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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 520-ii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE northern ireland affairs COMMITTEE
the northern ireland prison service
Wednesday 16 May 2007 MR GERRY MCALEER and MR BOB CROMIE Evidence heard in Public Questions 57 - 138
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
To All Members: If you have any corrections to be made to this transcript, please return them, marked in red or blue ink on the relevant pages, to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee Office by noon on Tuesday 29 May 2007. Oral Evidence Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday 16 May 2007 Members present Sir Patrick Cormack, in the Chair Mr David Anderson Mr Gregory Campbell Rosie Cooper Mr Christopher Fraser Mr Stephen Hepburn Lady Hermon Dr Alasdair McDonnell Mr Denis Murphy Stephen Pound Sammy Wilson ________________ Witnesses: Mr Gerry McAleer, Chairman, and Mr Bob Cromie, Deputy Chairman, Prison Governors Association (PGA), gave evidence. Q57 Chairman: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you very much indeed for coming; you are most welcome. As I think you know, we are now fully embarked on our inquiry into the Prison Service in Northern Ireland. We have paid one visit to Northern Ireland to visit prisons; we have another visit due in the middle of next month. We shall also be looking at prisons elsewhere in the United Kingdom to form a comparison and we will be reporting to Parliament either very late in the summer or during the early part of the autumn. Would you like to introduce yourselves? You are the Chairman, Mr McAleer, you are the Deputy Chairman, Mr Cromie, of the Prison Governors Association. What my colleagues do not all know is precisely what your own particular duties are, so if you could introduce yourselves just very briefly and then we can begin the questioning? Mr McAleer: In addition to being the Chairman of the Prison Governors Association I am the Operational Governor in charge of the PECCS group, which is the Prison Escort and Court Custody Services group. Mr Cromie: I am the relatively newly appointed Governor in charge of security at Maghaberry. Q58 Chairman: Excellent; so doubtless we shall be seeing you when we come over again? Mr Cromie: Yes. Q59 Chairman: For how long have you held your present offices of Chairman and Deputy Chairman? Mr McAleer: That is a good question; for six or seven years. Q60 Chairman: I see; so this is a lifetime appointment, is it? Mr McAleer: No. We come up for re-election. We have just been re-elected. Q61 Chairman: How many members are there of the Prison Governors Association? Mr McAleer: The number of governors would be round about 40; members of our Association would be about 22, 24, somewhere around there, about two-thirds of the governors. Q62 Chairman: Of the governors within Northern Ireland? Mr McAleer: Yes; but we are affiliated also to the Prison Governors of England and Wales, and I would be a member of the Executive Committee. Q63 Chairman: By virtue of the fact that you are Chairman in Northern Ireland, you sit on the UK one: is that the whole of the UK, including Scotland, Wales and England? Mr McAleer: Yes. Scotland joined, I think, last year. Q64 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. That is helpful background. Is there anything at all, briefly, that either of you wish to say, by way of introduction? Mr McAleer: I have nothing to say. Mr Cromie: No. Q65 Chairman: We will let the questions flow. Perhaps then I can begin by asking you, what is the impact on your Association, your members, of the growth in the prisoner population and how do you view this? Mr McAleer: There has been quite a startling increase in the prisoner population. In the past number of years we have gone from a situation where we had a surplus of prisoner places to getting very close now to an overcrowding situation, and that, of course, brings all the problems that you would associate over here as well with overcrowding. We would have a concern that if we do not get the expansion programme underway quickly we will be in trouble, in a year or two; but we know there are plans afoot to build some extra accommodation out there, at Maghaberry, and you would know more about that, Bob, than I would. Mr Cromie: The plan is to build an RTU (ready to use) in Maghaberry, in Mourne House, which is the old female prison, initially to supply 60 spaces; they are building the same up in Magilligan, to supply 60 spaces. They are also currently working on refurbishment of the Alpha Compound in Magilligan, to provide an extra 50 spaces, but it is very tight. Q66 Chairman: Of course, we did learn of some of those plans when we visited Magilligan, two or three weeks ago, and obviously the big question-mark over Magilligan is, when it is rebuilt, or when equivalent facilities are rebuilt, should they be there or should they be elsewhere; clearly there are very strong views on both sides. Does your Association have a collective view on that? Mr McAleer: No. We are not really concerned with the new prison; there are economic arguments, but we do not see that as part and parcel of our concerns. What we are more concerned with is whether the accommodation that is built will be fit for purpose and if they have got their sums right, reference the number of prisoners that we will have in a few years' time. We would have more of an interest in that actually than the siting of the prison. Q67 Chairman: Your Association does not have a view on the siting of the prison? Mr McAleer: No. Q68 Chairman: You touched on the point that I was going to come to next, which is the design of the prison. Two things were very clear to us when we went to Magilligan. One is that it does need rebuilding, there or elsewhere, and the other is that the whole concept of the prison and the way in which it is organised really is not very clever, and that design, to use these oft-used words, is not really fit for purpose. Do you have any specific suggestions in that context, or are you merely laying down a general rule that what replaces must be very radically different in design? Mr McAleer: Probably a bit of both. Yes, we would have views on what a 'fit for purpose' prison would be. As you quite rightly pointed out, the design of Maghaberry and also the design of Magilligan Prison, Magilligan being the old H blocks, was never as good a design as the Victorian Bridewell principle, where you have full supervision on a landing. If you are asking us do we have views on that, yes, we do, and we consider that design, where you can see everything, is a better design than when you cannot see, and I am quite sure that, from a security point of view, Bob would mirror that as well. Q69 Chairman: Have you been given an assurance that you will be consulted on the design, your Association? Mr McAleer: Yes. Q70 Chairman: You have; and you are satisfied with that assurance? Mr McAleer: Yes. Q71 Stephen Pound: I am fascinated by what you say. Mountjoy was built in the 1840s, in Dublin, on what we call the Pentonville model, the panopticon model, the central one. That seemed gradually to be phased out and people seem to be moving away from that, I think principally because the panopticon, the Jeremy Bentham model, involved tiny, tiny cells and a small number of prison officers at a central hub. I am fascinated. You are saying, in fact, that has design elements which recommend it to you; is that so? Mr McAleer: There are all different types. There is the Bridewell principle, which we were talking about, with spokes off a wheel. You have got another type of jail where you can have everything happening in the middle, in a circular design, like some of the jails in America. What we are saying basically is that we prefer designs where you can have supervision and we do not like designs which have got blank spots, like the H block system, where the circle - a bit of a misnomer - goes out and you could see nothing; where they were in a square you could not see down the wings. We would have views on that; but we are not sort of tied in to the Victorian model specifically, there are other ways of achieving that visibility, basically is what we are saying. Q72 Stephen Pound: Is there any current policy, on behalf of the Association, on the question of prison design, because we have often considered the people within the prison, we have not often considered in this Committee the actual physical structure of the prison, and we have an opportunity for once actually to be thinking about it at the design stage? Do you have a formal position on prison design, apart from the obvious fact that you would want lines of sight to be as clear and uncluttered as possible? Mr McAleer: If you are asking do we have a design in mind that we can lift off a shelf and give to you - - - Q73 Stephen Pound: I am trying to avoid asking you that direct question. I think you know where I am coming from? Mr McAleer: Yes. We do not have that but we have designs that we prefer, which would be about two or three different types. We like visibility so that we can see what inmates are doing, and that is for protection both for themselves and from our point of view, to supervise them, as well, from security points of view. Mr Cromie: Also it is important that staff do not feel they are isolated, down the wings. Chairman: That is very, very helpful. Thank you. Q74 Sandy Wilson: That being the case, and it all seems fairly logical what you have been saying, how did we reach a situation where we have got nearly every prison in Northern Ireland designed in a way which is not officer-friendly and indeed which creates the kind of difficult situations that you are talking about? Mr Cromie: When the H blocks were brought in, my understanding was, and I was in the Service then, that they were cutting-edge technology, and the general thrust of UK penal development was into small units. Had they chosen an X block rather than an H block, I do not think anybody would have the problems with an H block that they have today; the problem was that staff were down the two legs of an H block. Q75 Chairman: Clearly, alphabetically unsound, was it not? Mr Cromie: Exactly; and the management were sitting in the middle of the H block. The reason why Maghaberry is the way it is, essentially, is that Maghaberry is Franklin Prison, we took the plans from Franklin, which at the time was cutting-edge technology, and the Northern Ireland Prison Service built Franklin Prison on the site of Maghaberry. That is why we have the buildings that are not totally fit for purpose. Q76 Chairman: It is all very well to be wary of cutting-edge technology? Mr Cromie: Exactly. When you come to Maghaberry you will see Bush and Roe Houses, which have been our two newest houses, and they are very like a radial spur of the Victorian prison and we are very content with them at the moment. Q77 Chairman: You are very content with them? Mr Cromie: Yes; staff are quite happy working in them. It is line of sight the whole way through. Chairman: Because Magilligan is in Mr Campbell's constituency, was there anything you wanted to ask, on Magilligan? Mr Campbell: I am content, Chairman, with what the Association has indicated in terms of preference, that really you are concentrating on the style, type and design of the prison, as opposed to any specific location, and undoubtedly we will return to that, I can assure you. Chairman: I am sure that is right. Could we move on then to the question of women prisoners and I would preface those questions by saying that we have been to Hydebank and we have met with staff and governors there and indeed with a number of the prisoners. Q78 Lady Hermon: You are very welcome here this afternoon. Before we talk about Hydebank and the treatment of women prisoners, can I ask about female representation within the Prison Governors Association; how large is the representation? Mr Cromie: There are two female governors. Mr McAleer: They are underrepresented. Q79 Chairman: Is any of them an officer of your Association? Mr Cromie: No. Q80 Lady Hermon: What efforts have been made actually by your Association to try to encourage more women to come into the Association? Mr McAleer: We have got no control over who the Department employs; we have no input into that, we are not consulted on that. Q81 Chairman: That is not really Lady Hermon's point. This is a voluntary Association, governors are not obliged to join, they pay a subscription and they are members of an Association consisting of governors; they do not have to join. What do you do, when a woman governor is appointed, or somebody to get governor grade is appointed, is a woman, what do you do to make her feel that she would be welcome and able to make a contribution to your Association? Mr McAleer: When we have had female members of the Prison Governors Association we have tried to get them to put themselves forward for posts. I can think of one in particular. There are not that many of them. One of the members that we had was not really interested in coming into office; also, she left the Governors Association. A problem that we have is not just gender-specific, we have great difficulty, back home, getting governors actually to go into the Association. This is one of the reasons why, to come back to something that you brought up earlier, we have been in this job for so long, because we just cannot get people, let alone females; but we do make them welcome. Q82 Lady Hermon: Why do you think it is that you have such difficulty in recruiting people to the Association? Mr Cromie: The POA are very powerful in Northern Ireland and because the vast majority, with all promotions these days, have been coming up through the ranks, they come into the governor grade rank as a POA member. It is quite a protective cloak they have around them and it is hard, at times, to seduce them away from that cloak, which is what we have to do. Q83 Lady Hermon: How would you describe your relationship with the POA? Mr Cromie: Must better than it was. Mr McAleer: Yes. Q84 Lady Hermon: Really? Mr McAleer: We have a good relationship with Finlay Spratt, the Chairman. In England, it is interesting, because I watch the dynamics over here, it is not such a good relationship over here. You are asking why we have a good relationship and we just always have had. I think the question should be why they have not got a good relationship over here. Why would we not have a good relationship? Mr Cromie: It is probably down to the size thing, as well. We are not big; the POA in Northern Ireland is not that big either. Q85 Lady Hermon: Moving to Hydebank, as the Chairman has intimated, we visited the Hydebank Prison, what concerns do you have about women sharing the same site as young offenders; in fact, is it appropriate that women prisoners should be on the same site? Mr Cromie: I worked in Hydebank up until recently. I think it is inappropriate, in my view and the general view of the PGA, but we have only three sites in Northern Ireland, that is the reality of it. The women's prison in Maghaberry was a failed entity; the treatment of the female prisoners there, in report after report, was castigated, for whatever reason. I was not in Maghaberry so I cannot comment on that. Hydebank was a fresh start for female prisoners within the Northern Ireland Prison Service. Having said that, my understanding of it is that essentially it was designed to be a relatively temporary measure until such time as a new, purpose-built establishment was built for the females. Having worked in Hydebank for five of the last six years, my perception is that the Governor and staff there have made a decent fist of a not great situation. I think, if you look at Hydebank's record on self-harm, suicide prevention and actually working with the female inmates there and enhancing the regime, the activity hours, all the indicators that you use to see if you are doing a particularly good job or not, they are all quite positive. Having said that, it is by no means ideal, and whenever the new prison, if we get a new prison, comes to be built, possibly some consideration will be given to building a female prison on that site, which I should think they should do. Q86 Chairman: Are you aware of the new facilities there; have you seen them? Mr Cromie: No, I have not. Q87 Chairman: I think it would be fair to say that the Committee was quite impressed by the quality of the facilities, and a lot of money has been and is being spent for a relatively small number; the unit cost per woman prisoner, in global terms, is horrifyingly high, something like £90,000 a year, we were told, so a lot of money. Therefore, are you advocating that actually all of that should be abandoned because of the theoretical undesirability of the adjacent young offenders? Mr Cromie: I do not think it is particularly a good idea to have female offenders, of all ages, in quite close proximity to young male offenders. It is awkward for management to run two entirely different regimes within the same establishment, and you have pressure groups coming at you, looking after the female side of things, and there is the young offenders' house, and it is extremely small-scale. At the end of the day, there are only 38 female offenders in there. Q88 Chairman: Would you move the females or would you move the young offenders? Mr Cromie: I would move the females. Q89 Rosie Cooper: I share your view that it is unsuitable but I would like to explore with you the effect on and, if you like, the handling of the female prisoners. While we were there we looked at some construction training, painting, various schemes like that, where they were gaining skills. When we asked the staff about that there was an indication that there was not really any interest, but when we examined it further, when we asked further questions, it was clear that really it was not an option. It was not an option because once they had gained the skill to paint, or plaster, or do woodwork, whatever it was, then in order to put it into practice they would work around the site and they would have to do that alongside the young men, and it was just never going to happen. The truth is that the female prisoner population who are in that centre are not getting as good as we give, even if that is limited, other prisoners and that is not acceptable, surely? Mr Cromie: No. I would agree with you. Q90 Chairman: Do you agree not only with the proposition but with the detail of Rosie Cooper's questions; just for the record? Mr Cromie: I am not entirely convinced by what you say about the female prisoners learning a skill, in that the population is so diverse and there is quite a high turnover in the female population. Up until recently, whenever I left there, one of the figures quoted at us was that half the lifer population there were very unhappy, at Hydebank, there were two lifers, one of whom hated the place, and this was quoted at us quite a few times. I think it is very difficult to cater for a female population which ranges from 17 to 77, to make sweeping generalisations like that; it is difficult, given the nature of the population, they have so many needs, when you look at that age range, of 50 to 60 years. Q91 Rosie Cooper: Absolutely I accept that, but I was making the point, if you like, an exceptional point, using an example we actually saw to make a wider point, which is that the women do not have full access to the schemes and skills that they would have if it were an all-women prison and therefore they are losing out. The women we saw obviously were in need of all manner of help, medical through skill-set, and I do not believe that we are skilling them so that they leave and do not come back again. One of the ladies actually made the comment that the bad bit was being in there, and I said, "Well, how about you don't come back again?" I did not think I saw enough of a channelling of energy into skilling them, I do not mean just in painting but in their general life skills, so that they were equipped for life outside? Mr Cromie: The only thing I can say, from my time in Hydebank, is that it was very much work in progress. As the management, we had to hit the ground running, whenever they came to us, and it has been a very steep learning curve for the Governor of Hydebank, Steve Davis, with regard to the women. I think the staff there have made extremely good progress, but we are nowhere near getting it right, and Hydebank have a long way to go. I take exactly what you say, and it is my view, and it is the view of the PGA Committee, that there should be a separate establishment for females, but the numbers are so small that, economically, is it viable? Q92 Chairman: I want to move us on; before I do so can I ask you one question on the whole Hydebank set-up. One of the things which struck us was that there was a clear decision not to wear a uniform, on the part of the prison officers, a Governor's decision. I think it would be fair to say - I must not put words into the mouths of any of my colleagues - I think there was some degree of concern that one could not always see who was an inmate and who was a prison officer. I just wonder if you have any views on that? Mr Cromie: Certainly if you are working with young offenders, people working in civilian clothing, in our view, is to be encouraged, it helps build relationships, it helps break down barriers; you do not see the uniform, you see the person. It is my personal belief, from when I worked in Hydebank, that it helped relationships within Hydebank for the staff not to wear uniform, there was not that barrier between staff and inmates. Chairman: Thank you. That is very helpful. Q93 Mr Murphy: Just to follow on from Rosie's very well made point on education and training for women and young male offenders, is the reality not that it would be almost impossible, no matter what the resources were, to be able to deliver to both groups, because you need to keep them separate; and, currently, how do you manage the timetable of education and training for both groups? Mr Cromie: The timetabling; a dedicated, new education block was built in Hydebank, I have to say, for the males only and then the females came in. It has been a mixture of certain areas being adapted for female pursuits, essentially cooking, life skills, those sorts of areas, and the timetabling then was worked in, and my perception, when I was there, was that it was working reasonably successfully. Probably one of the hardest things for a governor to do within the current set-up of vocational training delivery is that, the outside market forces, the workers that are required on the outside, it is quite hard to source those skills on the inside to provide them for the inmates. For example, one of the things which are needed an awful lot at this moment in time in Northern Ireland is welders, they are just providing all the gas pipelines in Northern Ireland at the moment, and to source people to train, for example, as welders, you are going to have to change a shop, there is an awful lot of expenditure, then we have to go out and find somebody who can teach welding. In the interim we are employing somebody for life who delivers, for example, painting and decorating. Our organisation is a bit of a monolith and it is hard at times to adapt quickly to the change in demands of the outside environment, with regard to prisoners. Mr McAleer: You asked a question about resourcing, if you have an unlimited amount, which I think is what you are getting at, of resourcing, would it impact at all; of course, the short answer to that is, yes. But we live in the real world and already there is a lot of constraints on the Northern Ireland budget, we already have the highest costs per prison place and if you diverted an enormous amount of funds into women's training, for instance, yes, you would impact on it, and it would not matter too much about the site because where the women are they are isolated from men. If you had unlimited resources you could build higher walls; there is a whole lot of things you could do if you had unlimited amounts of money, but the thing about that is then the cost per prisoner place goes up. One of the biggest things that happens to governors is we are frequently quoted what happens in England, the cost per prisoner place in this jail is that and the cost per prisoner place in that jail is that, and what happens, for governors, it becomes extremely difficult to cope with that. In England the prisoner population is about 70,000, so you get economies of scale and we can never compete with that. Q94 Chairman: I hope you never will. Mr McAleer: The point about it is, if you throw unlimited amounts of money at it, yes, of course, you will impact it, but in the real world that is not going to happen, is it, because we will always have constraints on the budget. The Director General at this minute in time, his bonus is based on how he sticks within his budget, and, if you look at the corporate plan, the cost per prisoner place is one of the crucial things in that; that is in there, that we have got to reduce the cost per prisoner place. How can you do that if you are going to resource things to the extent that you have been indicating? Q95 Mr Murphy: I was not suggesting that. What I was suggesting was would it not be physically impossible, given the make-up of the site, to be able to train adequately both groups of people, currently? Mr McAleer: No; not if you have the money to do it. You could do it but you would be employing lots of people to give all the skills. Q96 Chairman: What about the whole question of family-centred visits; we were told of the arrangements, we did not actually have a chance to see visiting in operation, I hope we will when we come to you next month because it is a very important part of prison. Do you have particular views here and do you feel that the visitor facilities could be, should be, expanded, improved, or are they more or less adequate as they are, in your view? Mr Cromie: Family-centred visits began in Magilligan, it started up there, and it is run, to a certain extent, over lunch hours, on visits, mainly at weekends. It is some down-time for the mother, she can get away from the children and leave the children usually with the father who is incarcerated, there is time for him to bond with them and take a bit of parental responsibility. Since then Maghaberry and Hydebank do it to a lesser extent. It is a brilliant idea; very good. It is very much in its infancy and we are keeping a close eye on it to see how it goes. We would love to expand it. Given the way the numbers are growing, certainly in Magilligan and Maghaberry, visits in Maghaberry it is working to almost full capacity and it would be difficult to see how an expansion could come about unless more money were made available, more accommodation made available; it is getting pretty near as far as it can go. Q97 Chairman: You are in favour of the concept, you are encouraged by the results to date and you would like to see it continue? Mr Cromie: Absolutely. Chairman: Can I move to another aspect of separation and bring in Mr Campbell. Q98 Mr Campbell: As I understand it, the new regime in terms of separating the paramilitary prisoners came into effect at the end of last year. Has there been sufficient time now to give a conclusive outcome on how that is working, five or six months on? Mr Cromie: I think it is early days yet. It seems to be slightly more relaxed though, they are spending a bit more time out of their cells, but the main success, shall we say, of separation has been that the area in which they live has been relatively tightly controlled. Whilst we have eased up slightly on that, we do not want to rush our fences, we have made that mistake in the past and I would not be too keen on any more relaxation for a while, until we see just how things settle down. The two separated sides, shall we say, are at times a little bit volatile, because of their make-up. Q99 Chairman: You will give us a chance to see this when we come? Mr Cromie: Yes, we will. Q100 Mr Campbell: Would it be the case that, say, next December or January, after a full year had gone by, you would want to review it, at that stage, or another timescale? Mr Cromie: Everything we do in the Prison Service has to be subject to review. Yes, certainly, we will take another look at it, but it is a whole new concept for us, and to date I think it has been quite successful but we will just keep watching how we are going. Q101 Mr Campbell: In terms of the governors and, as far as you can tell, the prison officers, have there been any concerns regarding the new regime, regarding safety, and if there is any distinction in terms of possible safety implications between before and now? Mr Cromie: No. Q102 Mr Campbell: None whatsoever? Mr Cromie: No. Q103 Mr Anderson: What sorts of numbers are we talking about? Mr Cromie: Republicans 39, Loyalists 42, but there are numerous sub-groups within that; 39 and 42, as of yesterday. Q104 Sammy Wilson: Just on the safety of prison officers and their families, one of the original concerns, when separation was reintroduced, was that under the old regime it was believed that it had put prison officers and their families under very severe strain, in fact there were a lot of representations from prison officers who said they did not want it. What is different this time, as opposed to the last period of segregation, or separation, which has meant that the problems of prison officer safety have been avoided? Mr Cromie: The fact there are low numbers is a big factor in our favour; the fact that we have controlled movement on the landings is a big factor in our favour. Gerry and I were both H block governors in our day, in the eighties, and we can remember walking down on a daily basis into an H block wing, having 25, 30 prisoners surround us as soon as we went down there, in our faces, fingers like that, and not being able to get out of that wing until two hours later, and that was a daily occurrence. Now, that just does not happen any more and we have the control. In an H block situation, in the way it was in the bad old days, the inmates had control. Q105 Sammy Wilson: Was this through the limited movement, restricting the number of prisoners who can be out of cells at any one time, etc? Mr Cromie: Yes. Q106 Chairman: Do you see the day dawning shortly when prison officers will not be required to be armed in any way? It was very interesting when we were at Hydebank, for instance, that the Governor pointed out "That's where the arms are left when they come in." How long do you think it will be before that needs to be changed? Mr Cromie: It is a matter of personal choice. Certainly I am aware that a number of prison staff, in the recent past, have handed in their personal issue firearms; equally a number of staff are adamant, never. It is a matter of personal choice and is reviewed by the PSNI. Chairman: Thank you very much. Could we move on to the prison estates. Q107 Stephen Pound: When we have taken evidence in the past, the Committee has always been struck by the extraordinarily high officer-to-prisoner ratio in Northern Ireland. We have had evidence, not surprisingly, from (Liz Pratt ?) and other people, who have said that this is a transitional issue, it is one that relates to the previous estate, it is something which has been worked out, we have the Northern Ireland Prison Service Blueprint, the staff reduction, and yet it does not seem as though an enormous amount of progress has been made. I appreciate that bringing in the night custody officers and different grades will make a difference but, from your perspective, which is probably the best perspective we could hope to access, how do you feel that the staffing ratio issue is developing and do you have any sort of a timeframe, or do you feel that, uniquely, in Northern Ireland, they need this sort of ratio? Mr McAleer: I will try to answer some of that. First of all there are three different prisons, and if we deal with them one at a time and then we will come to the issues. Finn is quite right, of course, we are in a transitional stage at the minute, and the Prison Service in the next ten years will be totally different. If you take the YOC, if you took the inmate, prisoner ratio, which was a ratio we used to use several years ago, before we talked about the cost per prisoner place we used to use the inmate-staff relationship, if you looked at every YOI in England and you compared it with the YOC you would find that over in England there are YOIs with a higher prisoner ratio than the YOC and you would find also some with a lower prisoner ratio. When you have got only one, over here again you have got economies of scale, and if you lump them all together you get a better picture; the YOI that we have, considering the complexity of it and what we actually have in there, and you cannot get another YOI over here which is quite like that to compare it to, what we would argue, as an Association, is it is very comparable and better than in some. When you come to Maghaberry Prison, again because we have only a small amount of prisons they are very diverse and to do exact comparisons, there is no such exact comparison, because Maghaberry Prison has lots and lots of different prisoner categories which you will not get in England. You have dispersal prisons here, and in Maghaberry you get everybody in there, you get all sorts of prisoners, you have remand prisoners, sentenced prisoners, lifers; if you look at the security aspect of it, bear in mind that Maghaberry was designed originally as a high security prison. If you look at a comparable prison in England and you look at the ratios that they have in their wings, in their secure ones where they carry their category A prisoners, you will find it is higher. We would say that, like for like, Northern Ireland prisoner ratios are very low. It will improve, of course, and there are new working practices coming in, which I am sure you are aware of, and the costs will come down and the ratio of prisoners, and if they build a new prison, on whatever site it is decided to build it, one of the aspects that will be looked at is probably the manning ratios and we expect it to change dramatically to take into account the security aspect. When many of our prisons were built they were built basically as category A prisons, that would be an equivalent over here, and that is one of the reasons why the ratios are a bit lower. If you do 'like for like' comparisons you get a very different picture. Chairman: We are going to try to do some of this, because we will be visiting prisons over here too and some of us know them anyway. Q108 Stephen Pound: A former member of this Committee, who then sat for the East Antrim Division, seldom showed excitement but he was remarkably exercised when he actually looked at the staff absence statistics for prison officers in Northern Ireland and he felt he had never seen anything like it. I remember the session vividly. We were told at the time that the then high level, we are going back three or four years, of staff absence was due to a number of reasons, in many cases physical assault on and off the estate. What are the current sickness and absence statistics like, from your perspective? Mr McAleer: About 56% of our prison officers have no sick record at all; 56% of records, no sick whatsoever. A smaller percentage of them then probably account for a very large amount of the sick absence. On assaults, I will let Bob talk because he was a personnel governor, he will probably know more about this than I, but when we get an assault on an officer he tends to be out for quite a long time; so a very small amount of prison officers can account for a large amount of sick days. Mr Cromie: From memory, our current staff sick levels are about 9% in Maghaberry, 4% in Magilligan and about 9% in Hydebank. Q109 Stephen Pound: That is about a third of what they were when last we had evidence to this Committee. Mr Cromie: They are actually considerably lower than that. All three establishments, up until recently, were sitting at just over 5%, all three establishments; now their sick levels have gone up slightly, about 3% in both Magilligan and Maghaberry, it sort of coincided with new shift patterns coming in. We have downsized by 160 staff and new shift patterns have come in; the staff sickness has increased at the same time. Whether the two figures are related or not I do not know. Q110 Stephen Pound: The most dramatic difference between a prison officer today and a prison officer certainly before 1998 was that the prison officer then was controlling security and now a prison officer is more about intervention and advice and it is almost a pastoral role with some prison officers. We were told that this was the desired state and we were told that training had to be provided for this, and now we have got the situation in prisons where you have priests, ministers and vicars coming in, so they have more sort of non prison officers coming into the prisons to engage with prisoners, and hopefully people in vocational training as well. How do you feel, from your perspective, the retraining or, in some cases, the training of new prison officers is proceeding to reflect an absolutely seismic shift in the core function and duty of prison officers in Northern Ireland? Mr Cromie: There has been a management course for principal officers and senior officers down at our training college and these new skills, these new targets that we are trying to do have been emphasised very much on the ground. Staff are encouraged to use all the skills they have and in the attainment of new ones, in order to strike out in numerous different directions in what the prisons are trying to achieve. You will see it when you come to Maghaberry, but some of the things that are going on there, as a security governor, make my hair turn white, but we do it. Q111 Stephen Pound: Could you give us an example? Mr Cromie: For example, we have had sculptures coming in; a film was made there recently. I had a 'phone call that there was a guy with a gun at the main gate trying to get in, and it turned out that it was a prop for the film. That is the sort of thing that I mean. Q112 Sammy Wilson: Are the guys with guns not trying to get out? Mr Cromie: We had already agreed it could not come in, but I think one of the film crew - I hope one of the film crew - was just chancing his arm. Years ago we would never have considered anything like that; now we do. We will give it a go. Mr McAleer: There are other factors, absenteeism, there are lots of things that can impact on it. When you have casual absenteeism, lots and lots of it going on, then you have a major problem. If you have absenteeism from known causes, somebody has got, say, a terminal illness, or something like that, then you do not necessarily have a problem. When you are undergoing a lot of change, in my particular capacity at the moment, in PECCS, there is a lot of absenteeism which is due to dissatisfaction because you have people who are doing a job and who now are having to go back into the prisons and they are feeling a wee bit disaffected by it. You tend to find it under occasions like that, when you have got a lot of change going on in an organisation, you will find an associated rise in sick; but what you will have then, two or three months down the road, it comes back and as long as you know the reasons for it. I think the question you were asking was why should the sick in the Prison Service be higher than anywhere else, and I think that was what you were getting at. There are a number of reasons for it, and I do not want to be too controversial, I know this is probably going to go into Hansard. Civil Service jobs tend to get paid, this is the first thing, and when you are sick you get paid. Interestingly enough, if you look at the PECCS group, we have had 100 staff coming from resource which was Maghaberry(?), where they had virtually sick-free records, and in the first four weeks we had eight of them on the sick, so there is absolutely no doubt about it that if you pay people when they are off on the sick it has an impact. That is something outside of our remit; so you have got that. You have also got the fact that prison officers are in an environment where they are going to get assaulted, it is part and parcel of the job, like policemen, if you are in that kind of an environment; so you will have higher rates of sick than, say, an industry average. Also, because we are in a litigious society, when you get assaulted then it is a job-related injury, there is no great incentive on you to come back within a week, and probably that has an impact. The vast majority of staff have very, very good sick records and if you take into account the high-risk character of the job, the fact that there is a lot of change going on in the organisation, then really we do not have a tremendous problem with it. Q113 Sammy Wilson: Since the same situation, I assume, pertains in prisons here in England, has any comparison been done on your sick record in Northern Ireland compared with English prisons? Mr McAleer: As an Association, we would not do that. No doubt the personnel department probably would have that. Q114 Chairman: Yes, we must enquire into that; it is quite important. Mr McAleer: I would suggest it is higher here. I would think it would be. Q115 Mr Campbell: Just one statistic; you said that 56% of your staff have no sick record and then you gave the different prison absentee records. Do you have within the three establishments the numbers that make up the 56%; I took it 56% was for the Prison Service as a whole and you did not have it for the three individual ones. Do they differ in the way the absentee rates differ between the three establishments? Mr Cromie: I do not know. Q116 Mr Campbell: Is it possible to supply the Committee with that? Mr McAleer: Yes; you can get it from Personnel. Q117 Mr Anderson: On support staff, last week we were talking about auxiliary staff being moved in to replace prison officers; what is the practical difference between them in a day-to-day role and what is the difference in things like terms and conditions? Mr Cromie: At this moment in time, we have employed night custody officers who work a 44-hour week, seven nights on, seven days off. I will make a certain stab in the dark here, I think they are paid about £21,000, £22,000, around that salary range. We have just started recruiting and training new PECCS officers to do the court escorts and to take over the magistrates' courts. We already run the High Courts in Northern Ireland. I believe their salary range is about £18,000, £19,000. Mr McAleer: About £14,000 or £15,000. Mr Cromie: About £14,000 or £15,000. I am led to believe we will be employing operational support grade; there will be a competition later this year. I have heard a figure of about 230, 240 that will be taken on. I am led to believe that their salary range will be about £21,000, £22,000. Current basic grade prison officers, I believe it is two-tier, I think the older prison officers, who are on different terms and conditions, then the last batch who came in some years ago they can go to a maximum, I believe, of £34,000 and the second-tier prison officers are on about £28,000, so there is a substantial difference. In essence, night custody officers and PECCS officers and the operational support grade officers, when they come in, will have very limited prisoner contact. Mr McAleer: Probably the PECCS staff have more prisoner contact, actually quite a lot of contact, because they are in the dock with the prisoners and also they keep them in their holding cells, and they are pretty poorly paid in relation to even the night auxiliary officers. That might be a problem for us later on. Mr Cromie: Our stance at the start of this whole process, whenever the High Courts decided they were going to have three different types of support staff, our argument was, no, have one type of support staff so that you can move them between the three different jobs, because there will be times when you will be short on nights and at the moment if you are short on nights you are going to have to bring in real prisoner officers to help out on a night guard. I think it is a missed opportunity and if you had a generic grade of support staff working in courts and on nights and doing the jobs that have been identified at operational support grade, our view was that would be a much better way of doing it. Q118 Chairman: That is a very interesting point. Could you let us have a little paper on that, could you put your thoughts down, because we would like to take due note of that for when we come to do our report? Mr Cromie: Yes. Chairman: I do not want to get bogged down in it now, but it is a very, very important point and we would be grateful. Thank you very much. Q119 Mr Anderson: Within that could you give us a note on how well you are recruiting, because I would have thought, if you are offering somebody £14,000, £15,000 that is not very good money for a job like that? Mr Cromie: In Northern Ireland, we had initially 5,000 enquiries and 2,500 applied for 65 posts. Mr McAleer: I think we are going to have a problem with turnover. Mr Cromie: I think they have done it the wrong way round, in that the people who have been recruited for the Court Service are on the lowest wages and the people who are going to be on the highest they are recruiting last, and to the best of my knowledge everybody who was training to become a PECCS officer is also going to apply to become an operational support officer, so we could end up with nobody running the courts. Chairman: Thank you very much. Can we move on to health, with Dr McDonnell. Q120 Dr McDonnell: I want just to touch on the whole health aspect and I would be a bit concerned about health provision generally. I would be particularly concerned about mental health provision, in that many of the prisoners arrive in prison largely because there is a large mental health aspect in the reasons for them arriving there. Responsibility, I understand, is transferring to the DHSS. What impact will that have on the prisoners and on prison staff; how would you see that working? Mr McAleer: That is a very good question, what impact it is likely to have. If the DHSS take responsibility for the healthcare of prisoners then that has to be a good thing, because obviously they are much better resourced than the prisoners would be. How it will impact; you mentioned the fact there are a lot of people in prisons who probably should not be in prisons and the view of our Association would be that as well, there are people who wind up in prison who probably should be in hospital. Therefore, if the DHSS are going to be involved in this, that should be a good thing and we would welcome that, as an Association. As for the impact on staff, if the bulk of the healthcare is going to be looked after by the state authority, we could say then that we do not need as many healthcare staff in the prisons, so that is going to have a knock-on effect. There are quite a lot of nurses employed, and we have not seen the details, as an Association, about how they are going to manage this, about whether the existing staff will be employed by the DHSS or whether they would be made redundant in the DHSS. We have not actually seen the minutiae so, to be able to answer the question about the impact on staff, we would not really know until we would see the details of it how they propose to do that. Q121 Dr McDonnell: Do you think it is important that there will still be training and support for prison officers, when you have auxiliaries? Mr McAleer: Absolutely; yes. Q122 Dr McDonnell: What about self-harm; how do you feel it will impact? Mr McAleer: Self-harm will not be impacted on whether or not the DHSS take over the healthcare because self-harm is basically about supervision on the spot; that is probably still going to impact on the officers who are working with those staff who would see that. I do not see where the management of your healthcare will really impact too much on that. Those people who perform that job have to be properly trained and that would impact more. Q123 Dr McDonnell: How good is that training at present? Mr McAleer: I do not know. Do you have any views on it, Bob? Mr Cromie: I think our record on suicide prevention certainly is improving. In detail, I can speak only about Hydebank, where I was for the last five years, but certainly, when I went there, there had been a spate of three suicides in 18 months, and in my almost six years there we did not have another successful, completed suicide. On the female side, there were two, possibly three, before the females transferred from Mourne into Hydebank and we have not had a successful suicide since they again came into Hydebank. Mr McAleer: In the PECCS group, it has been going for six or seven years now and we have had a number of interventions, suicide attempts and violence, and none of them has ever been successful; the interventions have been successful so we have not had any suicides or any real self-harm. All you can do with those things, when you get asked questions like that, the temptation is to say, well, we are pretty good, then you leave yourself open to criticism, well, can you be better, and always you can be better. I think our figures stand up well, when you would compare them with other jurisdictions, so I think our training is pretty adequate but we would never say no to more training. Q124 Dr McDonnell: I want to turn just briefly to a term that I find difficult, personality disorders, and it is a catch-all, rag-bag, largely various mental illnesses that nobody quite can diagnose so they call them personality disorders. How many prisoners are there with personality disorders, would you know, within the Northern Ireland population? Mr McAleer: I could not tell you. I would not have a clue. I would not have any information about that. Mr Cromie: Quite a few, I would hazard a guess. We have just started a new unit in Maghaberry, Lagan Five, for inmates with bad personality disorders, the worst of the worst, shall we say. From talking to the Deputy Governor, in essence it is his baby, his scheme, I think he has 42 candidates for the wing within Maghaberry Prison who are considered worthy of special treatment, special interventions, that is out of a population of about 840, so 5%, 6%: very bad. Q125 Sammy Wilson: Do they come to the prison with some diagnosis, or are officers trained, or do you watch out for personality traits? Mr Cromie: There are psychologists employed on a daily basis within Maghaberry, they are on our staff. We have a clinical psychiatrist who comes in two days a week, to the best of my knowledge; there are a number of nurses who are mental health trained and there is quite a rigorous screening of inmates whenever they come in, there is access to their previous medical/mental history whenever they come in as well. The staff who have just gone into this unit have visited a couple of establishments in the UK that deal with inmates who have personality disorders and mental health issues. It is totally in its infancy, it has been up and running for about only three weeks, so it is far too early to say. Chairman: I think we might want to follow this up when we come to see you and I would particularly appreciate it if you could make sure that Dr McDonnell has the chance to look carefully at that. Q126 Mr Murphy: You mentioned earlier, Mr Cromie, the difficulty that you have in designing training courses for the real jobs outside of prison. Have you any direct links with further education and training colleges? Mr Cromie: Yes. Magilligan Prison, when I was up there, works hand in glove with Limavady Technical College, the staff come in and deliver courses, and vice versa. We are somewhat different from the United Kingdom Service. My understanding of how the UK Service works is that, in essence, prisons in the UK buy in the service; we do that to a much smaller extent, we have our own vocational training instructors, officer instructors and civilian instructors, and we have education officers and full-time education staff employed by the Prison Service. I think this came about historically because of the troubles, where, if you like, outside agencies were not falling over themselves to jump into bed with us, in years gone by. It is where we are at this moment in time, but we are building bridges to the outside community with regard to that. It is like so much in Northern Ireland at the moment, we are changing. Q127 Mr Murphy: You want to see further links developed with further education colleges, to try to improve the quality of the various courses that are available? Mr Cromie: Yes. Q128 Mr Murphy: Do you see that happening, or is it happening, just slowly? Mr Cromie: I see no reason why not; the will is there to make it happen. So many of our inmates are starting from such a low level; something like 70% of them have a reading age of less than nine, ten years of age, and there is a lot of remedial work to do before you get even up to where possibly you are talking about where we should be. Q129 Sammy Wilson: Given the fact that the emphasis is on further education now, with Further Education Means Business, are you finding it difficult to get further education colleges to engage with the present Service in that kind of education, just ordinary numeracy and literacy as opposed to what they regard as more hard-core training? Mr Cromie: No. One of the main efforts of our own staff is to raise the literacy and numeracy levels. Then I think the way it will be developed, and I know certainly it has started in Magilligan, the higher level stuff is between the colleges on the outside, let us say, the Open University, we do a fair bit of OU work as well. Chairman: We saw a bit of that at Magilligan, and very good it was too. Q130 Mr Murphy: My further point concerns the number of sex offenders at Magilligan; 25% seems to be rather a high number. In my experience of visiting prisons, whenever prisoners are out during the day, the small group of normally well-behaved prisoners who are isolated from everyone else usually are the sex offenders. Does it make it more difficult actually to have some meaningful training for everyone in prison, or do you still tend to keep those people isolated? Mr Cromie: What happened at Magilligan, about a year ago, one wing of one H block was entirely sex offenders, half of Speerin House was sex offenders, and there were a few others dotted about the place. They were not kept apart from the other prisoners in education and training, they were integrated. Mr McAleer: It has always been the policy of the Northern Ireland Prison Service not to segregate, which is sort of different from over here, where sex offenders were segregated; it was always our policy to integrate them into the system. One of the biggest problems to do with training, and again when you look at the figures it can distort things, is the fact that we have an awful lot of short-term offenders. If you have anybody who is doing anything less than between six and nine months you cannot effectively do anything with them really, nobody could do anything effectively to train them, they need to be in for a longer time than that. In fact, that is probably the biggest single thing that impacts on our training, because we have got an awful lot of people who are in for a short term. Chairman: That is a very strong case for not putting people away for a short time, is it not? Q131 Mr Fraser: How do you deal with other addictions, like drugs and alcohol? Mr Cromie: We brought a drugs expert over from the Scottish Service; he was a consultant that the Scottish Service use, a fellow by the name of Mike Maloney. He came over there about seven or eight years ago and he looked at the drugs provision within the Northern Ireland Prison Service, of which there was none, basically. What he recommended was that we should go into partnership with bodies which were already working in the communities within Northern Ireland. Hydebank, for example, went into partnership with Opportunity Youth, Magilligan went into partnership with Dunleary, Maghaberry have gone into partnership with someone whose name escapes me at the moment, and essentially those partnerships have developed over the years. I can speak for only Magilligan and Hydebank at this moment in time, but certainly those partnerships have prospered, developed and, in essence, it is a joint effort between staff and these outside providers. Normally they are on rolling contracts with the Prison Service, and my perception is certainly, from the work that is carried out in Magilligan and the work that is carried out in Hydebank, that it seems to be quite successful. Q132 Mr Fraser: Can I add two related questions to that. One, do you use group therapy at all in the prisons to deal with these issues, do you get the prisoners together in forums, where people who have an issue, we have talked about mental health, we have talked about difficult prisoners and all the different categories we have talked about, do they confront their issues in prison, amongst their peer groups, or is that not done? Mr Cromie: I do not know. Q133 Mr Fraser: Second to that, is there an element of intimidation of staff by the prisoners, or by families of the prisoners, to supply inmates in any way to satisfy their addictions? Mr Cromie: I am not aware of it, if there is; that does not mean to say it does not happen. Q134 Lady Hermon: Who actually funds these projects? Mr Cromie: The Northern Ireland Prison Service. Q135 Rosie Cooper: Dealing with the sex offenders, can I ask you again, you said there is a definite policy of non-segregation of sex offenders; is there any local discretion in the prisons where they might make a decision to do something differently? Mr McAleer: The governor is in command of the prison and the governor of any prison can have any regime he likes, so he could take decisions on the day to integrate or segregate, depending on some operational issue; but the overall policy within the Northern Ireland group, unlike over here, was not to segregate them. Q136 Rosie Cooper: I do not understand the difference between if you have got a policy overall of not doing it how then you might do it? Mr McAleer: We are not going to talk about 'ifs' and 'buts', you asked the question does somebody have the authority to do it and I am saying yes. It does not happen much but the thing that might happen, if you kept getting one sex offender who was continually getting assaulted, you would not keep him in that environment, you would take him out of it, would you not? Q137 Rosie Cooper: In that case, let me be clear. I understand what you said as a policy. When we were at Magilligan we were in the joinery shop and whilst we were in the joinery shop every single person in there was a sex offender, and the joinery shop was the closest area to, I will call it a wing, whatever accommodation it was where the sex offenders were housed. It seemed an eminently sensible decision. Then when we talked to other people they said there was no such thing, but actually we saw it? Mr McAleer: Bob worked up there so perhaps he could answer that. Mr Cromie: There is also operational necessity comes into all this and there is also cutting down the risk to those inmates; that is the reality of it. It is safer for the inmates to do that but there are large areas within the prison where there is no segregation, visits, gym, that sort of thing. Q138 Chairman: What you are saying to us is that there is a general policy of non-segregation but in every situation the governor has operational command and if he believes that a specific situation, or a particular prisoner, requires him to be flexible and pragmatic he has the authority to do so? Mr McAleer: Yes; and there is Bob's point he made, if you have got large groups of them it might be better to put them in an area. Chairman: I am going to have to bring this to a close now, but thank you very, very much indeed for your helpful answers. We are going to be seeing you again when we come over, which will give us chance for informal conversation. Thank you for promising the further information which you have promised to us this afternoon, which obviously we shall want to reflect upon and incorporate in our report, and if there are other things which occur to you, talking on the flight back, and so on, which you feel perhaps we did not press you enough on this, or perhaps you did not tell us enough on that, then please communicate to our Clerk, because everything that you say will be extremely pertinent and helpful to our inquiry. Thank you gentlemen, very much indeed.
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