Written evidence from The Butler Trust
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Butler Trust was set up as a registered
charity in 1985. The Trust exists to recognise and celebrate the
work of prison and probation staff working with offenders. The
Trust receives nominations from staff and offenders, which it
considers in the light of their significance in the treatment
and resettlement of offenders. At the annual award ceremony at
Buckingham Palace, HRH The Princess Royal presents certificates
and awards to the winning staff who are accompanied by their families
and senior staff as well as key UK Prison and Probation Service
personnel. The work of the award-winning staff is enhanced through
the Trust's development programme. It is disseminated at conferences
and seminars through research visits to other countries, publication
of leaflets and training manuals or promoted on DVDs. Creating
good practice networks enables staff to learn from each other
in effective ways.
Outlined in this submission are some of the
projects we have recognised. We have made some recommendations
to support the good practice developed over the years by our experience.
SUBMISSION
1. The Butler Trust works to recognise,
promote and celebrate good work carried out on behalf of the public
by prison and probation staff in their work with offenders. It
seeks to help the community learn about the hidden work carried
out in corrections on their behalf.
2. The Trust was established in 1985 to
promote and disseminate a scheme then known as The Prison Service
Annual Award Scheme. In 2005 Trustees approved the extension of
the Annual Award Scheme to include employees of the National Offender
Management Service (NOMS) and probation staff working with offenders
in the community in England and Wales. During 2005 criminal justice
social work agencies in Scotland and the Probation Board of Northern
Ireland agreed to join the Scheme from 2006 and there have been
some nominations and awards from these bodies for the first time
this year.
3. HRH The Princess Royal has been the Trust's
Royal Patron since 1985. The Princess undertakes 10-12 engagements
a year for the Trust and has presided at every Annual Award Ceremony,
usually in Buckingham Palace. This prestigious setting has proved
to be very popular with award winners, their families and the
staff involved in their nomination.
4. The Trust started a development programme
in 1998 in response to the needs of major award winners to take
their work further. The Trust has a thriving volunteer programme,
consisting largely of retired prison service staff, of which there
are currently ten. They visit Butler Trust Local Assessment Panels
to provide encouragement and advice. The Trust has a Local Assessment
Panel in all UK prison establishments and Probation areas and
many Headquarters, Directorates and prison service colleges. Most
establishments incorporate the Butler Trust panel into their Performance
Recognition Committee. The Chair is typically Head of Human Resources.
5. Lack of formal recognition or sustained
quality work and innovation was the primary reason for the creation
of the Trust. For some years the Trust offered the only public
recognition of `ordinary work extraordinarily well done'. But
in the last seven to eight years there have been big changes in
the three prison services. All now have recognition awards of
their own which complement the Trust's work.
6. The cultural shifts which have allowed
recognition schemes to emerge balance the more hard-edged performance
management measures introduced in recent years—smarter financial
management, performance tables, weighted score cards, more open
criticism by inspectors, accountability for performance and market
testing for prisons assessed as poor performers.
7. The Trust still has an important role
in recognising quality performance because it does so from a fiercely
independent position. Moreover, for the last ten years the Trust
has helped many award winners develop their work. Increasingly
the emphasis has been on spreading good practice, an aspect that
has not been effective in UK prison services.
8. There have been marked advances in performance
recognition by the prison and probation services. But they need
nurturing. The issues facing the Trust call for continuing engagement
with the service providers as well as exploring opportunities
beyond its traditional boundaries as the distinctions between
custodial and non-custodial care become more blurred.
9. Some of these issues include identifying
and promoting excellence and innovation by Prison and Probation
Service staff, contractors and volunteers; developing and disseminating
best practice; providing professional and personal development
opportunities through the Annual Award Scheme.
10. Dissemination of good practice identified
through the Award Scheme has led the Trust to organise a number
of national events with partner organisations focussing on award-winning
work: an offender management seminar for prison and probation
practitioners in Yorkshire and Humberside; a restorative justice
conference with the Scottish Prison Service; and a conference
with the Northern Ireland Prison Service involving award winners
presenting and running workshops on a number of topics.
11. The three prison establishments in Northern
Ireland—Maghaberry, Magilligan and Hydebank Wood—are
all represented regularly in the nominations to The Butler Trust
and there have been some outstanding award winners over the years.
12. A major theme of The Butler Trust's
work in promoting and developing excellence in Northern Ireland
has been the work carried out by staff to support their peers.
The Central Benevolent Committee gained an award this year for
its work with staff. This Committee was set up 25 years ago by
staff across the service who felt that the widows and families
of murdered colleagues should be offered practical and emotional
support. Funded by voluntary contributions from staff, it supports
serving or retired members of staff and their families in times
of trouble, illness or bereavement. Committee members give freely
of their time outside working hours. They organise entertainment,
holiday accommodation and social events and consistently offer
support to those who need it, often in very difficult circumstances.
13. Other staff orientated awards are reflected
in the very personal nature of individual nominations that describe
the extreme pressures that some staff have worked under in the
past. Thus an award for outstanding development of a drug treatment
programme to Cyrus McCormick of Hydebank Wood. Despite serving
in some of the most highly charged areas and surviving a vicious
assault, he remained totally dedicated to his work. He used the
opportunity of formulating a drugs strategy to introduce an imaginative,
incentive-based drugs-free environment. Raising the remarkable
sum of £157,000 enabled him to develop a partnership with
Opportunity Youth which provided one-to-one help and drugs education
inside the Centre and an individual support package and sustained
contact with young offenders on release.
14. Other themes include working with specific
crimes in the community such as the car crime initiative of IMPACT,
the Inclusive Model of Partnership Against Car Theft. This was
a multi-agency community initiative aimed at engaging persistent
offenders committing car crimes against their own communities
and diverting them into more socially acceptable behaviour. Accredited
programmes of prevention in schools, diversion in the community
and intervention in custody are still delivered through individual
and group work. Based in West Belfast, the project team required
extraordinary skills to involve all social and political groups.
Over the last five years some outstanding results have been achieved
including a marked decline in car theft. The Trust helped to publicise
and establish this work as mainstream for the future.
15. Creating a culture of respect and consideration
for all those affected by crime is an increasing concern of prison
staff in Northern Ireland. This is nowhere more exemplified than
in Magilligan where an award was given to Principal Officer AP
Wilson who developed strong community links and challenged negative
stereotypes of prisons in Northern Ireland. The restoration of
derelict buildings in Limavady by prisoners who were "courteous
and proud of their work" was only one of many community and
environmental improvement projects to benefit the local area economically
and socially. He has developed restorative justice processes within
the prison so that victims of crime have been helped to move on
in their lives by prisoners taking fuller responsibility for their
crimes. Through this excellent work a wider strategy for developing
restorative processes is being developed for the whole service
in Northern Ireland.
16. The Butler Trust has considerable experience
of working with prison staff in their demanding work with prisoners
which is rarely recognised or celebrated. Working with Northern
Ireland's prisons and prisoners has been taking place over the
years with some success. We make the following recommendations:
— Staff development should play a higher
profile in prisons than it does now. Our staff are the least trained
of European prison staff with current training programmes being
reduced. The commitment to staff development, leadership programmes
and similar life-long learning systems should be part and parcel
of the Prison Service's approach to its staff to get the most
from them and to develop work in prisons which reflects current
thinking about criminality.
— Prisons should be encouraged to share
good practice. There tends to be a more competitive culture in
prisons than before.
— Similarly, greater partnership working
with other criminal justice agencies such as the police and probation
services is to be encouraged. Some of the best schemes recognised
by the Trust have involved this approach.
— Diversity in prisons has been a cause
of much attention lately and the experience of those working most
effectively in this area should be more widely applied.
Anne Fragniere
Director, The Butler Trust
23 April 2007
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