UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 319-ivHouse of COMMONSMINUTES OF EVIDENCETAKEN BEFORE
|
|
1. |
This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
|
|
2. |
Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.
|
|
3. |
Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Committee Assistant.
|
|
4. |
Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee.
|
|
5. |
Transcribed by the Official Shorthand Writers to the Houses of Parliament: W B Gurney & Sons LLP, Hope House, Telephone Number: 020 7233 1935 |
Oral Evidence
Taken before the
on
Members present
Sir Patrick Cormack, in the Chair
Rosie Cooper
Christopher Fraser
Mr John Grogan
Mr Stephen Hepburn
Mr Denis Murphy
Stephen Pound
David Simpson
________________
Witnesses: Mr Ronnie Spence, Chairman, Mr Brian McCaughey, Director, Mr James Quinn, Member, and Ms Cheryl Lamont, Assistant Director, Probation Board; Mr Robin Masefield, Director, and Mr Max Murray, Deputy Director, Head of Operations, Prison Service, gave evidence.
Q148 Chairman: Could I welcome you to this public evidence session. I am delighted to see you. Mr Masefield and Mr Spence have given evidence to the Committee before, and we are very grateful to you for that. If you would just number off across the table introducing yourselves, particularly the gentleman who has no name!
Mr Murray: Max Murray, Deputy Director, Head of Operations.
Q149 Chairman: We have met you before, Mr Murray, but you do not seem to be labelled. You are Robin Masefield, yes.
Mr Quinn: Jimmy Quinn, Deputy Chair of the Probation Board.
Mr McCaughey: Brian McCaughey, Director of the Probation Board.
Mr Spence: Ronnie Spence, Chairman of the Probation Board.
Ms Lamont: Cheryl Lamont, Deputy Director of the Probation Board.
Q150 Chairman: You are very welcome. Thank you very much indeed for coming. We did a series of evidence sessions here in Stormont yesterday. The Committee is going to make its final report to Parliament before the election on progress towards devolution. As you well know, we did a major inquiry into the Prison Service a couple of years ago and were extremely grateful for the help and assistance we had with that. We hope the report made a reasonable contribution. We were grateful for the reactions we had. We want to report to Parliament on how things have progressed since then and, standing, as we hope we are, on the eve of the final stages of devolution, how you see things. Perhaps we could begin and ask one or two questions which I will direct initially to Mr Masefield and Mr Spence but, please, anyone feel free to come in. I will leave it to you to orchestrate your answers but, please, we do not need an answer from everybody on every question. We have got precisely an hour for this session because we are publishing a report on broadcasting with a press conference in Stormont at 10.30 and need time to prepare for that. What implications arise for your services, Mr Masefield and Mr Spence, should the devolution of policing and criminal justice matters proceed from today's talks? As you know, as we meet here those talks are underway at Hillsborough. How would you react?
Mr Masefield: We are very much looking forward to the prospects of devolution, if I may go first. There are two key areas for the Prison Service. We think we are as well prepared as we can be in administrative terms and on a range of other preparations. We have been running it in the programme similar to the core departments, and there are ten or so work strands involved in that, including matters such as legal, legislative, finance and IT, as you would expect. There are two key aspects, I think. One for us is we are anticipating significantly increased local scrutiny and accountability, and that can be only beneficial for the service, and widening out the focus there is on our performance and improvements in that right across the service. For example, we anticipate a greater number of attendances before Assembly committees and look forward to that. The second point, of course, is one or two of the aspects that you addressed in the context of your report published in December 2007 relating to areas such as the estate strategy and the future of women offenders. We are very conscious that we will be in perhaps greater competition looking to the Department of Finance and Personnel rather than the Treasury for the funding for capital as well as resource costs.
Q151 Chairman: Thank you very much. Mr Spence?
Mr Spence: Like Robin, we are looking
forward to the opportunity of devolution but we also anticipate that it will
impose additional demands on the senior management of the organisation in terms
of greater accountability and the need to be accessible to the Assembly and
local representatives generally. We have
been putting a lot of effort into making sure that senior staff understand what
that might mean and they have been receiving appropriate training. We are also looking forward to it in the
sense of being able to promote a more joined-up approach to meeting the needs
of offenders as the needs of offenders involve health issues, housing issues
and employment issues. We think with the
devolution of policing and justice alongside the functions that are already
devolved there is an opportunity to develop a more integrated approach to the
management of offenders and tackling all of those problems in a comprehensive
way. We are looking forward to the
possibility that a local Assembly may want to address some of the issues in
relation to offenders and re-offending in a way which is more distinctive to
the needs of
Q152 Chairman: Thank you. I do not want to be pessimistic but quite clearly the talks are at a crucial stage and it is possible, although certainly I hope not probable, that devolution does not proceed. If it does not, are you confident that you can continue to provide an ever-improving service and maintain morale within your services?
Mr Masefield: Yes, in principle, although I should perhaps put a caveat. As a civil servant I do not want to get too overtly into the politics, but I am very conscious in the discussions on the financial side, looking ahead to the funding that has been secured for the Department of Justice at devolution, it may well be that some of that would not necessarily be available were we to roll forward under the current arrangements. I think we need to take very careful stock of the funding streams as well as the service improvements to which we are committed.
Q153 Chairman: So you would need to have negotiations with the Treasury, yes. Mr Spence?
Mr Spence: I think a similar answer is appropriate. As the Probation Board, we are about to start to enter the process of preparing our next three-year corporate plan. If we were preparing it against the background of devolution obviously it would be different from if we were preparing it against the background of continued direct rule, although many of the core issues will remain and will have to be addressed.
Q154 Chairman: Thank you. Also, thank you for the brevity and concise nature of your answers, which is much appreciated. Let us be optimistic, having just looked at the other side. As far as your two services are concerned, what would be the major task - or tasks - facing a new Minister for Justice in a devolved administration?
Mr Masefield: I will answer that in two ways, if I may. We have been trying to develop the Prison Service for a number of years now and are looking to modernise it, as you are aware, and you addressed that point in your excellent report, and we have been working forward largely on that template. Many issues remain in terms of culture change for our staff and we have a new project going forward on that basis. The second part of it will, to an extent, be to see the background of the particular Minister for Justice and the emphasis they would wish to place on whatever strands of that corporate and business plan, a similar process to that which my colleague has referred this morning. The emphasis might shift and reflect a little their personal preference.
Q155 Chairman: Of course. Mr Spence?
Mr Spence: Two points. First of all, I think a new Minister inevitably would have to deal with public expectation that he or she will deal with things better, more effectively, more efficiently and be more transparent. Whether or not that is a fair criticism of the present arrangements I doubt, but there will be that public expectation. Secondly, I think there would be a wish by a new Minister to try and do things differently. A few weeks ago the House of Commons Justice Committee produced a very good report, I thought, on reinvesting in justice. I think some of the ideas in that report would be issues that a local Minister would want to look at very carefully, things like trying to manage more offenders in the community, greater involvement of the voluntary and community sector, trying to deter people from becoming offenders, helping people re-offending and trying to target more effectively the worst areas in terms of crime and offending. I think a new Minister would want to look at things like that at a fairly early stage so that he or she could be doing something that is distinctive.
Q156 Mr Hepburn: On the area of administrative readiness, what preparations are you making at the present time? What changes do you think might have to be made to prepare for devolution, and what will the financial implications be?
Mr Spence: If I could answer that first. In the case of the Probation Board we have already put our senior staff through appropriate training and have made some structural changes at the top of the organisation to strengthen in particular our business planning arrangements and also, very importantly, to improve how we communicate with the public, the media and elected representatives. That is an area where probation has been traditionally bad, it has not been very good at explaining what it does and does not do, and that is an area where we have to recognise we will have to do better in the future and are putting greater effort into that area. We have made a new appointment to deal with that side of our work.
Q157 Mr Hepburn: What about staffing and accommodation?
Mr Spence: A modest staff increase but no accommodation consequence.
Mr Masefield: As I mentioned earlier, we have had an extensive programme modelled really on that of the core department, the Northern Ireland Office, covering ten or so different work streams. It includes training that we have had for staff. The main area that I would highlight for us is increased scrutiny and focus. We do welcome visits, for example, from MPs and MLAs at the moment and I think we will get many more of those coming to our establishments. It is interesting that we benchmarked against one department here at devolution and they had a 600% increase in the number of questions asked by the Assembly as opposed to parliamentary questions, so we are anticipating gearing up our secretariat function, the communications element that Ronnie Spence referred to as well. Overall, financially it should not be a huge additional facet. The other thing I would say is we are taking the opportunity to restructure headquarters, which is not explicitly tied into devolution but hopefully that will give us the opportunity to gear up and ensure that we have a better focus on the absolute key strands that any new Minister would want in modernising the service and performance improvement in the service itself. So we will have, as it were, two directorates driving forward operational improvements within a couple of months' time.
Q158 Mr Hepburn: At the present time is there a marked difference in the way that you run your affairs? Will there be a revolutionary change or will there just be a seamless change?
Mr Masefield: Somewhere between the two, if I may say. If time allowed there are a number of secondary strands I could get into, but I am rather conscious of the point the Chairman has made about timing. There are some points that we will need to reflect on that mirror the document that was provided for the parties in February 2008 on devolution taking forward the legislation, so there will be the Transfer of Functions Order, of which you will be aware, that will be coming forward to your House hopefully in the near future and there will be some ramifications for the Prison Service. Without getting into the detail, national security and elements of that will be matters reserved or, indeed, excepted matters to be dealt with by the Secretary of State, whoever he or she may be, as opposed to the local Minister. While the Minister for Justice will be responsible for prisons at large, there will be some small areas that will need to go off and that is a strand of arrangements that we are making sure we get right to put in place and make sure the right Minister has the right information at the right time to enable the right decisions to be made.
Q159 Christopher
Fraser: Before we move on to Probation, may I just ask
a question following up from what Stephen Hepburn has asked? Mr Spence, you just mentioned the Justice
Committee report and used the very good word, "distinctive". A lot of what they said from my understanding
was there were quite a few radical ideas there, thinking outside the box. Do you think
Mr Spence: That is a very good question. The answer is probably no, the level of debate about issues in relation to prisons and probation is not as mature as it is in some other parts of the UK, and that was one of the reasons why we decided to strengthen our PR capability and why we are going to conduct a number of events over the next year as part of our corporate planning process to try and raise the level of debate about what is the best way to deal with offenders, what works and what does not work, what can we learn from other jurisdictions.
Chairman: Thank you very much. I am going to ask Rosie Cooper to come in, but there is one question that we would like to reserve for a five minute private session at the end because of the sensitivities.
Q160 Rosie Cooper: In the light of the appalling attack on PC Heffron and the bomb outside the Policing Board, to what extent do you think employees of the Prison Service and Probation Service are at risk from the remaining terrorist groups or individuals?
Mr Spence: If I could answer that first because I think there will be two different responses here. The Probation Service worked across the community right through the worst years of the Troubles and we managed to do that successfully. We encountered no serious difficulties in that year. Perhaps Mr McCaughey, as the Director, would like to add to that point.
Mr McCaughey: If I could reiterate that
through the history of the Troubles in
Mr Masefield: We would like to position ourselves very much as serving the whole community, as public servants. We bitterly regret that we do come under attack and, of course, we have a different history of 29 members of staff killed during the Troubles, so we did work with our professional advisers nearly a year ago in the light of events at Massereene and Craigavon to see whether it was appropriate to reassess the threat in respect of our staff, and regrettably that was raised from "moderate" to "substantial". We have taken a range of security measures in a fairly low key but, nevertheless, targeted and effective way to provide protection and reassurance for our staff where it is appropriate since then. It may be that we can return to that in private session.
Q161 Rosie Cooper: Mr Rodford left your service after five short months. What impact has that had on the morale of your employees and how do you see dealing with that?
Mr Masefield: Well, I regret it and so does Paul Goggins. Steve Rodford was appointed following the report that Paul Goggins and I commissioned by Tony Pearson and colleagues. I had worked with Tony in the English Prison Service in the 1990s and have immense respect for him. One of the key findings of his team was that we should, if you like, aim to achieve a blend at senior level, not dissimilar to the PSNI for a number of years now, a blend of experience from our own staff home-grown who perhaps have gone out and worked elsewhere on exchanges or secondments and staff coming in at senior level for a period either on secondments and sharing that expertise specifically following the move by the Governor and Deputy Governor at Maghaberry. They are both on secondment within the Northern Ireland Office playing a part in the wider criminal justice system - something I had personally been looking to achieve for a number of years so I welcome that - and they will be coming back to the Prison Service. My colleague, Mr Murray, and the Head of Personnel also interviewed a number of people and Mr Rodford came forward as the candidate. As I put in the press release on 5 December it was primarily down to personal and domestic reasons that he left us, although obviously the security incident in particular was highlighted as one point. It was a blow to us. He had been giving a clear lead to the establishment, working with the staff, setting up the improvement team. They are not all in place yet, but we have a number of colleagues there, both internal and external, supplementing the current senior management team to help make the improvements that we all want to see in Maghaberry. Good progress had been made in that four-month period and it has not come to a halt as a result of Mr Rodford's departure. The excellent Deputy Governor is the Acting Governor and I signed off a compact with him just last week precisely as Tony Pearson advocated that sets out the work streams with targets, with dates for implementation, and the momentum is very much being maintained. We will continue taking forward that blend of expertise to which I have referred because it is absolutely right that our own people gain more expertise who are small and insular - with no disrespect to our staff, it is inevitable - and we gain from going elsewhere and seeing precisely the same sort of response Ronnie gave to the question, we benefit from seeing wider criminal justice experience elsewhere and from having that input.
Q162 Mr Murphy: So you would suggest, Mr Masefield, that there is not any truth in the suggestion that Mr Rodford's departure was linked to difficulties in reforming the regime at Maghaberry?
Mr Masefield: In a number of media interviews that I did when we announced that Mr Rodford was going back, I said clearly, and Paul Goggins is also on the record as saying, that it was primarily or largely for personal and domestic reasons. I also went further and said Steve Rodford did have a number of frustrations and those were precisely the same frustrations that I have had that indeed, with respect, the Committee identified in seeking to move us forward. We have a number of issues that relate partly to elements in the organisation - I am not singling anybody out, I am certainly not going to point the finger and say the Prison Officers' Association - a number of staff who are more resistant to change than others. I think that is one facet. Maghaberry has a wide range of issues and challenges to take forward and there are questions as to how far one can move on some things. Finally, to give you a simple example: Steve Rodford, as a governor in the English Prison Service, was used to being able to "hire and fire" in his terms. A governor in the Northern Ireland Prison Service cannot hire and fire, I cannot hire and fire, because all the employees in the Northern Ireland Prison Service are actually employees of the Department of Finance and Personnel even now prior to devolution. That is a constraint under which we work. It is understandable, and I have grown up with it, but others may perhaps have a slightly different perception of the constraints it places upon their ability to make progress as fast as they would like.
Q163 Mr Murphy: The recent Criminal Justice Inspectorate's report on the regime in place for vulnerable prisoners was fairly critical of the current system. What steps are being taken to try and address that?
Mr Masefield: I am glad you ask me that. I would like to put something on the record. Within six months from the initial criticism in January, the publication of the report by the Prisoner Ombudsman into Colin Bell's sad death in August 2008, we had taken 43 recommendations she identified and it was principally those recommendations that the Criminal Justice Inspector was coming back to look at. He found in his report we had achieved fully or partially 85% of those 43 recommendations within six months. They reported in August at a time when the new governor, Steve Rodford, had been there precisely two weeks. If I may invite you to compare and contrast: I looked at six sample reports by HMCIP of England where the average period is three years and the level of "not achieved" is 30%, so in six months with a new governor in for two weeks we had implemented all but 15% partially or fully and in England and Wales after three years they still failed regularly to implement 30%. With respect, we have a long way to go, and I am not complacent, but sometimes we get rather more criticism than we think is merited, certainly from the media.
Q164 Mr Murphy: There was also a suggestion contained within that report that the staff were very unhappy with the rate of progress, or lack of it in some cases. Is that still the case?
Mr Masefield: It certainly paid tribute to a number of individual staff and the progress there. For the record, it also said that very much good progress had been made in Magilligan and Hydebank Wood. Maghaberry is inevitably more challenging because it is a hugely complex prison as every inspectorate says.
Q165 Chairman: As we know.
Mr Masefield: Indeed, Sir, yes, as you yourselves identified. I think there are frustrations at all levels. Perhaps I should bring in my colleague because as Director of Operations he has even more direct responsibility than I.
Mr Murray: It is definitely frustrating trying to make a move in Maghaberry. Steve's departure was regrettable because he had built up a momentum that was having an effect on the ground. Whilst there were differences of view in terms of him and some of his staff, people recognised that the direction of travel was entirely appropriate, and that did include bringing forward the safer custody strategy. There is a central group now working in headquarters developing a new strategy. We have just introduced a whole new procedure for the management of vulnerable prisoners called the SPAR procedure - supporting persons at risk - and that is proving to be very effective. The recent audit carried out at Maghaberry shows accident recording in the daily logs, observational checks, things that were not happening previously. We do think that certainly in the six months since the CJI published the report we have made significant strides forward. We accept we have a long way to go but we have made significant advances.
Q166 Mr Murphy: Are you currently meeting your targets of 20 hours activity for sentenced prisoners and ten hours of activity for others?
Mr Masefield: Yes is the simple answer. If you ask me the underlying question are Max and I are satisfied with the level of constructive activity, the time out of cell in particular for remands, who constitute 50% of the population in Maghaberry, no we are not, we still need to work at that and get that better.
David Simpson: Chairman, my apologies for
being late, the traffic was horrific this morning. You will be aware that some time last year
there was some press in relation to prisoners gaining access to illegal
drugs. Under the reforms and targets
that you have spoken about this morning how is this being addressed because it
seems to be an issue not only in
Q167 Chairman: When you answer that could you also say whether you are considering what they were doing in part of the Republic when we went, which was to prevent contact between visitors and inmates? Are you experimenting there? If you could take the two things together that would be very helpful.
Mr Murray: Part of the difficulty with
managing mobile phones is that the mobile phones now are so small and, frankly,
prisoners carry them in body cavities.
In the
Mr Masefield: Can I perhaps move on to the
drugs element, which is very closely linked to that? We had a major review of that following your
report that was published in the summer of 2008. We have found it hard. We were very clear that it was about
minimising the supply of drugs that got in, you can never eradicate it, which I
think was implicit in your question, and we have taken forward a range of
measures. Frankly, I think we are at a
disadvantage in
Chairman: Could I just thank you for sending the Committee your change of rules. That was a courtesy that was much appreciated.
Q168 Christopher Fraser: If I may ask one question on that point about drug smuggling. Is there any evidence of coercion of staff in terms of bringing drugs into prisons?
Mr Murray: Not coercion but there is evidence of staff being subverted.
Q169 Chairman: So being complicit in it?
Mr Murray: Absolutely. We have one member of staff suspended at the moment.
Q170 Christopher Fraser: Can I talk about prison population numbers? The average population in prisons here is going to go up to about 1,738 in 2012, which is an increase from 1,635. Why is this increase expected and what is being done to prepare for it?
Mr Masefield: May I give you an answer which may not be quite that which you were expecting, and it is not really what we were expecting either, as it were. The prison population this year, as of yesterday, was 7% lower than this time last year, which is counterintuitive, to use a technical term. We had done our best projections and did indeed anticipate a projected increase that was very much on the basis you were referring to. In the context of building the new Magilligan Prison we have commissioned a rather wider ranging study which I am very interested in, shared with my colleague in the Probation Service, trying to look across the criminal justice system, Prosecution Service, courts and probation, to try to understand why there seems to be this temporary dip in the prison population.
Q171 Chairman: Mr Masefield, in our report we identified two things in particular that gave us very real cause for concern and commented on them. One was the very large number of remand prisoners you had and two was the number of people who were in for trivial financial offences, if I can put it that way, often for very tiny lengths of time but nevertheless gumming up the works administratively. We also pointed to the fact that we felt many of the women who were in could have been otherwise dealt with. Have you addressed, and are you continuing to address, these points?
Mr Masefield: Yes, we are, Chairman. Let me start first of all with the
women. We currently hold 31 women and a
year ago it was over 50 and peaked in the 60s.
The number of women prisoners has halved, partly as a result of a good
work initiative taken by Paul Goggins and worked on particularly by Probation. They have this very positive project called
Inspire, and you may like to hear a little bit about that, and that is
undoubtedly having an impact on diverting women from custody, which is
excellent. In the last year or so we
have now had electronic monitoring, tagging, set up and that appears to be
being used by judges primarily at the bail point rather than elsewhere. Whether individuals would have been remanded
in custody or not is hard to tell because as of yesterday I still had 33% of
all prisoners in the
Q172 Christopher Fraser: What proportion of the population are young offenders?
Mr Masefield: There were 155 yesterday, so it was a little over 11%. There were 11 juveniles, that is to say 16/17 year olds. The young offender we would class as potentially an individual from 18 through to 23. We exceptionally hold a small number, about 20 or so, above 21 at Hydebank Wood.
Q173 Christopher Fraser: Because of their age and nature of their position as a young person, does that have a disproportionate effect on how much money or effort has to go into dealing with them when they are in prison?
Mr Masefield: Again, a very lively topic at the moment. It is certainly true to say - using the term that I was delighted the Committee and we ourselves seek to move away from as far and as far as we can, "the cost per prisoner place" because it has many failings as a comparator - the cost per prisoner place in the Prison Service has been reducing and the target this year is 78,000, so it is steadily coming down. The cost per prisoner place in Woodlands Juvenile Justice Centre would be significantly above that, probably twice that, because they run a regime that is geared specifically to meeting the needs of juveniles. Again, Paul Goggins has recently invited us to undertake an initiative to see how we can work more closely together and, indeed, to see what scope there may be for treating, if you like, and it is a slightly odd way of putting it, more juveniles as juveniles.
Chairman: You still make the Ritz seem rather cheap.
Q174 Christopher Fraser: In answer to that, is the reason why Paul Goggins has asked you to do this because there is a need to save money?
Mr Masefield: With respect to the Minister, I think primarily in his mind, and I would like to invite Brian in because he is working very closely on this project, is about achieving the right outcome in the right place for the juvenile and, therefore, for society to tackle their offending needs and behaviour as soon as possible, to provide the right regime at that level and to give them the best chance of not creating further victims in society.
Q175 Christopher Fraser: But at less cost.
Mr Masefield: At the appropriate cost, if I may put it that way.
Mr McCaughey: Chairman, if I could broaden
the picture out from prisons to give a fuller picture of the assessment and
management of offenders in
Q176 Christopher Fraser: In what ways has the Prison Service changed its dealing with mental health problems?
Mr Masefield: I am delighted to say that I really think we are beginning to get the benefits of the transfer that took place in April 2008 of responsibility for prisoner healthcare to principally the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust. The current Chief Executive, Hugh McCaughey, and his senior management team are collectively putting a lot of weight behind working with Maghaberry management, with the senior management, the improvement team, and we have a joint improvement board that is meeting again tomorrow. There are eight work streams and two of those address directly mental health issues. The numbers remain as high and, if anything, they are increasing. With 60%-70% of individuals with mental health issues, including personality disorder, and as many again with substance abuse, often care morbidity, the challenge remains huge. We are refurbishing the healthcare facility in Maghaberry, so we are operating in temporary facilities. We are looking to bring in with the Trust additional expertise to provide better facilities, a better regime and, frankly, better diagnosis and assessment and also discharge co-ordination, which is another key area. I have appointed two discharge co-ordinators with the Trust, which goes back to linkage of offender management to which my colleague referred.
Chairman: Mr Masefield, you will know that the Committee was very concerned about this in its report. Although we recognised explicitly the devolved responsibility for health, we had to look into this because of the impact on the Prison Service. It is such an important issue. One of our Members, who sadly cannot be here, Dr McDonnell, is particularly interested in that. Could you please let our clerk have a very short paper summarising the advances you have made there.
Q177 Stephen Pound: Looking at the six of you crammed into such a limited space, which is probably entirely unacceptable in the Prison Service, it makes me wonder what the current status of the 120 prisoner accommodation block at Maghaberry is. Can you tell us?
Mr Masefield: We can with great pleasure. It is open.
Mr Murray: It is state of the art accommodation with its own discrete en-suite facility in the room. That sounds grander than it is but it does give private facilities. They are larger than normal cells: 9.2 square metres as opposed to the normal of around 7 seven square metres. It does allow for doubling if we ever have to do it. It is not presently doubled. It is being used by mid-stage life sentence prisoners. They are finding it an entirely different environment with big wide open spaces, natural light, good lines of sight and more critically, and most important for the Prison Service, the association is on the landing so there is immediate interaction between staff and prisoners. We have moved away from the square house syndrome where staff would go back to their class offices, they are now on the landing co-located with the prisoners. Both in the 120 cell unit at Maghaberry and in Halward House where we have a similar 60 bed unit that has had major benefits.
Q178 Stephen Pound: Continuing with the physical estate, what is the current state of play at Magilligan with the improvements?
Mr Masefield: Very briefly, we have done
minimum refurbishment, being prudent with public funds. We have put in cell alarms and there is the
new 60-bed unit at Halward House. I am
delighted to report steady progress on the Magilligan project for the
redevelopment. We have an excellent
business case team in place and design team in place that consists of both
Q179 Stephen Pound: How are you going to meet the needs of the Offender Management Unit? When that comes completely on-stream there are going to be physical demands. What are your plans?
Mr Masefield: At the moment, without being
complacent, we have formed a team specifically to take it forward on a
programme basis. We have an offender
management model and we published that a couple of months ago. They have done excellently. The numbers so far have perhaps been slightly
smaller than we would have anticipated; it is of the order of between 15 and
20. Extended custodial sentences are
slightly more now and determinate custodial sentences, which are the new ones
that came on-stream a year subsequent to that, are building up. What I am delighted to question is our
ability to provide the full range of services, in particular through psychology
and elsewhere, to work with prisoners who need to address their offending
behaviour and the full range of programmes, and there I fear I have to report
we still struggle. Since your report we
have gone out with three UK-wide campaigns for psychologists, and I know my
colleagues in Probation have had two, and we have had limited results. We sent out a tender specification for anyone
- private, public sector, existing providers in
Stephen Pound: Chairman, in view of all the physical changes that have taken place on the estate, would it be appropriate to ask at some stage for a very brief snapshot of where we are?
Q180 Chairman: Yes, that is a very good point, if you could add that. On one very final point on prisons we are going to go to Mr Grogan. When we visited Magilligan we were all rather impressed by the prefabricated units being used as pre-release and were very impressed too by some of the very constructive work, gardening, et cetera, that some of the prisoners were doing before being released. Are you still giving proper emphasis to that?
Mr Murray: Absolutely. There are 82 places in Foyleview but they are not all filled because of the low risk area and with minimum supervision people have to be suitably assessed. With both the blend of working within the community, that is the self-help process within Magilligan in terms of looking after the internal fabric of the prison, but it is also about community experience, we have about 20 or 30 prisoners who every day work out in the community on a range of projects.
Q181 Chairman: And Foyleview flourishes?
Mr Murray: Foyleview flourishes.
Q182 Mr Grogan: I note there are four objectives for the Probation Board this year and I just want to go through each one in turn and focus on them and what progress is being made. The first objective is producing a progress report on services for the young, if you could say a word about that.
Mr McCaughey: I will start with that, if I may, and my colleague, Ms Lamont, may come in. We have a reducing number of young offenders under the supervision of the Probation Board of Northern Ireland, probably around 250. That is because of the introduction of the Youth Justice Agency and particularly youth conferencing of the Youth Court, so the necessity for the preparation of pre-sentence reports has greatly decreased and, therefore, the number of young people coming under our supervision has decreased subsequently. So as to maximise resources and demonstrate effectiveness, and collaboration and co-operation, we have developed a model with the Youth Justice Agency, a priority youth offending project, which we are piloting for a number of years. It is probably approaching the end of its first year and we will do a review. I think there have been cultural differences. Certainly we would apply very clear standards and service requirements to the supervision of offenders, including young offenders, and particularly young offenders who may be more at risk than adult offenders. We would apply a very standards led and supervisory approach whereas the Youth Justice Agency may apply a more educational or individual or family led approach. There have been some cultural differences and some structural differences, but I anticipated those over the first year of the pilot. We are working together and they are evidencing creativity, co-operation and collaboration. That is where I would leave it at this point in its first year. Cheryl, I do not know if you would like to add anything.
Ms Lamont: Just to say that we are going to report more fully in a report in March and we do hope, as Brian has said, we will be taking it on into the second year.
Q183 Mr Grogan: Another issue that you highlighted in your objectives was the treatment of vulnerable offenders, including those with personality disorders.
Mr McCaughey: We have led with the Prison Service on this issue in discussions with the Northern Ireland Office. I have been concerned, as I know Mr Masefield has been and he alluded to it in his earlier comments, about the number of vulnerable prisoners and offenders who have been diagnosed with personality disorder, particularly some very serious sex offenders. I have had instances in the past where people have come out from prison and there have been issues of personality disorder, of accommodation, the appropriateness of accommodation, and balancing the risks to the public and the management of those offenders. I have brought those matters to the attention of the court. We have raised the issue with the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of Health and have put proposal papers into our sponsoring body. I understand the Department of Health is leading on that now to look particularly at accommodation in the community for the management of those individuals who would come under our supervision.
Q184 Mr Grogan: You also highlighted the question of electronic monitoring, tagging, and how effective that is.
Mr McCaughey: The new legislation has
certainly moved the Probation Board centre stage in terms of the management of
offenders. As Mr Masefield has said,
there are currently 18 extended custodial sentences all in custody at the
present time. There are no indeterminate
custodial sentences. There are 13
determinate custodial sentences, one of whom is in the community. We only have four people on electronic
monitoring in the community under PBNI supervision. I have not got today's up-to-date figure but
there are over 100 individuals on bail who are being electronically monitored
via PSNI and the courts. The legislation
has certainly placed us centre stage in terms of assessment: the assessment of
risk; the assessment of dangerousness; enabling sentencers to make decisions
and, unlike in
Q185 Mr Grogan: Finally, you talked about putting in place to provide victims' information to the Parole Commissioners. What progress has been made as regards that?
Ms Lamont: In terms of information being made available to the Parole Commissioners there have been several sessions with the Parole Commissioners in terms of enacting the whole Criminal Justice Order. As we move forward, our staff have been trained in terms of how we deal with what are very sensitive issues and to date we have been working to deliver on those if needs be. The Probation Service itself has a victim information scheme which came into effect in 2005 and we have had some 560 victims we have progressed through that and provided information to. In terms of providing information to the Parole Commissioners, this is a new piece of work and we are taking that forward in an ongoing way.
Mr McCaughey: In answer to all of the questions, in relation to the new legislation and the new sentencing framework we have trained all our staff to new standards and service requirements to implement all of those new orders, so regardless of the number of orders made we are ready and prepared for any increase.
Mr Murray: On the implementation of the Criminal Justice Order and bringing it forward, the co-operation there has been between the Probation Service and the Prison Service has been exemplary with probation staff senior managers embedded within the implementation team working directly with prison staff and training prison staff. Everybody recognises that one of the major obligations of public protection is that both the custody element and the supervision element have to work hand-in-hand. From that point of view it is worth recording that I am grateful for that co-operation.
Chairman: That is very encouraging and I am delighted to know about that. Thank you for what you are doing. It is quite clear that since our report you have made some progress, but it is equally clear there is still quite a long way to go. We encourage you to complete the journey as soon as you reasonably can, and we hope under a devolved administration. We thank you for your co-operation this morning. I would like to declare the public session closed. Thank you.