Examination of Witnesses (Questions 780-797)
6 DECEMBER 2004
LORD FILKIN,
CBE AND PAUL
GOGGINS MP
Q780 Valerie Davey: Staying for a moment
with the analogy of health, the Department of Health before it
made its provision and funding did a very robust assessment of
need. Has a similar assessment been made for education?
Paul Goggins: We have been discussing
some of the level of need that we have already established. Four
out of five people who go to prison have had some period of exclusion
from school and we have heard about the very low levels of numeracy
and literacy. They are well recognised, well established figures.
It is because of the need to build on the achievements that we
have so far made and to sustain those in the long term and link
them ever more effectively with the education and training systems
that we are now moving to this latest phase.
Q781 Valerie Davey: We have had an extra
30 million for prison education in the 2004-05 year. Has that
money been spent? Is it reaching some of those aspirations that
people have been very eloquent about this afternoon?
Paul Goggins: The increase that
we had last year, £97 million, was spent; this year, £136
million; next year, £152 million. Add to that £20 million
invested in developing facilities within prisons. Fifty-three
prisons have benefited from that extra investment. The money is
certainly going in as never before. It is not a coincidence therefore
that the outcomes are showing signs of significant improvement.
There is more going in; there is more coming out. There is absolutely
no question of that. The old ethos used to be in prisons: get
the work ethic going and somehow by osmosis or whatever the prisoner
will catch it and then go into work. What we know absolutely for
certain is that it is qualifications that enable people to move
into work. As we have been able to see this greater number of
basic skills qualifications, work qualifications, we can be very
confident that that will feed through over the next few years
into higher numbers of ex-prisoners going into work and staying
in work. There is a very clear understanding now that it is qualifications
that lead to work rather than some sort of process of the work
ethic whilst inside.
Q782 Valerie Davey: The expertise clearly
lies with the Education Department. How is it directing this funding
to meet the needs most effectively?
Lord Filkin: The thrust to date
has been quite clearly to significantly ramp up the increase in
basic skills training. That increase in the numbers has been remarkable.
The sort of questions that we are now asking ourselves—and
the three Ministers are working on this together—are will
that by itself, even if there were to be more money put in, be
sufficient? As Paul indicated, we are clear that it will not be,
by which I mean that health is an end in itself. In this context,
I do not think that education is an end in itself. In other words,
just by ourselves getting more of the basic skills numbers or
work skills I do not think is an adequate measure of success.
I irritate my departmental officials at times by saying, "I
do not think our job is education. Our job is being part of a
process that gets people into work." Therefore, why I am
banging on about it is that, even if we do world class interventions—and
I hope we will—in terms of putting in through the LSC and
other processes improved systems to get more and more offenders
able to take an opportunity of getting basic skills or employment
skills in place, we have to try to look at what would the totality
of the system need to deliver. Otherwise, that will be a waste
of money, by which I mean we have to see the NOMS focusing on
getting people into employment, NOMS supporting the wider stabilisation
of that person in the community and Jobcentre Plus and DWP seeing
that they share with us a very strong focus in policy terms of
getting ex-offenders into jobs and keeping them there. Therefore,
whilst we will hopefully do a lot by ourselves, that is why I
have been quite clear—Paul shares my view; so does Jane
Kennedy and so do Cabinet Ministers on this—that we have
to look across those three departments, particularly at how we
shape a much stronger system which will not just put the skills
in and make the motivators in prison work but have an appropriate
system that makes it far more likely that they will be helped
into getting a job and staying there.
Q783 Valerie Davey: Who is doing the
research to decide how basic skills are best delivered in prison?
We heard the earlier comment about the prison kitchens where clearly,
providing food, people are learning basic skills for a job. They
are also being involved therefore in needing to do the basic literacy
and numeracy. That would appear to be in all our skills debates
a better way than sitting people in a classroom; and yet we are
still developing classrooms. Who is doing the research to decide
how best to spend this 30 extra million, plus plus, which we are
anticipating in order that the very things that everyone wants
to see are accomplished?
Lord Filkin: I do not know. I
can find out but I do not know the answer to that question off
the cuff.
Paul Goggins: The research which
the Home Office is carrying out in this area is in relation to
what interventions can make the biggest impact in terms of reducing
reoffending. We are just beginning a five year study that will
look at a range of interventions. Education and learning will
be one of those interventions that we will seek to measure over
time. We have a hunch, that we are backing with substantial resources,
that this will lead to greater employability and reduce reoffending
but we have to make sure that we have the research results in
place that confirm whether or not that is true.
Q784 Valerie Davey: I hope the Education
Department somewhere can give you the professional advice as to
which way to teach because that seems to be fundamental.
Paul Goggins: That is fundamentally
why, as with the question of health, we believe that education
should be in the hands of the educationalists, the professionals,
to deliver because they will know best what to do.
Lord Filkin: A fuller answer to
the question would be that that is one of the questions that we
will undoubtedly have to address as part of the fairly root and
branch review I have been seeking to outline for you for two reasons.
We have, within whatever money there is currently, to ensure that
it is applied to where it can have most utility. It is a brutal
question but it has to be because you have to say, "If that
is the amount of money there, how is that money going to be most
effectively used" to achieve the goals I talked about which
were about maximising the numbers into employment. It also lays
a foundation, if you can demonstrate that, for making a legitimate
argument that it is better to redirect other resources if you
can demonstrate that you are getting effective outcomes in that
way.
Q785 Chairman: Whilst we would agree
wholeheartedly that education should be in the hands of trained
people in education, the evidence we have from some of the small
groups is that things like toe by toe, teaching literacy but using
prison officers who are fully engaged, are a wonderful way to
supplement the professionals. We were very encouraged by toe by
toe and we would not want that to be excluded. If you get a holistic
learning environment, that is one of the benefits, is it not?
Paul Goggins: I agree very strongly.
If prison officers have a role to play there, other staff have
a role to play and voluntary organisations and others who come
into the prisons in large numbers to help with this and other
important tasks that go on in prison can add tremendous value
to the basic education task. My point simply is that the overall
framework and delivery should be the responsibility of those who
plan and fund the education process.
Q786 Chairman: Lord Filkin, you said
you did not know that particular area of research. When we were
in the Nordic countries, we picked up on two problems. One we
seem to be more reluctant to talk about here and that is that
60% plus of people in prison in those two countries we looked
at recently were on drugs. To educate someone who is on drugs,
you have to get them off drugs and encourage them in a drug education
and rehabilitation programme. They were experimental also in terms
of attention deficient syndrome in prisoners and using Ritalin.
Are we conducting any experiments like that in British prisons?
Are we learning from their experience?
Lord Filkin: I would agree with
you on the drugs issue which is why one has to see this as a total
process to get people into employment. It is all going to be failing
without success on drugs.
Q787 Chairman: What about attention deficit
syndrome?
Lord Filkin: We can follow your
lead on that.
Q788 Paul Holmes: The witnesses earlier
this afternoon were enthusiastic about the example that Val has
just referred to about prisoners doing the work in the prison
kitchen and doing basic skills and combining the two together.
We have heard from witnesses in previous sessions that sometimes
it is not as good as that and, because a prison is obsessed with
meeting its key performance targets so that the Ministers will
praise them at the end of the year, they run classes and the classroom
door says KPT classes. When you ask the prisoners what they are
doing, they say, "We are doing KPT." Is there a danger
of this? Are you aware of this happening within the system?
Paul Goggins: I do not make any
apology for setting targets because the evidence is that as we
set those targets and fund the activity that goes behind those
targets we see a substantial difference. Of course it is important
that we are also adding value, that we are not just repeating
things for the sake of hitting the right numbers in terms of those
targets. They have to make a real difference. I was also taken
with the example that was given of linking the skills training
to a very practical task which needs to go on in a prison, namely
to provide food each and every day. I think there are real opportunities
there to link that basic task in a prison with good training and
education but more than that: to link those people into real jobs
outside of prison once they are released. We know that in the
catering industry there are huge opportunities at the moment for
people to move into jobs in kitchens and elsewhere. It is getting
that join up between the education providers, employers, the Prison
Service and the Probation Service so that we manage people through
and we are not wasteful. The worst thing that could happen is
where people are wasteful with resources, where there is repetition
of the same courses with the same offenders. What we have to do
is continually add value and link all these things together.
Q789 Paul Holmes: I assume yourself or
members of your department will have looked at the previous evidence
we have had. That negative effect of target setting has been raised.
Are you not alarmed that there may be prisons where they are just
so obsessed with ticking the box that they are running KPT classes
rather than educating the prisoners?
Paul Goggins: I would be alarmed
if there were prisons that were merely seeking to tick the box.
The balance that we need is one where people know that they have
to be aspirational and ambitious in terms of delivering more and
better outcomes for the individual offenders in their care. It
must be a meaningful process. It cannot be just literally a question
of catching the numbers. It has to be about adding value. From
my visits to prisons—I am aware that members of the Committee
have also undertaken a number of visits to prisons—I am
satisfied that for the most part that balance is being achieved.
The important thing is that when it is achieved it can change
people's lives.
Lord Filkin: What we were talking
about earlier was looking at what would be the characteristics
of a system that was more likely to maximise people getting into
employment. Firstly, you want all of the system to have that as
the objective of policy. I do not by that mean letting people
get out because obviously that is part of the job, but you are
looking for a system in principle whereby LSC, DfES, the Probation
Service, the Prison Service, Jobcentre Plus all recognise the
success around this part of the business which is getting people
into employment. Obviously you hang the performance management
system off that so that the motivators are aligned with the direction
of policy. That is some of the medium term thinking that we will
be doing around this because that is where you have to try and
reinforce the system to be performance managed and rewarded as
a system around the objective of policy.
Q790 Paul Holmes: Whenever you set targets
which are good for measuring progress, driving people on and so
forth, there is always the controversy about NHS waiting lists
or teachers protesting in schools and people work to the target
rather than delivering the goods. In a previous evidence session
we had somebody saying, "But we are doing really well because
we have reached this year's target for prisoners going into employment
when they leave the prison". Other witnesses are saying,
"Yes, but all that is based on is the prisoner saying, `I
have an interview when I leave'" but the Department or the
prison does not know whether that does turn into a real job or
not. You are saying you have hit a target but you have no idea
whether you really have.
Paul Goggins: We have to find
some way of representing the achievement which we believe does
happen when people attend a fresh start interview, because clearly
some people do go on to gain a job. The system that we operate
we are happy with in so far as it goes. What we need are much
better systems for tracking the progress of individual offenders,
which brings me back to the issue of offender management. At the
moment, somebody leaves prison and if it is a short term prison
sentence that is the end of it until perhaps they reoffend and
they are back in the system again. Under the new arrangements,
they will be supervised after release and we will be able to track
them to see whether they did turn up for the interview, whether
they did obtain a job and were able to hold on to that job. That
will be a far more meaningful system of monitoring than we are
currently able to achieve, both in terms of developing the technology
to underpin that and have the offender management system in place.
Both those things together will help us to be more effective.
To return to your model of bad practice, I would describe it as
bad practice if people were simply chasing the numbers. We have
of course a robust system of inspection at all our prisons and
wherever bad practice was found I would expect Ann Owers and her
team to make that very clear as indeed she does with some force
on a very regular basis. We will not tolerate poor practice of
that kind because it is about adding value.
Q791 Chairman: What jumps up and hits
you when you go to a prison is nothing too nasty but it leaves
the feeling that there is very little enterprise in a prison.
I always get the same feeling as when I am walking around
a university. I want an entrepreneur to be on the campus to shake
up the entrepreneurial potential of the establishment. I find
that in prisons too. What can you do? You run the Prison Service.
You are the Minister responsible. Do you ever say to Martin, "How
do we get managers who are a bit more entrepreneurial here? How
do we encourage them to stay in an establishment for a bit longer?"
Paul Goggins: I am not sure I
agree with your assessment. As I go around prisons—and I
have been to quite a few over the last 18 months—I find
a huge spirit of entrepreneurial attitudes, bearing in mind that
the prison governor and his or her staff have first of all to
keep everybody in that prison secure and safe. We have massively
reduced the number of prisoners escaping from our prisons and
that is a primary task which they have. Beyond that, I find great
energy, enthusiasm and imagination. I find partnerships with voluntary
organisations. We have 900 voluntary organisations working in
our prisons today in partnership with the Prison Service. I see
health professionals and educationalists coming in. I think we
have a tremendous spirit. What we need to do is to sustain it
over a long period of time.
Q792 Chairman: You sound a bit happy-clappy.
You go and applaud what is after all very patchy. We as a select
committee are always looking for systemic achievement and you
do not get that if you just say, "I keep going round and
I see encouraging signs." What this Committee knows about
education is that it has to be directed. Somebody has to be motivating
it. Why does everyone send us to Reading? Everyone goes to Reading.
Why are there not more Readings? Then you ask the governor and
the governor says, "We are a terribly parochial prison. We
are doing it" so a lot of people say, "Reading are doing
that" so the systemic raising of achievement seems to be
difficult in prisons.
Paul Goggins: I disagree with
you because I have seen enough evidence of it over the last 18
months to suggest that there is a great deal of spirit in the
way people approach their jobs. If I can correct one piece of
information which from the Chair you shared with the Committee—
Q793 Chairman: The turnover of governors?
Paul Goggins: It was that governing
governors stay 18 months. The latest information that I have is
that the average is 22 months.
Q794 Chairman: That is not very good.
Paul Goggins: If it was 18 months
and it is now 22 months, that is a move in the right direction.
It is certainly a move I would want to see sustained but, if there
is a sense in which this is a haphazard system that is in crisis,
I would not agree with that. We have 137 prisons. They all have
to be well led and well managed and we want top quality people
doing that. Where the Prison Service moves a governor into another
prison, it is a bit like buying a house. There can then be a knock
on effect. Others have to move as well. What the Prison Service
must do over a period of time is develop a new generation of governing
governors. They need to make sure they get experience in different
establishments along the way. It is a complex task.
Q795 Chairman: So is running ICI or Glaxo
SmithKline.
Paul Goggins: My feeling is I
think the period for which governing governors remain in place
is getting slightly longer. That is welcome but it is a well managed
process because obviously I would be very concerned if it was
not.
Q796 Chairman: What we are trying to
bring home to you, because you are in a parallel universe in some
sense to us only in the sense that we are education and you are
home affairs, is if we saw that there was that sort of turnover
of college principals, vice-chancellors, heads, we would be very
deeply disturbed because we do not think you can run any establishment
or manage it well with that sort of turnover.
Paul Goggins: I understand that.
Would I prefer it if governing governors were in post for longer
than an average of 22 months? Yes, I would. I will be expecting
that that period will get longer still. Do I expect that a good
sign of a governing governor having been successful is that they
are in post for 10 years? Not necessarily. We have to understand
that the Prison Service is itself a system where people perhaps
move around rather more rapidly than one would expect a head teacher
of a local comprehensive school to do.
Q797 Chairman: If education is going
to be valued, you do not want a system that we tripped over in
one prison where the governor said, "The next governor coming
in might not value education." Indeed, we had evidence from
one governor who said, "I am not having anyone from education
and skills on the senior board in my prison. It is not that important.
It is a subsidiary thing." If you do not value and put on
the prison board an educationalist along with your health person,
how can you expect us to believe that you are prioritising education?
Paul Goggins: There should be
more consistency of approach. I would expect the heads of learning
and skills to be on the senior management team and I believe that
in most prisons they are.
Chairman: It has been a very good session.
We have had such excellent answers and I have to say to our colleague
from the House of Lords, thoughtful answers. Both of you were
thoughtful but he was even more thoughtful than you, Paul. It
is nice to have a better class of witnesses. Thank you.
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