Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
SIR
JOHN BOURN
KCB, MS AILEEN
MURPHIE ANC
MS PAULA
DIGGLE
19 APRIL
2006
Q100 Greg Clark: In terms of this
research about the effect of food on behaviour, did I hear you
correctly in the response to Mr Bacon that you do not have a research
budget?
Mr Wheatley: The Prison Service
within the National Offender Management Service—we are part
of the National Offender Management Service—does not have
its own separate research budget. Research is funded by the Home
Office, the National Offender Management Service through the RDS,
the Home Office research group.
Q101 Greg Clark: That seems extraordinary.
You are the Director General of the Prison Service. You would
think, in order to make sure you followed best practice, both
to save money but also to ensure that your prisoners are cared
for to the best available extent, you should be able to research
best practice. Are you saying that you do not have any ability
to do that?
Mr Wheatley: I have very limited
research funds that I can put out and there is a small scale research,
actually funding PhD research, specifically about prisons which
the Prison Service funds directly. The budget for research is
held centrally within the Home Office. There are efficiencies
out of that and it is available for all the suppliers because
there are several providers in this area and I am a competitor
against the private sector. The fact that the research is done
centrally has some advantages.
Q102 Greg Clark: Have you asked the
Home Office to conduct this research? Have you said that it would
be important?
Mr Wheatley: In this particular
case I have said I am very happy to cooperate with this research,
I have volunteered establishments—I did not have to work
hard to do that because governors of those establishments were
pleased to volunteer—and I have made sure that those who
are supporting a Natural Justice approach know that I am a supporter
of getting the research done.
Q103 Greg Clark: How much does it
cost to do this research?
Mr Wheatley: I do not know because
I am not paying for it; I could not give you an accurate answer
on that.
Q104 Greg Clark: It seems a bit passive.
It strikes me that this is a crucial question. You have an NAO
Report into prisoner diet and exercise. I should have thought
you would be very eager to know the answer to the effects of diet
on behaviour so you might ask how much the study would cost and,
whether from your own resources or by leaning on the Home Office,
pester to get it done.
Mr Wheatley: I am eager to know
the answer and that is why I am anxious to cooperate with the
research. In the way we are structured, as a provider of prison
services within the National Offender Management Service, I do
not have a budget for doing major research.
Q105 Greg Clark: I understand that,
but you have a direct line to the Home Office and if they hold
the budget, presumably you can put some pressure on them to spend
it in a way that would be of most help to you.
Mr Wheatley: As I have made plain,
I have happily agreed to co-operate with this and there is a proposal.
The thing is expected to come forward shortly.
Q106 Greg Clark: It is not the same
to co-operate with the project as to actually try to secure a
project that would be very helpful.
Mr Wheatley: It is probably not
helpful to ask me precisely all the dealings I have with the main
Home Office. It is something I am pleased to see done, but the
Home Office must decide the best way of spending their research
money and they are accountable for that, not me.
Q107 Greg Clark: For us to write
the Report, would you mind asking the Home Office how much the
study would cost and perhaps write to us? [3]
Mr Wheatley: As I understand the
proposal at the moment, Natural Justice actually have funding
for this and are proposing to fund it themselves. It is a question
simply of getting clearance for the research.
Q108 Greg Clark: Perhaps you could
give us an indicator of the cost.
Mr Wheatley: Certainly I can give
you an update on the position, but, as I understand it, there
is the funding available. Funding is not an issue; it is just
getting the proposal forward to go through the approvals process
I have already commented on.
Q109 Greg Clark: It seems a bit frustrating
I must say to have the funds available and not to be getting on
with it. Mr Bacon indicated that I am very interested in porridge
and I am sure that you have noticed that porridge has become rather
fashionable these days as a foodstuff. Are you aware of the research?
Mr Wheatley: I am aware that it
has become a fashionable thing to eat. I am afraid I eat fruit
in the morning myself, but I can see that it is much more fashionable
than it used to be and has a number of health benefits claimed
for it.
Q110 Greg Clark: In particular, it
is full of soluble dietary fibre which, according to paragraph
nine of the Report, is something that the prison diet is lacking
in. It is low in fat, salt and sugar, three things that, according
to the Report again, paragraph nine, the prison diet is lacking
in and it helps the brain release serotonin which helps keep the
spirits up, which I would have thought would be pretty important
in a prison. Do you serve porridge in prison any more?
Mr Wheatley: Because we have no
firm policy which says that any food must be served, the answer
to that is that we do not have a policy which says that porridge
should be served or should not be served. There will be a number
of establishments serving porridge, but I do not know how many
there are.
Mr Tuckwood: There are some jails,
I could not name them here for you, which serve porridge.
Mr Wheatley: The diet is a locally
controlled issue rather than centrally mandated.
Q111 Greg Clark: The impression the
Report gives is that this breakfast pack is the kind of standard
way of providing breakfast these days.
Mr Wheatley: The breakfast pack
is used in a number of establishments and it is used only because
it facilitates moving prisoners first thing in the morning using
the oncoming staff to roll check and move to labour. That is the
only reason it is used.
Q112 Greg Clark: Okay. We shall talk
about the reasons in a second but I am interested in knowing how
many prisons use the breakfast pack and how many serve porridge
in the morning.
Mr Wheatley: We should have to
research that and write separately to you about that.[4]
Greg Clark: Would you write so that we
can reflect on it?
Mr Bacon: You do not have a research
budget.
Q113 Greg Clark: Exactly; you do
not have a research budget, so how are you going to find this
out?
Mr Wheatley: This is a question
of asking; I should not call this research which will cost money.
It will cost some money as we organise it, but it is a reasonable
request.
Q114 Greg Clark: So you can send
an e-mail out to all your prisons to ask them to report whether
they serve porridge.
Mr Wheatley: Yes.
Q115 Greg Clark: Okay, I shall be
interested to hear that. It does seem paradoxical that when the
nation is eating porridge, the one place you cannot get it any
more, at least in the quantities that you used to be able to,
is prison. You might have expected to go to prison in order to
improve your diet in this respect, but not here. On the breakfast
savings, when did you introduce this requirement or this policy
to move to breakfast packs in order to save?
Mr Wheatley: It is not a requirement
in that you must do it. We have made it plain that we think there
are advantages in extending the regime by unlocking first thing
and moving straight into work, bringing your staff on slightly
later, so you keep patrol staff on typically until 8 o'clock,
quarter to eight, in the morning, bring on the staff, do a roll
check and then unlock and prisoners can move straight on to activities.
That was advertised as a sensible way forward, relying on memory
here, from about 1999 onwards and the take-up has been higher
obviously in establishments where there is a regime to go to.
Establishments with extensive regimes can make much better use
of the facilities by doing this.
Q116 Greg Clark: Does Belmarsh have
a regime such as that?
Mr Wheatley: Belmarsh does not
have an extensive regime, but is trying to make sure it shares
its regime. There are very limited regime facilities for prisoners
at Belmarsh so it does a morning and an afternoon.
Q117 Greg Clark: Does it have a breakfast
pack?
Mr Wheatley: I am not sure.
Mr Tuckwood: Nor am I.[5]
Q118 Greg Clark: Perhaps you could let
us know about that as well.
Mr Wheatley: What Belmarsh is
doing is sharing a limited regime amongst the prisoners. Because
the number of workshops is small it splits the days: you are either
in in the morning or in in the afternoon.
Q119 Greg Clark: In doing this, presumably
some assessment has been made as to how much it saves.
Mr Wheatley: Yes; or how much
it gains in terms of activity is the way we look at it. It is
not saving money as such, it is enabling us to use the money to
do something else and it enables us to get people into activities
and extend the prison day with purposeful activity.
3 Note by witness: The Prison Service have offered
HMYOI Stoke Heath and HMYOI Warren Hill as establishments where
further research by Natural Justice could be undertaken. This
offer has been on the table for some time. Natural Justice have
been planning to replicate their initial Aylesbury project on
a much broader scale. Funding for the research was to be raised
by Natural Justice. Natural Justice are aware that the research
proposal needs to be scrutinised by the NHS Multi-centre Research
Ethics Committees as well as by researchers in the Home Office.
As the proposals have not yet been received or reviewed it is
not possible to give an accurate estimate of costs. Back
4
Ev 19 Back
5
Note by witness: Breakfast packs are served at HMP Belmarsh
seven days a week. Back
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