Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR JONATHAN
PHILLIPS, MR
NICK PERRY
AND MR
ANTHONY HARBINSON
16 JULY 2008
Q1 Chairman: Mr Phillips, I would like
to welcome you very warmly on behalf of the Committee, and of
course Nick Perry, who is very well known to us, and Mr Harbinson.
You are all very welcome. Could I apologise, first of all. This
is the last week of term and I am afraid it is all too evident
in the fact that we have only five of us here this afternoon.
Some of our Members, particularly Lady Hermon, who has just suffered
a family bereavement, have very good reasons for not being here.
Her father has just died and I believe it is the funeral this
week, certainly, I think it is today, so I know you will excuse
her and I hope you can forgive the others as well. We have obviously
been following events in Northern Ireland with care and great
attention to detail and tremendous interest. From your vantage
point, Mr Phillips, how do you see things on the ground? How do
you see the developing relationships between the Northern Ireland
Office and the new ministries of the Executive in Northern Ireland?
Perhaps you could just sketch it in for us.
Mr Phillips: Thank
you, Chairman. Can I just say it is a great pleasure to be the
first Northern Ireland Office Permanent Secretary to appear before
your Committee, or indeed any of its predecessors, so just at
what one may hope is close to the end point, this is an interesting
precedent being set. That may be a good lead in, if I may take
your question less on the level of making a comment about how
the political situation has developed, because I know you have
had -
Q2 Chairman: Yes, it is more the
administration, how it is working on the ground, you and those
officials of the ministries, et cetera, how you are working
together, all of that.
Mr Phillips: Yes. I think those
relationships are developing well. It is, of course, the case
that throughout the period of direct rule there have been very
close working relationships between a considerable number of civil
servants now working for the Executive, some of whom (a minority,
clearly) have actually worked in the Northern Ireland Office at
periods, and that degree of familiarity greatly helps to oil the
wheels of an effective relationship. I think the relationship
is further helped by the fact that of course the Northern Ireland
Office itself in its current form is very largely drawn from the
ranks of the Northern Ireland Civil Service; it is only a small
minority of us who come from the Home Civil Service, so there
is a lot of relationship there, which helps. Now, of course, it
was last year, in May, a very big change in the relationship as
we stood back from a very great deal of activity and a new relationship
in which the Secretary of State's role is very much, if you like,
to be the champion of Northern Ireland in Cabinet but not actually
being responsible for the detailed administration in Northern
Ireland, except in relation to the matters for which we retain
responsibility, most particularly justice and policing. Against
that background, I think in a number of areas, the most recent
of which and the most highly profiled of which probably is the
Bombardier case, there has been the most excellent working relationship.
Q3 Chairman: I think we would all
echo that, yes. We were delighted to see the Farnborough announcement.
Mr Phillips: But I think that
is reflected in a number of areas where we are trying to prepare
the ground for a long-term new relationship between a very different
and very small Northern Ireland Office and an Executive which
has responsibility, which we will have soon, for justice and policing.
Q4 Chairman: On the present situation,
just remind us for the record how many you have got at the moment
in the Northern Ireland Office and how many of those are based
in Northern Ireland and how many here in London.
Mr Phillips: I can reel off a
string of numbers, if you like. The core of the Northern Ireland
Office, by which I mean those people you would think of as advising
ministers day to day, as opposed to those in the Prison Service
or in the Youth Justice Agency, and so on and so forth, in that
core we have got something over 600 and of those based in London
we have up to 80, but the majority are based in Northern Ireland.
Q5 Chairman: Of course, and the London
ones are virtually all in Millbank, presumably, are they?
Mr Phillips: Yes.
Q6 Chairman: Is there much to-ing
and fro-ing between those based in Millbank and those based in
Belfast?
Mr Phillips: Amongst a significant
minority of them, yes. I, when asked where my office is, most
frequently say it is in the BMI Lounge at Heathrow because that
is the way it appears!
Q7 Chairman: I know the feeling,
yes!
Mr Phillips: But both my colleagues—and
several others—Nick Perry and Anthony Harbinson, are Belfast-based
but find themselves in London frequently, and I am in Belfast
once or twice each week.
Q8 Chairman: How many have been seconded
over this last year since the establishment of the Executive,
seconded from you to the new Executive ministries?
Mr Phillips: There is no one,
I think, seconded from us to them. I will double-check with Anthony.
No one is the answer. The bulk of those 600 people, and many more
in the civil service units which are part of the wider NIO, are
drawn from the Northern Ireland Civil Service. We would tend to
say they were on loan to us.
Q9 Chairman: Yes. We know pretty
clearly, I think, how the relationship works between the Secretary
of State and his ministerial colleagues at Stormont. How does
it work on the ground between respective officials?
Mr Phillips: In the situation
which has existed since last May with the Executive taking formal
responsibility, we have and they have wanted to be very clear
that our relationship is business-like and no longer in its previous
manifestation. So the way in which we maintain those relationships
and do the business is in one sense a formal one. Meetings are
arranged and there are regular meetings between colleagues who
have matters in common. For example, in Nick Perry's area there
are a number of issues which do require close coordination with
the Executive. A subject in which this Committee has been very
much interested, organised crime, is not a matter which is exclusively
for the NIO. Otherwise, I think I would put it this way, that
we take care very much to keep friendships in good repair and
I have maintained a pattern of regular meetings with the head
of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, recently retired, but I
shall develop that with his successor, and that happens at other
levels.
Q10 Chairman: Similarly, good relationships
with Dublin?
Mr Phillips: I think relationships
with Dublin, during the whole of the period I have been involved
in Northern Ireland affairs, which now goes back to 2002, have
been very good.
Q11 Chairman: We have been very encouraged,
and it is going to be part of the subject of our next inquiry,
so I am particularly interested in your answer there. Without
wishing to involve you, which would be quite wrong and very, very
unfair, in the political debate, you have talked of policing and
justice and clearly we have a great interest in that because it
is the big remaining thing for which we have responsibility. How
do you see it developing over the next year?
Mr Phillips: As you rightly say,
it is a matter for political decision when it occurs, but I think
it is legitimate for me to say, as the senior manager in the organisation,
the current NIO, that from that perspective the sooner it happens
the better. It is for this particular reason: certainly since
May 2007 we have had a very major programme preparing the current
office for that transition, which will see the bulk of its functions
and staff forming a new Northern Ireland department, whatever
title that eventually takes, and a minority forming a future Northern
Ireland Office. We are very well prepared for that to happen but,
as in any organisation, morale and general capability degrades
in the context of uncertainty and I would like the uncertainty
from a managerial perspective removed as soon as possible. I think
that is a fair answer to the question.
Chairman: It is a very fair answer
to the question. I rather think, politically, your wishes are
not going to be immediately fulfilled, but we are, of course,
equally interested. I would like to bring in Alasdair McDonnell
because one of the things he is particularly interested in, as
of course is the Committee because we produced a very major report
on it, is the Prison Service, and I know he has some things he
would like to ask you about that.
Q12 Dr McDonnell: The recent Prison
Service report was fairly scathing in parts. Perhaps I am rushing
you. Perhaps you may not have had time to absorb most of it, it
was only out recently, but do you have any views as to how you
might resolve some of the issues involved there?
Mr Phillips: I do absolutely accept
that the situation at Hydebank, because that is what you are referring
to, presents the Prison Service with many challenges. As you and
this Committee are well aware, those challenges are one group
amongst a large number, given the nature of the Northern Ireland
prison estate and the population. There is no doubt whatsoever
that the Prison Service and the director, Robin Masefield, and
his colleagues, take the substance of that report extremely seriously.
I think they would say that even in the interval between the evidence-gathering
stage of that report and its publication there have been some
developments in a positive direction, not least the expenditure
of quite a considerable sum of money in beginning to upgrade the
facilities. I think they would acknowledge that they are, if I
can use the words, in the foothills of beginning a programme which
will provide a better framework for the young men concerned. But
while I do not sit here today able to say that we have already,
in light of that, developed the detailed action plan which needs
to follow, I can absolutely assure you that that report is not
taken in any way other than very seriously by both the management
of the Prison Service itself, by the Minister and by my colleagues,
who will help during whatever time remains to take matters forward.
Dr McDonnell: There are just a
couple of points I would make. The first one is that certainly
we alluded to some of the issues which were raised in our efforts
there, but we were perhaps too polite and too genteel about how
we approached them. What struck me was that these issues had been
raised by us and I was surprised that perhaps they had not moved
a little sooner, because we were there probably twelve months
or so before the research was done for that report. The other
thing is, is there any possibility of us beginning to change the
culture in the prisons? What I mean by that is that I was very
struck, on a visit to Wheatfield Prison in Dublin by the Committee,
by the relationship between the prisoners and the prison warders.
They were on first name terms, they were relaxed, and it was not
much more than maybe the relationship, if I compare it across
slightly, between teachers and pupils in a school. Certainly,
there was discipline and they maintained discipline. I have been
struck by the fact and indeed upon checking found it to be true,
that the culture in Northern Ireland prisons generally—and
it is not Hydebank I am looking at, Magilligan less so, but Maghaberry
in particular—is that it is "them and us". I do
not want to be too harsh, but it is very much a "them and
us" divide and the warders are the bosses and the prisoners
are the lesser beings. Now, it struck me, and continues to strike
me, that an awful lot of the potential for rehabilitation and
reconstruction—and I accept that there is a number of prisoners
who really do not want to be rehabilitated, who do not want reconstruction
and do not want to lead positive lives, but I believe that 60—70%
of them would, and I am not sure that we can get that outcome
if there is a "them and us" situation. I am putting
it very mildly and very gently. I was struck by the harshness
at times. It may be unfair to ask you that and it is a very long-winded
question, but it is that culture -
Q13 Chairman: It is more for Robin
Masefield, really, is it not, but would you like to comment on
it?
Mr Phillips: I never avoid the
opportunity for a comment! I think Robin and his senior team (Robin
in particular but I engage his senior team in the remark) would
share your broad view that there needs to be a culture change.
I think myself the culture is one aspect—and it is a vitally
important one—of a more wide-ranging change, which this
Committee has commented upon itself in its report, which is already
underway. The pay and workforce strategy, which has been devised,
is another aspect of it and is one way of moving the service forward
from its historic past. I think we should be clear, it is not
an easy thing to do in circumstances where the natural wastage
(if I can use that rather horrible technical term about people
working in the organisation) is slow. That simply reflects the
facts of the demographics. But I have no doubt that what you describe,
or what I characterise in your remarks as a desirable direction
of travel, is very much in Robin Masefield's priorities.
Chairman: It is, of course, one
of the legacies still of the Troubles. It is inevitable, and we
were conscious of this when we were visiting, but we were greatly
encouraged by many of the things which we saw and heard, and I
would just put it on record that the Committee, I think, was unanimously
impressed by Robin Masefield. We thought that he was a very dedicated
public servant who was seeking to do his best in difficult circumstances
with a difficult service. That is not in any sense a criticism
of those within it, who have had to do the most difficult job
themselves in prisons in the whole of the United Kingdom.
Q14 Mr Hepburn: One of the legacies
also of the Troubles is that prison officers—and we learnt
this when we were over there—are a lot better paid than
their counterparts in the rest of the UK. Do you have a target
for achieving parity on that particular section of staff? If you
do, how are you going to go around to try and achieve it?
Mr Phillips: If you would just
permit me to say one thing about Robin Masefield, because I am
very grateful for the Chairman's remarks, and I do share the view
you have expressed and I know the Secretary of State does, and
he has referred to that in his evidence to you last week. On the
pay disparity, you are absolutely right, and I think you will
appreciate how difficult it is to move forward on that kind of
issue. I think the progress which has been made with the earlier
initiative in relation to night custody guards and somewhat more
recently with the Prisoner Escort Service, which of course is
operating in-house but with freshly recruited staff, both signal
a real determination to try and get to grips with that, and the
pay and workforce strategy to which I referred does see over the
CSR period a significant improvement, in the terms of your question,
in the position. If you ask me the question, is there a target
date for achieving parity between Northern Ireland and England
and Wales? The answer is, no, we have not set such a target and
I am not sure in industrial relations terms it would be terribly
helpful to do it. But, again, I do think it is a direction of
travel in which the current management of the Prison Service is
very much engaged.
Q15 Mr Hepburn: On the industrial
relations side, it is very difficult because obviously you have
got one sector of the workforce who came through the Troubles
and quite rightly achieved that additional money, and then you
are bringing somebody in alongside them on new terms and conditions.
How does that work in practice?
Mr Phillips: Both the schemes
which I have mentioned are about bringing in people to take specific
roles—and the titles of the schemes indicate what they are—which
require a lesser range of skills and experience, which releases
people who were previously in those roles (and perhaps in terms
of this conversation therefore being overpaid in relation to those
roles) to fill other positions in the Prison Service. The situation
is not going to be fully resolved until the demographics help
us, I think, to get to a position where both culturally and in
terms of preserved rights in terms of income there has been a
significant change. But as I say, in a whole number of areas specific
schemes, reviews of particular allowances, the Prison Service
is very much alive to the same sort of considerations which have
been borne in mind by the leadership of the Police Service of
Northern Ireland as they sought to make the transition from the
Troubles to a normalised environment. All that having been said,
I need hardly remind this Committee that Maghaberry in particular
is very far from being a normal prison and I think it is correctly
described as perhaps the most complex prison environment in the
UK. That is not a justification for paying people more, but it
is an explanation of the difficulties of managing an inherited
situation.
Chairman: I think we would endorse
those remarks, too. It is truly unique, yes.
Q16 Mr Hepburn: More to the point
I intended to make, one of the difficult situations we saw was
the prisoner separation, which in itself was horrendously costly
and still means that even though it looks like the 2008 target
will be met, it still is significantly higher than the cost per
prisoner in the rest of the UK. Are you satisfied with the way
the costs are reducing, and have we a timescale to see when parity
will be reached? Will this be a continuing process?
Mr Phillips: It will be a continuing
process and I am absolutely at one with this Committee, as I understand
your collective views, that the cost per prisoner place target
is not, in its current form at the very least, a satisfactory
comparative measure as between Northern Ireland and England and
Wales, or Scotland, or anywhere else for that matter, substantially
because of the point you make. No one would be more pleased than
I if we could reach a position ere long in which the separated
regime could be a thing of the past, but as someone who was around
at the time of its introduction I am equally sure that had we
not gone down that route at that time, predecessors, or even I,
might have been sitting here in a much more difficult position
answering questions about why certain events had occurred within
that prison estate.
Q17 Chairman: I think we would accept
that, but we also believe very strongly, and we made the point
in our report, that you will never have proper normality until
you have got rid of this, and that is why we are keen to see it
go. We are not so stupid as to think it can to tomorrow.
Mr Phillips: No.
Q18 Mr Anderson: I can understand
what you are saying about the move from prison officers to night
support officers and to prison escorts, but what are the plans
where you are replacing like with like, so when prison officers
retire and you need to replace them doing full prison officer
jobs is there a programme in place then which has a differential
between new staff doing a full job and people who retire?
Mr Phillips: What there is is
an agreement between the Prison Service and the main union concerned
about staff reductions over the period associated with a pay deal,
which helps over the period. I do not want to exaggerate the impact
of this, but it helps over the period to start moving in the direction
which you and your colleagues have identified as the correct direction
of travel. It of course follows that new entries to the main grade
officer cadre come in at a much lower level on the relevant scale,
but that is not to say, because I do not want to mislead you,
that there are two different scales in operation creating, if
you like, a dual market because it simply has not been possible
to negotiate that.[1]
Mr Anderson: Can I raise something
else in the same area? When we were there, it was just the start
of the health provision in prisons being provided from the Health
Service as opposed to being internal. Can you please tell us where
you are on that now?
Q19 Chairman: Yes, is that working
smoothly?
Mr Phillips: It is certainly working
smoothly in broad terms, yes. It is a transition which only took
place a few months ago formally -
1 See Ev 8 Back
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