Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1000-1019)
8 FEBRUARY 2005
MS EMMA
FLOOK, MS
LIZZIE FOSTER,
MS FRANCESCA
HINCHCLIFFE, MS
PAT SANDOM,
MR IAN
HINDS AND
MS KAREN
CHAFFEY
Q1000 Mr Chaytor: But would you argue
that education should be under the umbrella of the Prison Service?
Ms Sandom: Yes. It used to be
when I first came here that they were Prison Service employees.
Q1001 Mr Chaytor: What has been lost
by the contracting system?
Ms Sandom: The teachers went over
to Hounslow Borough College.
Q1002 Chairman: In 1993.
Ms Sandom: That was a couple of
years after I came here. Before that time although I was employed
by the Prison Service (because all instructors were) all the vocational
training instructors came under the umbrella of education so it
was a complicated situation because although the head of education
was my immediate line manager because I was then classed as a
civil servant he could not write reports on me so he had to give
the information to somebody who was also a civil servant who could
then write down. It was a ridiculous situation because you had
to go through so many different people. I had a line manager at
that time but a G4 had to write up (because he was also employed
by the Home Office) my PPR appraisal form every six months at
that time. I prefer working for the Prison Service.
Q1003 Chairman: Do the six of you meet
every day?
Ms Sandom: We all see each other.
We do not all know each other because there are so many staff
here and, not only that, you go to your own different areas. We
do meet up and obviously we would have contact, for example, if
I need assistance, perhaps if I had a lad who was having difficulty
because of a language problem because English was not his first
language. We take them all to workshops. We hope that they can
speak enough English and obviously we have to say to them providing
we can get through to them the health and safety issues because
we are using electrical machinery, providing we can do it with
sign language, we will do it with sign language. We try not to
bar anybody. Everybody is equal as far as we are concerned here.
Ms Hinchcliff: There is a strong
liaison between all of us in training and education.
Ms Sandom: When it is actually
needed we call on each other's resources.
Q1004 Mr Chaytor: What happens if there
is a clear conflict between the work that had been done with students
in different environments because your responsibility is to the
head of learning and skills within the prison presumably, and
it is the education manager for NESCOT, the contract work, to
whom you are responsible? If there is a fundamental conflict as
to how some work is being delivered or how teachers or instructors
are dealing with particular inmates, how is that resolved if you
cannot resolve it one-to-one between yourselves? What I am getting
to is is there confusion or an overlap in the line management
and where do responsibilities as head of learning and skills come
into conflict with the role of the education manager?
Mr Hinds: It is quite a solid
management structure. Anne obviously oversees the function and
then within that the workshops have their own managers over there,
plus they have got these two POs who operate over there as well
so if they have got a problem with the discipline side of it,
for example, getting prisoners to the workshops, they can go straight
to them. There are education staff and education officers over
there. Also the education POs co-ordinate with them so again they
have got someone to go to. If I have got a problem with anything
I go straight to Anne. We do not need to do that. If I have a
problem with anyone else, and touch wood, I do not, honest, if
I had a problem with the library, if we clashed on something,
we would discuss it and sort it out. It is pretty good like that.
The learning and skills structure has come into the jail fairly
recently where we have come under this umbrella and the Quality
Improvement Group, that we are members of, again addresses all
of that, so hopefully it is sorted before it comes to being a
major problem.
Q1005 Chairman: If you all got together
and one of you said, "Look, I have got you all together because
I think there is real potential for a course we are not doing.
It is really appropriate for our people. Why don't we do it?"
Could you do that? Is it possible? Could you have an impact on
the curriculum?
Mr Hinds: Yes.
Ms Sandom: Yes, they listen to
what we have got to say. If we come up with some sort of idea
that is beneficial to the course we go through our direct line
manager.
Q1006 Chairman: Where does that go to?
Does that go to straight to the Governor?
Ms Sandom: My direct line manager
is Barry Smith. He is workshops manager and I believe you met
him this morning. He was escorting you round the workshops. Then
through him to Paul Wilson who is the enterprise manager and then
to Anne. That might sound a complicated system but within ten
minutes you can do it, it is only a phone call away. I think we
all work pretty well together in here.
Q1007 Chairman: I was interested because
two of the inmates said this morning they would both like to be
physical exercise instructors, that was their career wish.
Mr Hinds: There is no money in
it!
Q1008 Jonathan Shaw: Just glamour!
Ms Sandom: That would not have
been Levi, would it, because at one point he wanted to be the
Governor but I did not worry him with it because I did not think
he would make it.
Q1009 Jonathan Shaw: How would you change
the curriculum in the prison? How would you say, there is a course,
we would really like to do this? Who would be out there looking
for a partner to do it?
Mr Hinds: If it is PE-related
I have a free hand. Obviously I would keep Anne informed on it
provided it did not impact upon any more resources.
Q1010 Jonathan Shaw: What about Pat,
you are mainly industrial cleaning are you not, if you said, "Look,
if people go to industrial cleaning when they get out of here
it is not a good enough wage so I have got an idea for something
rather different," would they listen to you?
Ms Sandom: Yes. I would not say
I would get my own way but they would listen. Funny you saying
that, we have come up with something recently. We have one instructor
to six trainees whether they are juveniles or young offenders
because they need the individual attention. One of the things
I have been saying for such a long time is we are not getting
the lads who work in our serveries on the units serving the food
training in cleaning. The officers say they cannot bring them
over because they need them on there to clean the unit so I came
up with an idea. I do not have my group on a Friday morning and
I go unit to unit and I train them on up six lads at a time. So
far five units have already said it is okay. It only went out
a week ago when I mentioned it to Barry and it starts this Friday
and we are going to do it, so I am taking the training to the
prisoners rather than them having to come to the workshop just
for one morning a week. That way we introduce a bit more cleaning
because it is not the easiest task to get prisoners onto because
the majority of them being young men think women have smaller
feet because they get closer to the kitchen sink! They tell me
that quite regularly. Then we clean the blood off the wall! Seriously
a lot of them because they are young men, it is like "men
do not clean" for some reason.
Chairman: I have got a new man to ask
you a question here.
Jonathan Shaw: Do you clean?
Helen Jones: He even does behind the
fridge.
Q1011 Jeff Ennis: I did actually the
other day but never mind. It is really on the organisational structure
between the different players and deliverers of training. Do you
have formal staff meetings as such?
Ms Sandom: Yes we do within our
own groups.
Q1012 Jeff Ennis: Is that just within
your own groups?
Ms Sandom: When the Governor calls
a full staff meeting, yes, and then that is anybody that works
within Feltham that is available to attend will attend.
Ms Chaffey: Are you talking about
education and training?
Q1013 Jeff Ennis: Yes.
Ms Chaffey: Then we have these
monthly QIG meetings where all the team leaders and everyone will
come in here and sit around the board room.
Q1014 Chairman: What does that stand
for?
Ms Chaffey: Quality Improvement
Group.
Q1015 Jeff Ennis: How long have you had
that structure? Does that go back many years?
Mr Hinds: It goes back two years.
Q1016 Jeff Ennis: So it is quite a new
innovation and what difference has that made? Has it made a big
difference?
Ms Chaffey: It means we all get
to meet and talk. Ian is sitting round the table, Anne is sitting
round the table, all the lead tutors, the head of learning and
skills, and we all swap information.
Mr Hinds: Anne herself as she
gets a development plan from that group can say, "I can see
where I need where to put my resources and what bids I need to
put in as a whole," otherwise we all go off in different
ways and come back with nothing.
Q1017 Jonathan Shaw: Ian, at the beginning
you talked about the changes to this institution. We are aware
of the two events five years ago and there is the inquiry going
on at the moment. You have said there have been changes. I have
been trying to understand listening to you what are those changes
and how fundamental has education and training been to those changes?
Mr Hinds: We used to do over 150,000
prisoner hours/activity hours in PE a year. We did 130,000 last
year. Somewhere 20,000 have gone and it is not because we have
stopped working; it is because there are so many other choices
going on for prisoners. They are out of their cells a lot longer
now. There is a big violence reduction policy that has had a tremendous
impact across the jail. 20% of new prisoner officers' time is
spent doing C&R. Once they have spoken to a prisoner and thought
that has not worked, what is the next option: "I suppose
I should do this". That is not where it should be so that
has been a big push in the last nine months. There are major changes.
It is a lot cleaner. It is more decent around the establishment.
You walk around and people enjoy it a bit more I think. I think
they are major changes.
Q1018 Jonathan Shaw: What about the contribution
that education and training have made?
Mr Hinds: The fact you have got
a whole new education block for the juvenile unit. The YJB obviously
funded and put a lot of money into that but the education department
was not as big as it is now and able to deliver. The Prison Service
is doing a lot more contracts now. NESCOT are the education suppliers.
We have got the NHS trust looking after the health care. Does
that then allow the Prison Service to look after its core job?
I think it does. If NESCOT do not come up with the goods the Prison
Service will get another contractor in. Before it was just the
Prison Service. It was under our umbrella and probably a bit too
cocooned and secretive for its own good.
Ms Hinchcliff: Can I add to that.
In terms of achievement in education, I think nowadays there is
a lot more focus on achieving targets within education accreditations
and we are achieving considerably more accreditations within the
department in a whole range of subjects, which I think was not
so much a focus before and it has been pushed to the limelight
and I suppose from our perspectives we are really seeing some
results. The lads are coming through. Not only are they in a better
environment on the whole through all the changes in the establishment
but in education they are achieving qualifications. They are gaining
so much more in terms of their whole life and social aspects as
well.
Ms Foster: I think that ties in
with something that I mentioned to you earlier, Helen, about support
for staff from the outside, from any college provider. For example,
with curriculum development that is a major area and I think we
try and do things ourselves but we are not entirely sure that
we are doing it according to a greater plan.
Helen Jones: You need to be tapped into
what is going on outside.
Q1019 Chairman: Why is your college not
tapped into you? You are an employee.
Ms Foster: I will not answer;
we will all be out of a job. I do not know. I would presume that
because they are providing education, we are the education department
and we are left to get on with it. When certain structures are
in place you will see better development and in turn the children
will benefit. Again for me it is absolutely crucial that we should
be given the support. It should not be something that should occur
when there is a crisis or when there is an inspection looming.
It should be running alongside 52 weeks of the year that we are
open.
Mr Hinds: There has got to be
a balance as well. You raised the question about target setting
and the question of balance with that. It is all about the individual,
is it not, because if you set a target for so many level twos
or so many level ones, when Francesca is dealing with someone
who is nowhere near any of those levels, that is a bigger achievement.
Chairman: We are persuaded of that.
| 
