is a lot
of change going on here and really it is a test of joined-up government,
is it not, that on the one hand you have NOMS coming in and they
have a different regional structure than the LSCs, let alone with
AQA. Is either of those coterminous with government departments
in terms of the regional structure of government departments?
Do you not see a problem here with NOMS coming on track at the
same time as you are changing everything? How are you going to
get a consistency of policy across the piece?
Mrs Shiner: I think it is precisely
because NOMS is coming on track that we want to do what we are
planning to do. You have taken evidence about project REX and
project REX was about trying to sort out the difference between
education and vocational training inside the prison and to deal
with what was the natural course of events, which was a re-tendering
of a contract. The opportunity of NOMS made us stop and think
that here is the Home Office trying to have an integrated approach
to custodial and non-custodial sentencing in a way that would
take place on an area basis, a regional basis, and, at the same
time, here we have the Learning and Skills Council moving to establish
a regional structure. That gave us an opportunity to think, well,
how could we not see those things as separate and how could we
bring those things together? Therefore, I can see huge benefits
because we have got one organisation, the Learning and Skills
Council, planning and funding all post-16 education, we have got
a single process for dealing with the sentencing of a criminal
and we have got an opportunity to say: "Well, okay, if that
is the offender and this is their learning need, how do you bring
those two processes together and keep them together through whatever
happens", whether it is a custodial sentence into the community,
probation support into full-time education and then into work?
I do not think for one moment that it is plain-sailing and that
is why we have these three prototypes because there are different
ways of doing it and we want to try and see how best to do it.
The most obvious thing we could do is to say: "We will just
contract in the way that we have always done. We will contract
with a provider for education provision in one or more prisons",
but we want to look at this in a different way and keep the offender,
in our case the learner, central to this, so that means us thinking
about this in a completely different way. If you said to me now,
"Janice, how is this going to look in a year's time?",
I would put on the record that I do not know. These three prototypes
will give us the answers and we are testing a whole range of different
ways of doing things.
Q716 Chairman: What about the central
problem that this is a massive change, it really is a very massive
change, and the other evidence that we have taken suggests—we
have had written evidence as well as oral evidence—that
this is very slowly gearing up and this is a lot of change and
the Learning and Skills Council are biting off a great deal here
and even though it is a small percentage of their overall work,
it is a quite a fundamental change. In one sense, the degree of
planning, the degree of working out who does what is at a very
early stage and the crucial thing that we find when we visit prisons
is, where is the divide—and it seems totally arbitrary—between
education, training and the workshops? Who is going to be responsible
for which bit of that?
Mrs Shiner: You are right, I would
be foolish to pretend that this is not a significant change, but
what is consistent is what the problem is, whether it is the Adult
Learning Inspectorate Report or the All-Party Parliamentary Report,
whoever looks at this work, they come up with about the same six
or eight things which are problematic. When you start to say:
"How do we deal with those?", it is not about trying
to improve what you have got, it is about saying that we need
to look at this in a completely different way. If you have that
sort of radical change, then it takes its toll. The trick, I think—and
maybe some of the evidence says we have not done it as well as
we might—is to keep people informed about what it is you
are trying to achieve and keep them informed of progress along
the way. We have set up websites, we have had seminars and we
have written letters and we are aware that we need to work harder
and keep going on that, but that is not a reason not to do it.
I think it is a reason to do it well and to move it as quickly
as we possibly can because we are trying to break some new ground
in terms of how we commission education and then, I think, by
its very nature, we need to pilot that. The question you raised
about inside the prisons is absolutely right. It cannot possibly
make sense to have education and training as separate activities
within a prison. As educationalists we know that the best way
adults will learn is through the vehicle of a particular skills
area. So, you teach them basic skills through construction,
catering, cleaning or whatever it happens to be and, therefore,
we have always been intending to bring those together. Of course
that creates more change for those training officers within the
prison sector. We just need to keep going with it, keep testing
that we are doing the right thing and keep communicating well.
I believe that in 18 months' time we will be in a significantly
different place. All the evidence says that the building blocks
that we have already put in place are quite considerable. We have
been working on the improvement of quality but we have been trying
to put some infrastructure in place and to understand what needs
to be done. We need to see those working and then to make that
major change in August 2006 to get this up and running.
Q717 Jeff Ennis: Continuing on your line
of questioning, Chairman, a lot of the evidence we have taken
so far seems to indicate that the Cinderella part of the Prison
Service or the offender service is the poor levels of aftercare
once the prisoner leaves their particular institution. They may
be halfway through a course and then when they leave the prison
they drop the course automatically, or a lot of them do. Effectively,
we have been steered towards a situation where many of the witnesses
are saying that aftercare should be a part of the Detention Order
and part of the education contract. Obviously, now we have got
a division of labour, to some extent, between the LSC, who would
be responsible for the education provision, after consulting local
providers et cetera, and I guess the main role of aftercare
will be provided by NOMS, the National Offender Management System.
I guess if aftercare is the Cinderella part of the system, what
is going to be crucial to the new structure will be the relationship
between the LSCs, as I can see it, and NOMS. I wonder, Ms Neville,
if you could say a few words about how crucial that is to the
success of the new structure?
Ms Neville: I agree with the importance
that you are placing on that relationship. To date we have worked
in partnership with the Probation Service, the Youth Justice Board
and obviously with OLSU and, certainly, I think there would be
a lot of evidence that that partnership working has helped us
to do the job we are doing. NOMS is its new service and is one
which I think we are going to be relying on quite heavily in terms
of tracking prisoners. I think the other important point is that
continuity progression, the concept of a learner journey, is at
the heart of the provision which we will be prototyping. For example,
again I think it is in the North East, there is a mapping exercise
going on looking at the provision in terms of the secure unit
for young people and Young Offender Institutions to make sure
that progression and pathways are there but, ultimately, the learner
is at the heart of what it is we are doing and NOMS is going to
have a crucial role to play.
Q718 Jeff Ennis: I wonder what sort of
checks and balances there will be, for example, if a regional
ROM is not doing his or her job in a particular region and the
LSC is aware of this? How would that be progressed, shall we say?
Ms Neville: In terms of the governance
arrangements, obviously for prototypes we have project boards
but, again, I think it is about clarification of roles and responsibilities
between the partners who are delivering. As I have already said,
if you take the partnership work that we have had with the National
Probation Service on offender learning and skills in the community,
it is a very, very strong partnership with clear lines of accountability,
a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities and monitoring
is clearly much easier. There is excellent practice out there
from some prisons in terms of post-monitoring, following up on
individuals going out into the community.
Q719 Jeff Ennis: Also, we have taken
evidence that the contracting arrangements do not really lend
themselves to involving the ordinary prison officers within prisons
to get involved in educational programmes. It seems to me that
we may be missing a trick here because education should not just
be about the teachers but about anybody else who is interfacing
with the prisoners within the institution. I wonder if this is
a problem and, if it is, what are we going to do about it?
Mrs Shiner: I think it relates
back to what I was saying earlier. At the moment, reading some
of your evidence, the suggestion is that prisoners are getting
three or four hours a week of education, but they are getting
three or four hours a week sitting in a classroom with a tutor
whereas you can learn in a whole range of ways. It is the prison
officer who will be with that prisoner for the rest of that week
in the main. What we want to do is to take the really good practice
around the mainstream FE sector about how you can manage your
own learning through the use of ICT and learning materials and
so on and for the prison officer to have an holistic view of that
prisoner; not just their education but their health, their forthcoming
housing needs and so on, and to see them as part of the resource.
I do not mean take that too far necessarily by saying they have
got to be a health expert or a teaching expert but to enable them
to see that person in an holistic way.
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