Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1060
- 1079)
TUESDAY 6 JUNE 2006
MS LIN
HOMER, MS
MANDIE CAMPBELL
AND MR
PHIL WHEATLEY
Q1060 Mr Streeter: Mandie is the
answer to all your problems?
Ms Homer: No, but she is one of
the people I talk to. I have talked to case workers myself. I
think it is very important for me as leader of the organisation
to hear directly what case workers have to say. It is not something
I have started doing because of this issue; it is something I
have always tended to do. I also talk with the managers and we
talk as a board. We have seen this very much as a departmental
challenge. I think the only way of making the improvements we
want to make is for us as a whole business to put our weight behind
it. I have been hugely impressed by the response from our front
line staff and our managers to giving people over to this area,
which of course makes people elsewhere in the business busy as
well. I think the team has sought to respond and to share the
responsibility for improving the performance in this area.
Q1061 Mr Streeter: You rightly said
earlier that you have the rest of the department to run as well
as this. How many hours a day since the balloon went up would
you say you are devoting to this particular issue?
Ms Homer: It might be a fairer
question to ask my other half than me. This has taken easily half
of my time on a regular basis. What I have had to do as well properly
is continue to put some management time into the other programmes
that are running forward and what I have also done is to use the
rest of my board to reallocate things that are not getting enough
of my time, to have more input from other board members to try
and ensure that while stretching our resources thinly we do not
focus only on one challenge.
Q1062 Mr Streeter: Looking forwards,
do you think you have enough staff, resources and the right structures
in place to meet the target of removing 85% of foreign prisoners
within 28 days and to deal with the remaining 15% appropriately?
Ms Homer: We are struggling to
get absolutely the right balance and skill of resources in the
Criminal Casework Team immediately to deal with what we are doing,
not least because we are dealing with it in intense circumstances.
I think there is a balance. If we throw simple numbers at it who
do not have the right skills or who are not given the time to
get the right training there is a risk that we get through the
quantity of work but not at the right quality. In overall terms,
I think there are things that we could do to improve our performance
as a business that I am confident we can put in train. I do not
think you should ever be content with what you have because you
should be questing for better. I think I have broadly a reasonable
amount of resources. I would want to feel that I had a bit longer
to get the right skill base, the resources in the right place
and the right level of productivity and efficiency within that
business. In my experience that takes years, not months. I think
I have inherited some very good stabilising work from my predecessor
but I think there are at least a couple of years to get this business
into the shape that I would like to see.
Q1063 Mr Benyon: There is an opinion
that in order to meet the political imperative of reaching the
so-called tipping point on asylum removals resources were taken
away from other areas which may have been exposed in recent weeks.
How do you react to that?
Ms Homer: In the time I have been
in the business I have been clear that we needed to be measured
not only on the specific, high profile performance indicators
but on the performance of our business overall. I do not think
it needs anybody to tell me that that is my duty. I do not believe
we yet have a good enough set of performance management indicators
for it to be easy for me to track every key area of business every
week, every month, and be confident that things have not slipped
under the radar. That is one of the consequences of high profile
targets.
Q1064 Mr Benyon: You cannot say whether
resources have been sucked from one area?
Ms Homer: No. I am content that
this was not a question of resources being sucked from the area
but I think it is plain that we have not added resources to this
area to keep pace with the growing demand. It is my duty to ensure
I have the right performance measures in place to spot and track
those trends and if necessary to raise the debate about resources
and attention as I go forward with my political masters.
Q1065 Mr Benyon: Mr Wheatley, according
to the prison population figures, as you rightly say, the number
of foreign nationals has tripled in the last decade. According
to these figures, in 2005, 869 prisoners existed without any knowledge
of their nationality. Could you tell us what problems you have
in identifying the nationality of prisoners and their immigration
status and how you feel any problems relating to that can be addressed?
Mr Wheatley: There are two issues
there. At any one time in our systems, because they are a snapshot
of time, there are people who have not yet been entered on the
system—ie, they arrived that night; they were drying out
because they had come in full of drugs; they were not answering
questions straight. We do not get sensible things out of them
until maybe four or five days later. You have some information
that there is a time lag on. For all people discharged over a
year 0.4% did not have their nationality registered at the time
they were discharged. Most of those are short term remands who
have gone back to court and they are not returned to prison. We
think we have more or less complete recording of convicted information
at the point of discharge. We think we have a good coverage of
information with a small, hard to crack collection of prisoners
where they are declaring nationality that we do not believe and
therefore we are not entering it on the system. We are referring
those cases to the IND. That is the answer to why there are cases
at any one time that are not recorded. Whether we are accurately
recording nationality is another more complex issue. If the court
documents say that somebody is a foreign national, we report them
to the Foreign National Board. Bear in mind many of the cases
we receive have been through full court proceedings. There is
a pre-sentence report done by the probation service. There will
be prosecution papers and police information on them. In some
cases we are taking people in on remand who have just been arrested
and we do not have background on them; or they are coming in for
relatively minor offences and there is not a lot of background
on them. At that point, we are asking them to self-declare their
nationality. We will in the process of that I know have some people
say to us, "I am British". They have a British address.
They have probably been domiciled here for many years. We will
nevertheless have taken in some people and recorded them as British
reasonably in the light of the information we have but, if we
go back through their records in immigration, we might find that
they are not. There will be some under-recording because we have
taken them not entirely at face value but we have a reasonable
level of detail so they look like a British national. They may
well have come here illegally many years ago. That is a particular
example. That is some of the work that the IND have been doing
with us. They have put some support into prisons and officers
are working in two of the London locals at the moment. We get
visits from IND staff to help us, because they are more expert
at it and have staff trained in it, to look for people who may
have wrongly declared nationality, to make sure we are identifying
all foreign nationals. Having said that, the last data I have
from 31 March shows that we have 10,232 foreign nationals in our
prisons which means we have identified a lot of foreign nationals
out of a population of just over 77,000.
Q1066 Mr Benyon: 10% of that is still
quite a large number.
Mr Wheatley: Yes, but at the point
of discharge, which is the crucial thing, when we come to release
people we know, except for 0.4% of the total, what their nationality
is and they are mainly short term remands so they have been in
just for three or four days, have been back to court and bailed.
Q1067 Mr Benyon: Anne Owers has criticised
the lack of a national strategy for foreign national prisoners
and the small number of policies for individual prisons. Are you
satisfied about national and local strategies for foreign prisoners
and their effectiveness?
Mr Wheatley: Anne Owers has criticised
us mainly because the concern centres around the way in which
we treat prisoners rather than that are we identifying people
for deportation. It is also centred around are we deporting quickly
enough those who are identified for deportation. Those were her
two concerns. She would like us to have an over-arching foreign
national strategy and we have a foreign national order that details
for people who have been reported into IND how to use the IND
forms, what access they can have to High Commission or embassy
staff, who has to be notified about them being in prison and all
those sorts of things. She wants something that gives what can
best be described as special privileges that befit the status
of foreign nationals and that would include things like having
a liaison officer to attend to the special needs of foreign national
prisoners and probably easier access to phone calls to home. Phone
calls to home are expensive if you are trying to ring Nigeria.
I think we have policies consistent with the resources I have
and they correctly balance the demands of the prisoners that we
have. I am reluctant to commit to doing what I do not think is
fully resourced.
Q1068 Mr Benyon: We all understand
the difficulties of keeping track of people within the system,
whether they are going from remand to court, to prison, to a detention
centre, through to deportation or whatever but what we particularly
asked to be provided was a description of how a prisoner's case
file follows him around. What does a case file look like? We hoped
you might bring one in.
Mr Wheatley: I do not have one
with me.
Q1069 Mr Benyon: Could you describe
how it follows a prisoner around and how some of the mistakes
happen?
Mr Wheatley: There is a paper
file for prisoners and there is also a local IT file, a local
inmate data system which has very bald data on it about prisoners.
It is an old system that needs replacing. We are planning to replace
it and the roll out of the new system begins in the summer, subject
to us confirming that we are safe to go ahead and that it will
not cause any IT problems. The paper file consists of a large
number of documents often split in the establishments. There are
custody documents that relate to court warrants. They are held
in what is called in rather old-fashioned, Victorian terms the
discipline office. It holds all the custody documents on a prisoner.
The wing file is what happens to a prisoner while he is held on
the wing. The education file is held in the education part of
the prison. Those are paper files. The security files are in the
security office. The prisoner's medical file is held in the hospital
healthcare centre. As a prisoner is moved, those items have to
be gathered together, reunited and sent on to the next establishment.
That happens reasonably reliably, with the exception of short
notice moves. If you move somebody on a weekend and education
have their cupboards locked with nobody working on the weekend,
you would have to send that on afterwards to the establishment.
It would be done very quickly.
Q1070 Mr Benyon: Have you identified
a real weakness?
Mr Wheatley: As far as I can make
out—and I have of course looked at this very carefully—we
have had existing instructions agreed with the IND on reporting
in prisoners. We have reported in prisoners into the system that,
as has been described, is under great pressure. We have chased,
as we are required to do at the eight week stage, whether a decision
has been taken and we have been doing that. That system has been
over-burdened and is not producing the answers. The problem in
this particular case is we cannot hold unless somebody gives us
an answer. The problem does not lie with the prison file. The
cases that you are concerned about are all cases that have been
referred and that is why we know about them. The cases we probably
have not been referring are only where we have not identified
somebody as a foreign national. This is a system that is made
up of lots of individuals doing lots of bits of work in different
offices up and down the country in 127 establishments and a few
more in the private sector. I would be a fool to say it has worked
perfectly on every occasion, but it looks as though it has worked
reliably. The custody documents are held in the discipline office.
Everybody knows that. They move with the prisoner when a prisoner
moves on and it does not seem to be the problem that we have not
reported. It is an over-burdened system in the IND that has not
been coping with the vast increase in numbers which have generated
a lot more case work, originally roughly a third of the current
number.
Q1071 Chairman: Under the 2003 Criminal
Justice Act we introduced a procedure to allow foreign prisoners
who are within 100 or so days of the end of their sentence to
be released and removed from the country. How many foreign prisoners
have been released under that provision and are you confident
that all of those who have been released under that were removed
from the country?
Ms Homer: 1,610 have been removed
and deported under that scheme from the middle of 2004 to the
end of this month.
Q1072 Chairman: Is there any evidence
that that is creating any problems in terms of public safety or
people trying to re-enter the country on new visas or whatever?
Ms Homer: Not that I am aware
of.
Ms Campbell: If somebody is subject
to a deportation order, their details should be included on the
warnings index database and the warnings index database is checked
before all visas are issued overseas.
Q1073 Chairman: Does an early removal
under the 2003 Act count as a deportation legally?
Ms Campbell: My understanding
is that a deportation order is signed before that person is removed.
Q1074 Chairman: The other issue about
foreign prisoners leaving the country is repatriation to serve
their prison sentence abroad. The Home Secretary told us there
were about 100 of those last year. What is the maximum potential
to repatriate foreign prisoners? How many prisoners are there
from those countries where we have the relevant agreements in
place to be able to do it?
Ms Homer: It obviously varies
from time to time. I do not think I have a figure for the maximum
at the moment. All we do know is that we would be net gainers
in supporting the Austrian proposal that would allow repatriation
involuntarily. In other words, there are fewer British prisoners
held than ours. We have repatriation agreements in 96 other countries.
I am not sure I can give you a figure for how many, if we were
able to do it involuntarily, we would get over the 108.
Q1075 Chairman: If we have those
agreements presumably a much higher proportion of the 10,000 prisoners
than the 1% at the moment could be repatriated without any additional
agreements in the EU or wherever. I am just wondering what the
potential is and how much effort is going to be going into making
greater use of the repatriation facility.
Ms Homer: The biggest blockage
at the moment is the requirement that it has the consent of the
individual concerned. That is what stops us getting more at the
moment, not the lack of agreements. That is why the Austrian proposal
is so important because that will allow us to do it notwithstanding
the lack of consent. That is why both myself and the Home Secretary
have been very keen that we support that change.
Q1076 Chairman: Mr Wheatley, there
has been a lot of publicity about foreign prisoners absconding
from open prisons and you have to put them back into closed prisons.
According to the Inspector of Prisons, you have taken one British
person out of an open prison and put them into a closed prison
because you thought they were foreign. What is the current position
with open prisons? Have you now stopped sending foreign prisoners
who may be liable to deportation to open prisons?
Mr Wheatley: The policy position
remains the same. Prisoners are entitled to be considered to have
their security category fixed at a level that is necessary to
retain them in our custody and not subject them to more security
than we need. That is sensible and reasonable for prisoners. It
is also sensible for the taxpayer. The higher the security level,
the higher the cost. Many of the foreign nationals in our custody
want to go home. A number of our offenders have come in, many
of them drug mules, carrying drugs. Quite a lot of the women in
our custody have families and homes usually in one of the Caribbean
countries—it could be elsewhere—and they do not want
to stay here. We are punishing them for their offence before we
return the to their own home. It makes no sense not to hold those
prisoners in category B conditions.
Q1077 Chairman: Is that a judgment
that you are making as the prison service or is this on the advice
from the IND that these are people we are not planning to deport
because we think they are going home anyway? Who is making the
judgment?
Mr Wheatley: We are making the
judgment as a prison service but making the presumption as we
make that decision, unless we have clear evidence from the IND
that that person will be deported. We are judging the individual
we have in front of us. We are assuming that they will be deported
unless the IND say they will not be deported and then we are saying,
"What level of custody do we need for this person?"
Q1078 Chairman: As of the situation
today, because we know the IND is not yet on top of this issue,
is not yet meeting its targets and therefore is not necessarily
notifying you in good time, is it sensible for you to just assume,
despite everything we have heard over the last six months and
over the last two hours, that because you have not heard anything
from the IND there is not a problem here?
Mr Wheatley: I assume that they
are going to be deported, worst case, from the country. That is
what our staff are told to assume. You must presume they will
be deported unless you have heard to the contrary. Looking at
this individual in front of you with all the criminal records
you have, a presentence report and any other information you have,
do you think this person requires category A, B, C or D security,
D security being open security. If we look back over time, our
foreign national prisoners in category D prisons have not absconded
at a greater rate than British nationals, even though many of
them have always faced deportation. We have a particular problem
at Ford Prison and why that is I am not sure about. I also have
ordered an inquiry in which we tried to learn the lessons and
discover why it was that we had nine foreign nationals go in one
week and 12 in the period after the Home Secretary's announcement.
We did not have that replicated in any other establishment, though
many of them were holding quite a number of foreign nationals.
Q1079 Chairman: The absconding rate
from open prisons, although coming down from what it was 10 years
ago, is relatively high. Many of us, without getting into this
debate, might take the view that you have to live with that as
a consequence of having open prisons and we all understand why
it is part of the overall prison regime. However, the position
of foreign prisoners is different, is it not, because if a
foreign prisoner whom the government was intending to deport absconds
that is a rather more serious matter than a British prisoner who
may be coming to the last few months of their sentence. I am not
quite clear about the basis on which the prison service is taking
the view that there is not particularly a problem if foreign prisoners
abscond from an open prison, even though you may think you are
making the assumption that the Home Office is going to want to
deport them.
Mr Wheatley: We are assuming they
will be deported. We have also stressed and restressed to staff
who are taking these decisions that they are not all taken at
headquarters but up and down the country. They must give an overriding
attention to the need not to frustrate deportations. The effect
of that is to say to staff, "You can only put them in open
prison if you are confident that this person will not abscond."
We can be confident that a number of them will not abscond. Interestingly,
apart from Ford, since this incident began, if we can call it
that, and the Home Secretary made the announcement we have had
no absconds of foreign prisoners from open prisons. We have had
some temporary release failures. We had two of those earlier on.
The 12 absconds were all from Ford Prison, nine in a week, and
we had a particular problem there. We reacted to that by taking
all the foreign national prisoners out of Ford and we also, at
the beginning of this, identified that we had some high risk cases,
some of the serious, most serious and more serious cases in our
open prisons and we brought them back in to reassess them. We
thought it was crucial that we protected the public in those particular
cases. If they thought the world had changed as a result of the
publicity and the announcement, we did not want to run the risk
so we tried to behave in a cautious way by making the best use
of our accommodation, not taking people out of open prisons who
could safely be left there.
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