Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
320-326)
MARIA EAGLE
MP, PHIL WHEATLEY
CB AND STACEY
TASKER OBE
9 JUNE 2009
Q320 Mr Heath: You are going to end
up with a big muddle, are you not?
Phil Wheatley: No, it is not a
big muddle. Changing conditions of service is always slightly
difficult. We have done that before. There are pre Fresh Start
staff in post and Fresh Start staff, that has never caused us
a particular problem, and it is a sensible thing to do, and we
have to do it more slowly, so it has to be done as we recruit.
Chairman: The problem is enabling prison
officers to understand more fully what the real implications are.
We have encountered genuine uncertainty and anxiety from prison
officers because they did not know what this was going to mean
for them.
Q321 Mr Heath: Principally on the
grounds that it was reducing the safety of the environment in
which they were working. That was their concern.
Phil Wheatley: I know it was their
concern, and this goes back to the negotiation. We successfully
negotiated with the POA NEC, who recommended the changes. They
faced a conference where some of their activists did not like
the changes. As an NEC, having recommended that, they changed
their mind. They then told everybody that what they had previously
recommended was dangerous and unsafe. It is very difficult when
you are dealing with people who, from my point of view, were saying
things that I do not think were accurate, but they were entitled
to say them, and they said them very persuasively and very loudly,
and that made it very difficult to sell the deal to prison staff.
Prison staff will see what happens when we introduce the new grade.
As Members of Parliament interested in how the public's money
is spent, it looks to me like the best thing to do genuinely.
Similarly, I think we have got an over-complicated management
structure which we should be simplifying and, at the same time
as we have done that, we have also reduced the demand on the management
structure to engage in audit tasks. Before we were over auditing
and a lot of management time was spent on management checks, more
than I think we needed to deliver a good product. We thought we
were over auditing and misusing our managers in that way, so we
freed up management time, we will need less managers and we will
de-layer. We are going to do that in any case but we will not
be doing it with quite the same co-operation with the workforce
that I would have liked.
Q322 Dr Whitehead: Could I turn briefly
not to the training and arrangements involved in prisons but the
issue of sharing best practice between private prisons and public
prisons. Do you think that there is a problem in principle in
sharing best practice in an area of contestability and market
testing, and, indeed, do you think that is reflected in what Professor
Coyle mentioned to us in his evidence, that there had apparently
been very little sharing of best practice really since Titan prisons
were introduced? Is that an in-principle problem or an in-practice
problem?
Phil Wheatley: I think at one
point it was an in-principle problem. It is less though since
we have reorganised the agency. The last time you saw me, I think,
I was running the public sector Prison Service with a business
model that said all the separate services were separate and in
competition with each other. We have now recognised that although
we will use competition from time to time, and there will be competition,
the vast majority of sites will not be facing competition and
we will be running a joined-up service. I am now responsible for
public sector prisons and private sector prisons and the Probation
Service. I think that new agency model makes it much easier to
dig out best practice and share it between the sectors. I welcome
the fact that although we have real competition on some sites
done carefully and that all sectors should face the fact that
they have to show they are the best one for doing the job from
time to time, we are not overwhelming the system with competition
and we can look to achieve better join-up and learn better from
each other. For instance, the public sector is learning from the
private sector that leaner management structures work. There is
a quite clear message from the private sector, probably helped
with the distrust divide, which I think was earlier commented
on, that sometimes does exist between managers and staff, and
it is not helpful. After all, we are all working together, not
in some sort of 1970s state of trade unionism really, and that
tighter management structure is learnt from the private sector.
We are looking at making sure that good public sector systems
that enable prisons to exchange information are available to the
private sector and I think that degree of co-operation with a
bit of competitive tension is probably the best balance. I am
quite pleased with the current balance, I just think we are now
in a much better place.
Q323 Dr Whitehead: Does being pleased
with the present balance mean that you can clearly say that you
do not find yourself ever in circumstances where you are really
having to cajole, persuade, hold a gun to the head of particularly
the private sector in sharing information and best practices where
they may come back to you and say, "Actually, this undermines
our ability to act in a reasonably contested manner"?
Phil Wheatley: No, that has not
been the problem. Bearing in mind we have got our monitors in
establishments who can see everything that establishments, private
sector establishments, dothey have absolute access to what
happens therewe are not short of information about how
they operate. I do not need their commercial in-confidence information,
whatever that might be; so I am not aware of what their profit
level is particularly. I can see how they operate, I can see what
works, and that is not a constraint. Similarly, I have got to
make sure that where the public sector develop good systems that,
for instance, protect people from the risk of suicide, I do not
want to hold those back as a competitive edge to the public sector,
I want to make sure that those sorts of things are available to
make prisons safer.
Q324 Dr Whitehead: Can I ask the
Minister: I appreciate you have had a day's history on this, but
your predecessor told us, told the House, in fact, that the public
sector does a good job and the private sector can do a good job
too. That does appear to suggest some cooling towards the role
of private prisons in the service as a whole. Does that reflect
your thinking on the relationship between public and private prisons
in the service, or do you share that view?
Maria Eagle: In under 24 hours,
I have not come to a completely settled view about where the balance
ought to be. One thing is certain, however, and that is we are
not going back to either having 100% public sector prisons or
planning on having 100% of prisons in the private sector, which
means that for the foreseeable future there is going to be balance
of some kind. The Committee will be aware that we do have a strategy
on competition. We have some prisons, some in the public sector
and some in the private sector, that are run on contracts that
are coming to an end where one has to decide either to re-compete
or how one is going to take that forward. We are also building
new prisons and we also have some poorly performing existing prisons
that we feel could benefit from having a competition to see if
there are any other potential providers who might wish to provide
them. I am not, by the way, ruling out the public sector from
bidding. We have fairly recently published a strategy on competition
and contestability and at present I see no reason to be resiling
from that. It has been relatively recently announced. We are planning,
I think, this year on four prisons, either because the contracts
that they are currently operating to are coming to an end and
have to be, therefore, re-tendered one way or another, and I think
a couple of the poorly performing public sector prisons we are
planning on having competitions in respect of this year. That
is where we are at present, so let us see how it goes. I certainly
have no reason to resile from that relatively recently stated
policy at this stage. What we want is what works. We want good
prisons across the board in various sectors, we want to make sure
that good practice is spread and do a good job across our entire
system and that, I think, is what matters. I will have to come
back to you in another year or so and answer that question again.
Q325 Chairman: We did not really
think that you would resile from stated policy in your first 24
hours in office!
Maria Eagle: There are some brave
ministers around, but perhaps I am a little more cautious than
to fall into that particular trap quite so soon.
Q326 Chairman: Thank you very much,
and your officials, for the time spent with us this afternoon.
Thank you very much.
Maria Eagle: Thank you.
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