UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 520 - iv

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

THE NORTHERN IRELAND PRISON SERVICE

Wednesday 13 June 2007

MR RONNIE SPENCE CB, MR BRIAN McCAUGHEY and MR PAUL DORAN

MRS OLWEN LYNER and MR PAT CONWAY

Evidence heard in Public Questions 249 - 332

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 Monday 25 June 2007.

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee

on Wednesday 13 June 2007

Members present

Sir Patrick Cormack, in the Chair

Mr David Anderson

John Battle

Rosie Cooper

Mr John Grogan

Mr Stephen Hepburn

Lady Hermon

Sammy Wilson

________________

Memoranda submitted by Northern Ireland Probation Board

and Northern Ireland Prison Service

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mr Ronnie Spence CB, Chairman, Mr Brian McCaughey, Chief Probation Officer, and Mr Paul Doran, Deputy Chief Probation Officer, Northern Ireland Probation Board, gave evidence.

Q249 Chairman: Could I welcome you, Mr Ronnie Spence, and Mr McCaughey. We have seen you both before. You gave evidence when we were conducting our inquiry into community restorative justice. Mr Doran, we have not had the pleasure of welcoming you before, but I do so on behalf of the Committee. Thank you very much indeed for coming. As you know, we are now embarked upon a fairly major inquiry into the Prison Service in Northern Ireland and we are taking evidence from a number of people involved and also paying visits to the prisons in Northern Ireland, and we shall also be visiting prisons in other parts of the UK and, we hope, in the Republic as well so that we will be able to make comparisons and have a balanced report. Mr Spence, was there anything you wished to say by way of introduction before I begin the questioning?

Mr Spence: Yes, I would like to say a few words, which I hope will assist the Committee. I want to base these thoughts on our own experience as a Probation Service and some work we have been doing over the last year to look at both the best way of dealing with offenders and reducing the level of offending. I think it is fair to say that the present arrangements are very much the result of our troubled past and we have to ask whether they are appropriate for our future needs and what are likely to be those changing needs. In that context, I want to offer four key points which we believe should be borne in mind. The first is obviously the need to protect society from the most dangerous and violent offenders, and that is going to mean that some people remain in prison for a very long time, and many of those people will require a high security environment. The second key point is really, to look at the other extreme, that there are, we believe, probably too many people staying in prisons for short periods when the risks of those people re-offending could be better managed in the community. The third general point I want to make is that there is a need for more appropriate accommodation for certain groups of prisoners, female prisoners, which I think is widely agreed, those prisoners with serious mental problems, prisoners with serious addiction problems and also low risk prisoners. The fourth and final general point I want to make is that we must continue to strive to improve the management of offenders as they move through our courts, as they serve time, hopefully more productively, in prison and as we try to resettle them back successfully into the community. We see probation staff in the future playing an increasing role in that whole continuous process. Those four broad considerations persuade us that, as Kit Chivers has said, the future prison estate needs to include a more diverse range of facilities. I hope those introductory remarks are helpful.

Q250 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. They are most helpful. Could you just, by way of a general point, tell me whether you are adequately resourced in terms of funding and manpower in the Probation Service?

Mr Spence: I doubt that you would find any public body in Northern Ireland that would say yes to that. We have about 350 staff and we have not enjoyed the levels and increase in probation staff which has occurred in the rest of the UK over the last five years, and certainly with the new responsibilities which will rest on us under the sentencing review we would be anticipating a significant increase in the number of our staff over the next few years.

Q251 Chairman: What sort of increase?

Mr Spence: I think something up to 40 to 50% in the professional staff might be required to deal with the new responsibilities we are being given.

Q252 Chairman: What would that be in numbers of people?

Mr McCaughey: Chairman, we have currently approximately 145 of the social work qualified staff. We have decisions to take as to whether we would increase that amount by 50% again. We have decisions to take about our workforce planning in terms of how many, of what type, to do what jobs, and when we particularly look at prisons we are tasked under the Probation Board Order1982 to provide such probation officers and staff as the Secretary of State considers necessary to perform social welfare duties in prisons and young offenders centres. For us that is a fairly outdated definition of the role played by probation officers in prisons and young offender centres in Northern Ireland. We very much see ourselves as having a central and coordinating role in the assessment and management of risk posed by prisoners, as opposed to solely the provision of social welfare duties. Therefore, the make-up of the new Probation Service will have cognisance of both of those priorities.

Q253 Chairman: So you reckon you need 200 plus officers?

Mr McCaughey: To manage the new public protection service, yes, that is correct.

Q254 Chairman: Thank you very much. Would you just say something briefly about the services you provide at the moment and something about what you would hope to be able to provide?

Mr McCaughey: I would regard our unique role, our unique contribution, as crossing the remand population, the sentenced population and the released population, and I think that when we talk about the prison's work we should talk about that seamless service which the Probation Board is uniquely placed to deliver on. We are the only organisation placed to deliver that. Our role, as I have said, is assessment at court, risk management plans and the formulation of those, linked to sentence planning at committal to prison, and then the provision of a range of interventions, which can be at an individual level, a group level, with family, in relation to accommodation and home leave decisions, and assisting with home leave. We also assist with safer custody meetings, that is prisoners who self-harm, life sentence prisoners, assessments of people serving life sentences, assistance around home leave and supervision and eventual release on licence. Today, June 2007, we will supervise 60% of the existing prisoner population when they leave, mainly under a custody probation order or licences, either a life licence or Article 26 licence. I can say to you that of three people released, two of them will not re-offend within two years. That is our record. We have a very impressive record in terms of the management of offenders in the community and the reduction of re-offending.

Q255 Rosie Cooper: Just to follow on from the point you are making, you have got a very good record of them not re-offending, if you like. Why do you believe that is so? What do you do that is different?

Mr McCaughey: Again, this is my person belief and my colleague, Paul Doran, will join me in it. In Northern Ireland the Probation Service maintains social work as the core qualification in terms of probation officers and I believe in terms of the engagement of offenders as individuals first of all, as citizens first of all, and secondly as offenders and prisoners, that qualification still affords us enormous expertise. But in addition to that, in Northern Ireland we have our own what I call standards and service requirements for every order we supervise, be that a probation order, a custody probation order, an Article 26 licence, a life licence, or a sex offender. We have varying standards to match the risk posed by each offender, each type of offender, and we adhere to those very strictly and very thoroughly with swift enforcement to return people to courts, or indeed detention by the Secretary of State should they not adhere to the conditions. Those are the main reasons, I believe.

Mr Doran: Brian referred to our unique standards and service requirements. In Northern Ireland we retain, for instance, a home visit to offenders when they are in the community, which our colleagues in England and Wales did not retain, and we feel that because of the unique structure of Northern Ireland that is a very important standard. We insist that each offender receives a visit on a monthly basis for 16 weeks, and then based on the risk assessment, and for potentially dangerous offenders we would carry out unannounced home visits for obviously sex offenders or violent offenders. They would not receive notification in advance. We also try to involve, where possible, the parents of younger offenders and again that is something which reflects, I suppose, the structure of Northern Ireland where the family structure is still very strong. We traditionally have spent more than 10% of our budget on community partnerships. In England and Wales we understand that the target was 5%, but we have spent more than twice that and we try to deliver our services with community representatives and community organisations, which again brings us closer to the population. We were the first organisation to employ a forensic psychologist, the first probation area in the United Kingdom, and I think we have good links with both psychology and psychiatry, although it is something we need to probably improve, and possibly the fact that we are a board, one step removed from government, is a benefit as well.

Mr McCaughey: If I could just summarise? In answer to your question, what we do in supervision is look at an offender, whether a prisoner or an ex-prisoner, we examine his lifestyle, his accommodation, his employment and his associations and associates. Everything my colleague Paul has described we seek to verify, what the prisoner or released prisoner is saying. We do that in partnership with or through commissioning the voluntary and community sector. As Paul has said, we fund up to 20% of our budget, between 10 and 20% of our budget, and we provide a Probation Service in Northern Ireland which hopefully the Members will recognise as a Probation Service which works in, with and through the community.

Q256 Chairman: So what you are saying is that you are offering a very much more personal service to those in your charge than the rest of the UK?

Mr McCaughey: I hope we are meeting (in jargonistic terms) what is called the stakeholder's need and that we are delivering that service together.

Q257 Chairman: Let us cut the jargon out, stakeholder, et cetera. You are offering to those who have been in prison a more personal and direct service than is offered in the rest of the UK? That would be your submission?

Mr McCaughey: We have an individual plan for each prisoner.

Q258 Rosie Cooper: I would just like to pick up on one point, and I know Lady Hermon wants to come in. You talked about real-time supervision in the community, home visits, and everything else, and there was a move to have more people released into the community rather than go to prison. Can you tell me your experience with tagging and people who remove tags, how quickly you or the police can respond to that and whether that is a real help to you, and whether with people in the community bail hostels would be of any help to you? Earlier on you said you needed about 200 more officers. Is that to deliver the service to the people you are delivering it to now, or is that delivering the service to potentially an increased population of offenders who are no longer getting prison sentences?

Mr McCaughey: In answer to those questions, at the present time we do not have electronic tagging in Northern Ireland, although legislation and work is ongoing to introduce that under the review of the sentencing framework, so we look forward to that and how it can contribute to public protection.

Q259 Lady Hermon: Would you be very supportive of the electronic tagging of prisoners?

Mr McCaughey: We would be supportive of whatever measures will add and contribute -

Q260 Chairman: But you do not use them at the moment?

Mr McCaughey: No, we do not. They are not available at the moment, but we will be supportive, yes. We have hostels managed through the voluntary sector and funded through our accommodation department, the Housing Executive, and they provide a very comprehensive and thorough service, although there may not be sufficient facilities available to manage if they wish to have approved accommodation. You are correct in the figure of 200. We have 145 probation officers today and I have suggested that we might need to increase that by 60 to manage the new public protection services.

Q261 Mr Anderson: Mr McCaughey, you mentioned the word "need" in your opening speech twice. Do you mean "need" in Northern Ireland or "need" in the sense of the whole of the professional probation officers everywhere?

Mr McCaughey: I used the word "need" probably because, as Chief Probation Officer, I am very proud of the service we have in Northern Ireland, but I think there is a difference in how we go about our business, as I have described, in, with and through the community, in partnership with the voluntary community sector, and still seeing offenders in their own homes and in their own locations.

Mr Doran: Chairman, if I could just come in on that, I think another difference between our colleagues in England and Wales is that when we have brought them over for visits - and they are very interested in some of the work we have done, particularly, for instance, on car crime - they have often remarked on the absence of excessive security features in our buildings. We do not have the screens and the distance between the visitor (whether it be an offender or a family, or even in some cases victims) and the person receiving them, whereas in England and Wales with a lot of probation officers you speak through an answering machine, you cannot physically touch the person, and that is because of challenges to the staff. Obviously the welfare of the staff is paramount, but we have been able to manage without those excessive security features, which I think is significant.

Q262 Chairman: You have not had any problems with staff being assaulted then?

Mr Doran: No.

Mr McCaughey: There was no record last year of any staff member of the Probation Board being physically assaulted. We certainly have had verbal issues to deal with, but we monitor that very carefully. I think, in fairness, if I could add, the absence of the major drugs culture may be a factor in how we are able to relate to offenders and manage the situation, as my colleague has described.

Q263 Lady Hermon: Mr McCaughey, I am most grateful to you. It is very nice to have you here as witnesses this afternoon. Could I just ask for clarification here? In the past we have received evidence from the Chief Constable where he has been very critical of excessive bail and feels that the judiciary in Northern Ireland have been too lax and too lenient in granting bail. I notice that in your submission you pinpoint that there has been a very large growth in the number of demands and that in fact that could be greatly reduced. How are we going to reconcile bail or the leniency, as the police see it, and the judges in Northern Ireland? Does the Probation Board have a view on that? Is it lenient? Would you prefer that in fact the bail conditions were changed, and how would the Probation Service feed into that?

Mr McCaughey: I have some sympathy with the Chief Constable, but I would also argue that they are not availing themselves of sufficient opportunities to divert low risk offenders, or lower risk offenders from prison, from custody, hence we have high numbers on remand when they could be managed as safely in the community with some of the new provisions that are proposed under the review of the sentencing framework. For example, in Northern Ireland we have not yet introduced the bail information scheme which exists in England and Wales, which actually does not require legislation and will not be introduced in statute law. It will be introduced alongside the new provisions in the sentencing framework, but mainly to support curfews on bail, to support electronic tagging with bail, to support any requirements which may be required on a licence. So my argument would be that probation officers have not been utilised to provide verifiable factual information to the court to assist sentencers to make the appropriate decisions.

Q264 Sammy Wilson: Are you saying that the Probation Service is never asked for a view when it comes to bail applications? The Chief Constable and the Northern Ireland Police Board gave us numerous examples of where people, for example low level street brawling, which was a big issue in a number of cases, sometimes had been taken to court and sent out on bail up to 12 times and still were engaged in that kind of activity. Are you saying you have no input at all, or indeed if you have input how you would prevent that re-offending whilst out on bail?

Mr McCaughey: I would have examples, as Chief Probation Officer, of where offenders under our supervision had been arrested by the police, had appeared in court and had been released on bail without input from the Probation Board, and we would have a view in relation to some of them whom we would regard as high risk offenders, at risk of re-offending and at risk of causing harm to others, and we have not been requested to have an input to the court. I seek that place in court for the Probation Service so that we could provide verifiable factual information, not opinion, that he has a home to go to, he has employment, he is acceptable back in his house, he will adhere to, whatever. At the present time, we are not requested to provide any information to the bail court. Occasionally we are, but we do not have a right to be heard in the bail court, and we seek that under the Bail Information Scheme within the new legislation.

Q265 John Battle: Could I ask about the ability for the job to be done inside the prison really, because you have made good play of the relationship in the community, but there is also kind of a policy to ensure that prisoners have a personal officer, a personal resettlement plan, and a structure which reflects the outside world. I just wonder, how well do you think that is working in reality?

Mr Doran: I think the history of Northern Ireland is a factor here. There was a number of members of staff of the Northern Ireland Prison Service who were murdered during the Troubles and the culture at that stage was not to get very close to prisoners, understandably, so prison staff tried to keep a wedge between themselves and prisoners. We believe that in the new society we have in Northern Ireland - which is very welcome - there is good opportunity for better and closer relationships between prison staff and prisoners. We would fully advocate the introduction of the Personal Officer Scheme. We understand the reasons why it has been difficult to get to the stage where we understand in a number of prisons in England and Wales the Personal Officer Scheme works very well, but certainly the Probation Board take the view that there is a number of tasks, for instance, undertaken by probation staff, fully qualified probation staff, which could be undertaken be prison officers probably just as well, if not better.

Q266 John Battle: Are you saying then that it is not up and running yet because of the relationships between prison officers, staff, and the prisoners? It is not constraints of buildings, space and facilities?

Mr McCaughey: My view on that would be that whilst resettlement and the Resettlement Strategy has been fully imbedded at the higher levels within the Prison Service management, that has not permeated their organisation and the regime and the daily life and routine in prisons has not changed sufficiently to reflect that Resettlement Strategy. Until the regime in a prison is dictated and governed by meeting the needs of the resettlement issues for prisoners, very little will change on the ground.

Q267 John Battle: I have got a prison in my constituency which I visited every month for two years, and it will have held 1,216 people last night in Armley, a remand prison, and I would say to you that in recent years what might be quite shocking is that I remember a young man writing to me asking me could he stay in longer. They used to write to me asking, "Can you get me out? I shouldn't be here. I've not done anything wrong." Why? Because at some time someone said to me that the wall is bigger coming out than the one you meet going in, and they dread coming out. I just wonder, because you mentioned resettlement, managing that transition out of prison, particularly for people who have been spent some time in the prison already, how the relationships between prisoners and their family can happen. You have done research in Armley to show that if a prisoner has six visits from a child under ten his re-offending drops off, with not a single re-offence within two years for every person that has happened to. I just wonder whether, in terms of visits, they can be done in a friendly way, building the links with the families, and then perhaps when they move out? How is that resettlement process going in Northern Ireland?

Mr Doran: I think there have been significant improvements in recent years. There is a number of points you raised there, and I totally agree with you. The first point is that I think prison should be seen as an opportunity for people who have maybe poor literacy or poor employment records to address that. We know that the majority of prisoners have literacy problems and it is a chance which should be taken. Also, the opportunities to take up employment are the most important factor in the prevention of further offending. Employment has been shown by research paper after research paper to be the most effective method of preventing a person re-offending. The second point you make about access to families I fully support and agree. Professor David Farrington has identified a number of factors which are present in offenders and one of the most significant ones is the involvement of a parent in offending behaviour. If a parent is involved in offending behaviour there is a much more significant risk that the child will subsequently become involved in offending behaviour. To that end, along with the Youth Justice Agency in Northern Ireland we fund the service delivered through NIACRO, who will be addressing you later today, called Family Links, which again provides a service to families and tries to minimise the impact of imprisonment on family members. We also tried to emphasise, as Brian mentioned earlier, the importance of the community. Prisons should be seen as a resource to the community. I mentioned car crime earlier and we have been involved in leading a project against car crime which has been demonstrated to be very, very effective. The reason it has been so effective is that it involves work within the Young Offenders Centre in Northern Ireland, Hydebank, which I understand the Committee has visited. So work which commences there is continued on the outside, but more than that we have involved the local community and the police. An example I could give would be if a young offender comes out of Hydebank and is reporting and keeping conditions with us, if we get a report from that young offender's mother that he or she is involved in car crime we would increase the frequency of contact, and then if they do not keep the appointments we would obviously then take them back to court. But we have a relationship with the Police Service now which can ensure that any warrant we take out is prioritised, because they are able to inform us of the people they have charged, and the communications strategy is key here. We are fortunate in Northern Ireland that we only have one Police Service and one Probation Board, again unlike England and Wales, so communication at that micro level linked to the work done within prisons is very effective.

Q268 John Battle: If I could ask two particular questions, the difference, say, at Maghaberry where you have got high security, how does it work for the high security prisoners, this whole business of resettlement and contact with the families? How does it work for resettlement and even education activity for, for example, sex offenders in Magilligan? I am picking two very had cases because in a sense it is good work that you are doing with the softer edge, but can we reach everybody?

Mr Doran: It is very challenging, particularly in Maghaberry. As Members are aware, Chairman, Maghaberry is the high security prison in Northern Ireland, yet there are prisoners who would not be seen as high security kept there. Also uniquely in Northern Ireland we have separated prisoners located in Maghaberry and that places huge demands on the governors and prison officers in Maghaberry. They could more appropriately be deployed in working with the lower end offenders. In terms of the facilities in Magilligan - and again I am aware that the Committee has visited Magilligan - you will have seen the limits to the facilities there. However, there is some very positive work being undertaken at Magilligan, and I particularly commend the work undertaken at Foyleview, the semi-open prison.

Q269 Chairman: Yes, we have seen that. It is very good, yes.

Mr Doran: Absolutely. I would certainly see that as the way forward for the Northern Ireland Prison Service.

Q270 Chairman: What about the location of Magilligan? Do you have any views on that?

Mr Spence: I think that is a question essentially for the Prison Service, but the point I made earlier is that the future is likely to lie in the greater diversity of provision, a specialist provision for females, for example. Perhaps we need a low risk prison, an open prison facility of some kind. Perhaps we need better facilities for those who are mentally ill and those with addiction problems. So it may not be a choice between location A or location B, but it may be first of all a decision taken about what is the range of prison facilities that we need in Northern Ireland in the future and then discuss what is the best location for each.

Q271 Chairman: But if a major new prison has to be built, you would all agree - we accept it is up for review, but the main prison buildings at Magilligan certainly need replacing, either there or elsewhere?

Mr Spence: Agreed, yes.

Q272 Chairman: I am very careful at the moment not to give any indication of what I might think, because we have not come to any conclusions in the Committee, but do you have any views on this? Do you think that if there is to be a rebuild - put on one side the exact nature of the prison, we accept the points you have made there - should it be on the Magilligan site, more or less, or should it be elsewhere?

Mr McCaughey: We do not have a particular view on where the site should be. Our view is that it is a relatively small prison estate. It is accommodating today men, women and children, from a few days to a life sentence, and there is a choice between the multi-functional estates or larger specialist units. We see deficits in the provision to youths who are experiencing mental health problems, those experiencing personality disorders, female offenders, and whatever the configuration of the new estate it must deal with those issues

Chairman: That is a good point at which to move on to the general healthcare issue.

Q273 Mr Grogan: The Probation Board has been supportive of the moves to move healthcare from our Prison Service to the Department of Health. What would the advantages of that process be?

Mr Doran: We think primarily it would reflect our belief that prisoners are essentially citizens first, prisoners and offenders second, and therefore they are entitled to the full range of health facilities that an integrated service will bring. We warmly welcome the move from 1 April this year for the local trusts to provide healthcare within the prison settings. A couple of Members have already mentioned the issues of mental health and we are particularly concerned about the lack of facilities within the prison estate for mentally disordered offenders, and we hope that this move will lead to better opportunities not just for them but indeed for the protection of the public. Members will be aware that the mental health legislation is different in Northern Ireland and a personality disorder does not fall within the remit of mental disorder. That poses particular problems for the Probation Board in Northern Ireland, in fact it has even posed a problem for us this week, which my colleague might want to pick up on. The issue has been that there is no facility in Northern Ireland for the personality disorder dangerous offender, and we had a judicial review where the judge praised us for our "valiant work", but legally we were found to be at fault. However, it is a really big dilemma where you have the needs of the offender, who has got a personality disorder, but you have also got the responsibility which the Probation Board has in terms of public protection.

Mr McCaughey: If I could explain, we had taken action to return a released prisoner back to prison because we assessed him as high risk and the facilities were not available in Northern Ireland for released prisoners with severe personality disorders. I took the decision, in terms of public protection, that public protection would override all other conventions, and we were lauded in court for that action and deemed to be morally right but legally wrong.

Q274 Mr Grogan: Can I ask further about the proposal for a halfway house for people with mental health problems? At what stage are you on that proposal?

Mr Doran: We are working closely with the Northern Ireland Prison Service to develop such a facility. We know we also have the support of the Police Service for Northern Ireland for such a facility. Brian mentioned earlier that the Probation Board does not provide hostels in Northern Ireland in the way they are now provided in England and Wales, ultimately responsible to the Home Office or the Ministry of Justice. We work with voluntary providers. They do a fantastic job, but they are not prisons in the community and we see the urgent need for a facility where possibly prisoners prior to release could be tested for a period in semi-secure conditions, but also potentially dangerous offenders could be moved there if we assess the risk as being so great that we could not put the public at risk. So we hope that within this financial year we will be able to bring firmer proposals to the Northern Ireland Office on that one.

Q275 Lady Hermon: Just looking at accommodation for women prisoners in Northern Ireland, I think you have already hinted at your view that you do not think that Hydebank is appropriate. When we were there, we did see the changes to Ashe House, which were impressive and positive. However, I am reading your submission which you have sent to the Committee and you have said quite clearly in your submission, "It is inappropriate for women prisoners to share the same site with young male prisoners." What would the Probation Board ideally like to see for women prisoners? I am sorry to say that there are women prisoners, but ideally for women prisoners in Northern Ireland what would you like to see?

Mr McCaughey: If I could answer that question with my final point, first of all, we have a system in Northern Ireland designed by men for men and we need to change that. Unfortunately, we have not got a female colleague with us today to respond to your question, but we had thought about it in anticipation of the question. That is what we need to deal with first of all and we need to obtain the views of females, female offenders and female prisoners, and I refer you to the Corston Report and the identification of three differentiations, the vulnerabilities women experience in terms of domestic circumstances, personal circumstances, and associated and economic factors. We really need the cognisance of all of those in our design and location of the facility that we want. I personally worked in Hydebank for six yeas and I know exactly what Hydebank affords to young offenders. I do not think it is an appropriate location for female offenders if Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland criminal justice system, not just the Prison Service but the Northern Ireland criminal justice system, is to seriously, positively, innovatively and creatively engage with female offenders to reduce re-offending.

Q276 Lady Hermon: Do you think it was a mistake to take the women out of Mourne House, which was, after all, designed as a women's prison? Was that a mistake by the Prison Service?

Mr McCaughey: There are varying views on that.

Q277 Chairman: What is your view?

Mr McCaughey: I think it was a pragmatic step taken in response to inappropriate circumstances. I am not sure that it is much better and the reports which have been conducted would not evidence a tremendous improvement.

Q278 Chairman: What would you say to the witness who said to us last week that, whilst agreeing with your general premise that there should not be two on one site, he thought it might be possible physically by building appropriate walls and things to divide the site into two so that it did not have to be vacated by one of the sets of prisoners? What would your view be on that?

Mr McCaughey: I would call that a minimalist approach. They have 47 females -

Q279 Chairman: So you would not agree with that?

Mr McCaughey: If we are going to do it, let us do it right. Let us not screen off part of a prison. Let us have a facility which has a women-centred approach, meeting the needs of women prisoners, and do it as fully as we possibly can.

Lady Hermon: At Hydebank you mean? Maybe I am putting words in your mouth, but moving out of Hydebank, reading between the lines.

Q280 Chairman: Do you have enough women probation officers to give the service to the women prisoners wherever they may come from?

Mr McCaughey: We have excellent staff working with women in Hydebank at the present time.

Q281 Lady Hermon: As a matter of interest, what is the percentage of women probation officers?

Mr McCaughey: It would be 50:50, if not 60:40.

Mr Doran: It is 60, 60% female.

Q282 Chairman: 60% female?

Mr Doran: Yes, which reflects the composition of the social work courses in Northern Ireland, which are probably 80 - 90% female.

Q283 Lady Hermon: May I just ask, as a point of interest and clarification really for the Committee, after women leave prison what engagement is there currently between the Probation Board and women ex-prisoners, after they have left?

Mr McCaughey: I think the research carried out by Robeson and Radford indicated that 50% of the women serving sentences in Hydebank were on custody probation orders, therefore they would be really having some supervision during the community aspect of that sentence. So they could be in supervision for about three years post-release if that is what the court had ordered.

Q284 Chairman: How many of the women are in prison who, in your view, could be dealt with adequately with non-custodial sentences?

Mr Doran: The same research which Brian quoted there identified that 50% of the women in Hydebank did not have any previous convictions. That is a stunning figure. If you looked at the men you would find that that figure would be in the region of 10 - 20%. So it seems that women seem to be remanded in custody earlier in their criminal careers. There may be a variety of reasons for that, obviously the seriousness of the offence being the main one. We believe that there are great opportunities in Northern Ireland to take more women from custodial settings. The Prison Service has paid a lot of attention to the move from Maghaberry to Mourne House. There was a number of unfortunate instances in Maghaberry, including obviously in the last five years two suicides, before they moved from Maghaberry and a number of recommendations were made, obviously, at the inquest about the specific needs, as Brian says, of women prisoners. We would support that view that there is a need still to lock up women who pose a risk of harm to others and we recognise the deterrent nature required when sentencing, but there is no doubt that there are in particular women there who do not pay fines. There is a very high committal to prison rate in Northern Ireland for non-payment of fines compared with the rest of the United Kingdom.

Q285 Chairman: So, without pinning you down to numbers or percentages, there is, in your considered professional view, a significant number of women who could be adequately punished for their offences without being given custodial sentences?

Mr Doran: Yes, that would be fair.

Mr Spence: Yes.

Q286 Chairman: Would that also be your view of the prison population as a whole in Northern Ireland?

Mr Doran: There is a significant number of male offenders, not the majority, who could be managed in the community safely by the Probation Board for Northern Ireland.

Q287 Chairman: A significant number?

Mr Doran: A significant number. For women, I think the comparisons are not totally -

Q288 Chairman: No, I am not seeking to put words into your mouth. The Committee wants to have your general view and advice, and your general view is that there is a significant number of women who could be adequately punished without being put into prison and that there is a smaller number, but still a significant number, of men of whom the same could be said, is that right?

Mr Doran: Yes.

Mr McCaughey: That is correct.

Chairman: It is very important that we have your general views on those things. Are there any other questions?

Q289 Sammy Wilson: Maybe you could just outline for us the procedure for dealing with complaints which are made by people who are supervised by the Probation Board, and maybe you could also comment on the view which was expressed to us last week by the Prison Ombudsman that he felt that the Probation Board should come under the remit of the Prison Ombudsman?

Mr Doran: In Northern Ireland at the moment, unlike the rest of the United Kingdom, the Prison Ombudsman does not deal with complaints against Probation Board staff, either in the community or in prisons. I understand the Prison Ombudsman in Great Britain does deal with complaints against probation officers. We have had discussions with the Ombudsman and I suppose those discussions are still ongoing. We do see value in the Prison Ombudsman bringing a degree of independence to the investigation of complaints, because our current system is that the complaint is investigated internally by a senior member of staff and the independence in the process is provided by Board members. The Board members are appointed, under the chairmanship of Mr Spence, under the Nolan principles, so they are meant to represent the population of Northern Ireland. There are some issues, because one of the major complaints prisoners often make is that they do not agree with our assessment of their risks, i.e. in most cases they do not believe they are as risky as we believe they are. That judgment is based on an instrument which would require social work and specialised training, whereas the Prison Ombudsman (apart from the Ombudsman himself) does not employ people from a social work background, but we believe that we can overcome these difficulties because we believe we have a transparent, open and democratic Probation Service. So it is something we would want to take forward.

Mr McCaughey: Could I just add, in answer to Mr Wilson's question, we had proposed a pilot whereby the Ombudsman would begin to deal with matters for a period of time, I think it was for 12 to 18 months, and we were going to pay the costs of that.

Chairman: Would you please send us details of that proposal so that we can take that into account when we are formulating our recommendations, because obviously again I cannot say what the Committee will decide to recommend, but it is very likely something upon which the Committee will wish to comment and make recommendations. A final question.

Q290 Lady Hermon: I would just like some explanation of the links between the Probation Service in Northern Ireland and Scotland, for example, or the rest of the United Kingdom. If people leave with restrictions on their movements or conditions when they leave prison in Northern Ireland and, let us say, they move to Scotland and they break those conditions, what are the link-ups? Are they good, are they effective between Scotland and Northern Ireland, and between Northern Ireland and England and Wales?

Mr McCaughey: Chairman, given that that is the last question, there is not sufficient time for me to give a full answer. It is an extremely confusing situation and there are variations across the different court orders. One order may be transferable with the authority transferring to Scotland and England and Wales, the other may not be transferable and I can only do it on a voluntary basis with the enforcement responsibility remaining with me. So, in fairness, it may be more appropriate if again I send a brief paper summarising -

Lady Hermon: Yes, please.

Q291 Chairman: What you are really saying to the Committee - and I hate jargon, as I have made plain, but it is that there is no joined-up Probation Service?

Mr McCaughey: Let me give the Committee assurance we will not let a released prisoner go to England, Wales or Scotland without having an absolute agreement with our colleagues in England, Wales, or Scotland, be that on a statutory or a voluntary basis, and where anybody moves across we will ensure that we have the enforcement procedures agreed between each agency, each organisation. People do not leave Northern Ireland willy-nilly, they are well-managed.

Chairman: Thank you very much. We shall sleep safely in our beds! We are very grateful to all three of you gentlemen for fielding our questions and your answers will be extremely helpful to us, and the supplementary information. If, on your way back, there are other things you feel you wish to amplify or points which you suddenly think, "We really ought to have said that," please let us know and our clerk will, of course, circulate any supplementary evidence. Thank you very much indeed.

Memorandum submitted by Northern Ireland Association for the Care

and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO)

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Mrs Olwen Lyner, Chief Executive, and Mr Pat Conway, Director of Services, NIACRO, gave evidence.

Q292 Chairman: Could I welcome you, Mrs Lyner, and you, Mr Conway. We have met before. Thank you very much indeed for coming. You have heard some of the last session and you know that of course we are embarked upon this inquiry into the Prison Service. Are there any initial points you would like to make before we ask you questions?

Mrs Lyner: Yes, if we could just make a few brief points. NIACRO obviously recognises the need for prison and its appropriate use. For us, obviously there is a focus on punishment, but the key is that in consequence to the prison experience there is a reduction in the rate of re-offending and recidivism generally, and that we focus our prison places on those who are the most serious offenders and to reduce the number of individuals who actually have the prison experience, and therefore it becomes less of a deterrent. The Criminal Justice Review almost ten years ago was commissioned, as well as the Patten Commission, and they focused all of their time (certainly Patten did) on the issue of detecting crime, and then the Criminal Justice Review looked at prosecuting crime particularly, but actually we have had very little focus - and we drew that to the attention of those who were consulting us at that stage - on what I am going to call the "back end" of the system, the part of the system which actually deals with people who have committed the most serious offences. So we do a lot to detect and prosecute, and then we actually do not have anything like the resources. Less than 10% of what we spend is actually focused on the back end of the system and less than 10% of the review is focused on the back end of the system. Having said that, we as an organisation have been very involved with the Probation Service, who will be our partners in this exercise with the Prison Service as well, in developing the Resettlement Strategy in our name, so we would have a vested interest in the resettlement of people coming out of prison. We think that this is a key issue for the Prison Service, that it actually manages to focus its resources away from security, the requirement of the last 30 years, and much more towards resettlement and we would not be convinced that that balance is yet anywhere we would want that to be. So the prison system does have to move itself away from being a player, as it was in the conflict situation, to one now where it is a more normalised situation, and that will take time. We engage in a number of ways with the Prison Service directly. We have contracts wit them to supply services for two of the three visitor centres, at Hydebank Wood and at Magilligan, and we run a transport system throughout Northern Ireland. We also run a family links service and we fund ourselves through the Youth Justice Agency to run that, and we have a prison officer on full-time secondment for that project with us. We attract and bring in European resources to provide employment and welfare rights advice to people who are moving through the resettlement process. We respond to their consultations and we discuss individual cases with them, and we also do work, we believe, to bridge the relationship between the Housing Executive and the Prison Service, and the Benefits Agency and the Prison Service. So we have a number of relationships which obviously through both secondment and our location in the visitor centres means that we are in contact with the Prison Service on a daily basis.

Q293 Chairman: Thank you very much. You have advocated a thorough review of the Northern Ireland Prison Service and perhaps that is what we can say we are conducting at the moment, and I hope we will be able to come up with some suggestions and answers which will help, but if you were giving the Committee a short wish list of things which you feel should be addressed, deficiencies which make the Prison Service of Northern Ireland less than it ought to be, what would that wish list consist of?

Mrs Lyner: I think we have to start with the key considerations, which are that the prison estate in Northern Ireland for the last 30 years was used for a particular purpose. All of the capital investment which was put in, or almost all of the capital investment, was put into the Crumlin Road Prison and the Maze Prison on the issue of security. Those two prisons are closed, so if we are going to look at a prison estate which meets the demands of the current situation we need to invest in it. One of the issues which is around in every discussion we have had about the cost of the Northern Ireland Prison Service is the cost per prisoner place, and undoubtedly it is a high cost per prisoner place.

Q294 Chairman: It is an exorbitant cost.

Mrs Lyner: It is, indeed. I would not necessarily be defending that. However, it is not a like for like comparison with England and Wales. There are not the same arrangements for third party providers, that is one element. The second is, we did not worry so much about the cost of this in the 30 years when we were holding politically motivated prisoners and we have to realise that all organisations in Northern Ireland have had a cost in transition. So we certainly do not want to be spending money foolishly, but we need to take steps at the appropriate rate to move the Prison Service from what it was, and had as its role, to what it should be. A key consideration there has to be capital investment, so the issues we talk about in relation both to Hydebank and the issue of women prisoners, which we caught the tail end of, need to be addressed and it needs to be done properly. I am sure we will come on to the issue around those with mental ill-health as well.

Q295 Chairman: I am sure we will, yes. Thank you very much. Did you wish to add anything, Mr Conway, at this stage?

Mr Conway: A key issue would be a discussion around the issue of the allocation of resources with respect to security and where that fits with the care functions of the Prison Service and the resettlement functions. It has proved very difficult for us to identify specifically with the Prison Service just exactly how much is spent on those three areas and our general view would be that the care and resettlement functions sometimes suffer at the expense of security. So one thing we would like to see from this process would be a discussion and, if you like, a ring-fencing of existing resources to those three areas and to have a discussion around that. That fits in with what Olwen was talking about with respect to the back end, that there is very little discussion on that. All the resources seem to be front-loaded.

Q296 Chairman: Before I bring in Mr Anderson, could I just ask you one question which arises from the comments made towards the end of the last witness session, and I think you may have heard them. It was the opinion of the Probation Service that a very significant number of women and a smaller but still significant number of men could be adequately punished and dealt with without custodial sentences. Is that a view with which you would associate yourselves?

Mrs Lyner: Absolutely, yes.

Mr Conway: Yes, it is.

Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. That is very helpful.

Q297 Mr Anderson: When we visited the prisons, last month or the month before, I was very impressed by the work going on in the resettlement unit in Crumlin Road, seeing that the people were certainly prepared to move forward and were getting good support from the unit they were in and it seemed to be working well. Can the same be said about the programmes in and around Magilligan? Are there issues particularly about the lack of employment opportunities in the Magilligan area?

Mrs Lyner: In fact I would suggest that in relation to employment opportunities and links to the local community Magilligan has actually put a lot of time and effort into those and they are operating well, so you would see a situation where the resettlement connection would be working well in that place too. What I think would be slightly different and what fluctuates from time to time is the staffing levels that actually can be allocated to the purposes of either resettlement or family contact, what are called family liaison officers, and in different situations because of changes to different shift patterns we would find that the resources available either for resettlement or in connection with the families would ebb and flow, and again we find that to be totally unsatisfactory. We make a loss, and have made a loss, of some of the advancements in the Prison Service. Visiting arrangements are excellent in Northern Ireland and we have had a development for child centre visits for six or seven years. In fact we had learned from the Prison Service at one of our AGMs about five years ago, but with only two or three weeks' notification, that they are currently suspended because there is not the staffing available for that. It draws us back. So we assume we are moving forward but actually we cannot sustain the staffing level for some of these issues, which obviously might be seen to be peripheral to security, which will always get its staff and resources.

Q298 Lady Hermon: The number of prison officers is too low in order to facilitate the visits?

Mrs Lyner: Yes. It is to do with shift patterns and changes in shift patterns at the moment. There are not the bodies available to do it, that is right.

Q299 Mr Anderson: Is the geographical location of the building a problem in terms of your programmes?

Mrs Lyner: I think the geographical location of the prison is a problem for families in terms of accessibility, and I think if we were thinking about an accessible site - and we actually consulted with our local parties about this recently and everybody came up with the view that accessibility for families was an important issue. There is no doubt that Magilligan, because it has been there for a very long time, has lots of links into its local community, but it will not pass an accessibility test.

Mr Anderson: It is not as if some of the people who were in that prison, as we saw with Crumlin Road, can go out into what was their original community because it was just outside the door virtually. It is 70 miles away and you cannot do that, can you?

Q300 Chairman: If he were here, Mr Campbell, who unfortunately cannot be here today but is a Member of Parliament for the constituency which includes Magilligan, would argue passionately for a rebuild but a rebuild within the general Magilligan area. Do I infer from what you have just said to Mr Anderson that you would take a different point of view?

Mrs Lyner: Yes, we would feel that there would be two advantages to a site which would be more centrally located in a stretch that might run between Antrim and Ballymena. One is that it would be more central in terms of the transport network, and secondly there would be a useful connection with Maghaberry Prison in terms of the movement of staff, so you would not be requiring people to -

Q301 Chairman: Although you do acknowledge that there is a strong and fruitful community link-up with Magilligan?

Mrs Lyner: Yes, without doubt.

Q302 Chairman: Notwithstanding that, you are advocating a move?

Mrs Lyner: Yes, I am.

Chairman: Thank you. It is helpful to have this on the record.

Q303 Mr Anderson: Can I move on to educational opportunities and training opportunities within Maghaberry. Are there differences between those offered to mainstream prisoners and those who are separated?

Mr Conway: I think our understanding would be that the opportunities - certainly dissident Republicans (to use the generic term) feel that they do not have that same access. There is a debate about whether they are making that more difficult for themselves. They certainly do not feel, in terms of representations which have been made to us, able to take up those opportunities. We would not get into the sort of political rights or wrongs of whatever a particular grouping would espouse, but I would focus on the accessibility debate and argument. Basically, we would hope that all people in prison would have the same opportunities to engage in vocational and educational opportunities. I think, in reference to your previous question, it is certainly true that Magilligan has a reputation, and a deserved reputation, of having good local links and vocational and employment links within the area we are talking about. We would like to bring it back to the view of looking at the whole estate and whether the vocational opportunities which exist within the three estates, the three institutions, actually meet the needs of the labour market externally. That is not just purely the responsibility of the Prison Service but also another organisation such as the Department for Education and Learning. I think it is true to say that we and other elements of the criminal justice system have had difficulties in engaging with respect to providing training and vocational opportunities to prisoners and ex-prisoners.

Q304 Mr Anderson: Can you give us the specifics on what you mentioned in relation to what I was saying to you about a specific programme, or whatever? You mentioned that dissident Republicans were saying that they felt they did not have the access. Can you give us specifics on what particular area?

Mrs Lyner: I suppose they will have understood when they were moving into the separated regime that the Prison Service would have to offer education in a different way. As an ordinary prisoner, I can opt into the programme for basic skills or any range of other programmes and go to the education block for that, as I am programmed to do, whereas with the separated regime education comes into their area and there is in each of the areas just one classroom, so it is restricted. When people apply to go into the separated regime they understand what that may mean, but it undoubtedly is a restricted regime because of both the fabric and the numbers and the choices. There are options for an engagement in some level of education, but because there is one room and because it has to come in, it is going to be obviously less.

Q305 Sammy Wilson: That is contrary to the evidence which was given to us by the Prison Officers' Association last week when they indicated that actually it is due to the staff shortage where choices have been made. The choices were always made in favour of those within the separated regime, not within the - I do not want to use the term "general prison population". So are you saying that the prison officers were wrong?

Mrs Lyner: I think we might be answering two different questions there. This is in terms of the provision of education. There was never a commitment that it would be any more than what would be brought to the locations where they are, so I think that maybe the question being answered, which was different, was that if there is a staff shortage the numbers who would be on duty in relation to the separated regime would always be maintained, and I think that is right. I think that is what happens, yes.

Q306 Sammy Wilson: Can I take you back to the question the Chairman asked you. You indicated that you believed a lot more prisoners could be dealt with outside the prison regime in Northern Ireland than are dealt with currently. Given that our prison population is about half of what it would be in the rest of the United Kingdom and that according to the Chief Constable - and he said there were many examples - it was far easier to get bail in Northern Ireland than in other parts of the United Kingdom, on what do you base your view that we are putting too many people, putting more people than we need to, in prison when the figures show that actually they put significantly less in prison than other parts of the United Kingdom?

Mrs Lyner: That may well be right. I suppose it is also to do with the crime surveys in Northern Ireland. We would say that we have a different experience of crime. We have a very significantly lower experience of crime. We may fear it, but we actually fear it less than they do in England and Wales by comparison, and we experience it less, but there are several issues. We do have, in terms of the bail issue, very long remand waiting times at the moment, which the whole of the criminal justice system is concerned about and feels actually devalues it because people are waiting too long for justice, particularly victims are waiting too long for justice. On the other hand, when people do end up with very short sentences, two or three month sentences, there is very little that actually can be done in relation to those sentences to do something meaningful or purposeful which might intervene and turn their behaviour around. In fact, to be on a year or 18 month probation order might in fact be a lot more challenging in relation to your behaviour than two or three months in prison. So it is really about trying to see what has an impact in reducing people's offending behaviour, because the ultimate prize is to reduce their offending behaviour so we have fewer victims. While there is much clamour to send people to prison, it is not always the most successful intervention in terms of their re-offending. That has to be, for us, important in terms of the resources of staff.

Q307 Lady Hermon: I have a number of questions. Could I start with question number one? Has NIACRO done any research at all about the sentencing policy in Northern Ireland? Is there evidence to suggest that when a woman comes up in court the judiciary in Northern Ireland take a much more severe attitude towards the sentencing of women as opposed to men?

Mrs Lyner: We have not done any work on this, but the Prison Service and Probation did quite a piece of work in the last 18 months, which was published about a year ago, which is what Paul has drawn his references from, and that is available and it would seem to indicate, as he suggested, that first time offenders are more likely to be sent to prison. Sure, in some cases the offences are quite serious; in others the offences would not be comparable with those which males would have in terms of going to prison, so certainly that is within a piece of research. That has been looked at. What was also interesting about that was the difference, in terms of the numbers of people who went through this research process within the period, between what probation assessed to be those women at risk of re-offending and the Prison Service's view of their risk in terms of management within the estate. In the main, Probation actually reckoned, for the majority, that their risk of re-offending was certainly in the medium to low, whereas the Prison Service assessed the majority as at high risk and actually one of the recommendations was to try to look at why that was so.

Q308 Lady Hermon: Completely to the contrary, yes. Thank you for that. That confirms what I have believed for a long time. Number two: could I just ask, since we have had evidence that there is a very high percentage of prisoners right across the prisons in Northern Ireland who have got very poor literacy skills, how do they actually become aware of NIACRO? Is it just leaflets, or do you have someone who actually meets with a female prisoner sent to Hydebank or Magilligan, or Maghaberry? How do you engage with the prisoner at the very earliest opportunity?

Mr Conway: First of all, all the prisoner families would be in receipt of a pack of the detailed services that we offer. That is by proxy.

Q309 Lady Hermon: To the family?

Mr Conway: To the family, yes. In terms of direct services, we do have various programmes. One of them is an employment-based European funded programme, through the EQUAL Programme, and that is a pilot scheme focusing on about 250 - 300 prisoners across the entire estate. The idea there is to develop a model in conjunction with the Prison Service's Resettlement Strategy. It is employment-led but it takes into account things like if you just go in with an employment hat on you try and get somebody a job by paying regard to other elements such as finance, accommodation, drugs, alcohol abuse, lifestyle issues, the situation at home or in the community, just a range of factors which need to be taken into consideration alongside employment. We have those connections with a targeted number of people and we would want, and hope, that programme to be rolled out right across the prison estate and to be a plank of resettlement. We believe there is an acceptance in principle by all professionals engaged. We are not sort of swimming against the tide on this one. The difficulty is, as we were referring back to the emphasis on security at the expense of resettlement, sometimes it is hard to see a generic approach being adopted and ruled out because security takes priority.

Mrs Lyner: Could I say something else in relation to that? We asked how did they come to know about it and a lot of it is word of mouth because there are 6,000 people going through in a year and we can target three or four hundred, but interestingly in this programme, perhaps talking about this ReachOut programme, what we do get is a number every Tuesday, Wednesday, who come through to do their CSR training. So they have been through prison and they understand that they can come to us and do a one, two, three day course around health and safety in the construction industry, and they come in and they do that and it becomes a form of accreditation which means that they go onto building sites, et cetera, after they have done that. Numbers of them will come and will buy into that process, or they will come and want to go off to the driving school we work with, where they do fork lift truck driving, or whatever else. It is difficult to get adult males, and females, to look at issues of basic literacy and numeracy. If they find that they have enough skills to get by to do the job which is required of them, that is where they move to. There is a big focus in the Prison Service on literacy and numeracy, and I can accept that because the evidence is very strong that people are lacking in it, but it is easier to motivate people towards skills which will take them to employment. They are not bought on the notion that literacy and numeracy will necessarily take them there. They want the fork lift truck driving and they want the card to go onto the building sites, and it is in that area that we need to work with people's motivation, because unless you have got somebody who is motivated it is very difficult to get them to engage.

Mr Conway: For example, if you take a driving test the theoretical side of it is by computers, touching the screen, so you do not have to have a high level of English comprehension to be successful in that.

Q310 Lady Hermon: I think actually my question really was, for women and for young offenders it is very traumatic when they find themselves - it is very traumatic for us as a committee actually to go and visit a prison and to find people caged up, but they are caged up behind steel doors at night and I find it particularly traumatic, I must say, so when women prisoners find themselves in prison and they are handed leaflet after leaflet, "These are the services, these are the leaflets," and whatever, we know as a fact that a very high percentage of those prisoners have very poor literacy skills so handing them leaflets is absolutely useless. So my question was, how do prisoners become aware of the services provided by NIACRO - not about the European funding, but actually how do they engage with you?

Mrs Lyner: Accepting the point that you make, with some of the money - and we needed money in some way to make it - we made a DVD which runs on a loop in the reception and induction centre. So that raises awareness. It is a mixture between cartoon and whatever else, so it does engage them. So there is a number of tools, but it is important also that families do get information in some sort of way where there is a telephone number for them to come back to us to enquire into the information, so that is also there for people who want no further contact with us or the system but to do it themselves, to have those tools. For those who want more, they can come back.

Q311 Lady Hermon: Thank you, that is very helpful. In fact, I think it would be very helpful to the Committee if we could actually have a copy of that.

Mrs Lyner: Yes, that is fine.

Mr Conway: We can provide that.

Q312 John Battle: Just as a practical suggestion, in Leeds (which is men, not women), I can remember some seven years ago taking children's books into the men and proving that the words in the children's reading books were the same as the words on the back page of The Sun where they could read the football, and if they could learn to read children's books, read them onto a tape recorder or a CD, or an iPod now, and it could be given as reading to their kids at night, so they could read to their kids, if they did it three times they could get more access to their kids and I found that was an incentive for them to read to their children. Has anything like that gone on?

Mrs Lyner: Very similar to that. I think you are talking about the Storybook Dad, that initiative?

Q313 John Battle: Yes. Is that going on?

Mrs Lyner: Yes, it is going on, and it is linked into some of the parenting programmes which are going on, and the child centre visits. I have to say, it does not happen in lots of cases, it happens in some cases, but you are working with -

Q314 John Battle: It is not a mainstream programme then?

Mrs Lyner: No, but it is available and it is well-used by those who -

Q315 Chairman: It does exist, yes.

Mrs Lyner: Absolutely, yes, and it is important.

Q316 Lady Hermon: I have a couple of questions about the accommodation of women prisoners, which does concern me greatly, and I think as a Committee we were very struck by the fact that the women prisoners in Northern Ireland share the same site at Hydebank as young offenders, which I must say struck me as wholly inappropriate. I am very aware that NIACRO still has criticisms, despite the very good refurbishment of Ashe House on the Hydebank site. You are still very critical that women prisoners are on that site. You talk - and the terminology is very interesting - about a women's centre, not a women's prison or a women's hostel. Could you just elaborate on why it is, even with the refurbishment of Ashe House, you still find yourselves very critical of women being housed at Hydebank and why you particularly choose the words "women's centre" and what you would expect to find at a women's centre?

Mrs Lyner: I suppose there are two different bits to your question. In terms of the women-centred approach, it would look at particularly both daytime activities and evening time activities which would be more appropriate for women than those which were set up - Hydebank Wood was set up as a young offender's centre for young men. So in fact at this stage in terms of daytime activities for the women, gardening is the one area where the young men used to be involved and the women are now involved, but we have not looked at - or it certainly has not been shared with us - a range of other options one might look at to do with retail training or other things where, at the end of the period of time in prison, people might find useful employment. All the workshops are metalwork and joinery work, so their focus is what I would call male-centred as opposed to women-centred. But there would also be key issues around health, I think, health programmes and taking care of yourself, and there would be issues around childcare. One of the issues which I think is distressing in relation to Hydebank Wood is the women sharing the visits area with the young men. The interaction that the women, whether they be 20 or 40, have with their children is quite different from that which young men have with very small children and for all of that to be happening in the same place is difficult for the women. That is what comes back to us. So at the very least the range of shared facilities which are currently in place, such as the visiting, healthcare, time for being transported back and forth to court, seem to us to take away from the fact that there are very specific issues and stresses which you are dealing with.

Q317 Chairman: You make those points very well. Would it be, in your view, possible - one of our witnesses suggested this last week - to keep the two institutions on the one site but by redistribution and the building of walls and things to separate them? Is that feasible, in your view, or not?

Mrs Lyner: I think it depends on how that would be done. There is certainly a fair amount of land in that overall Hydebank area, but if there is any fudge about separation and we are sharing things, and kitchens from the male unit are being used so that food arrived - it depends whether it is done properly or not. There are issues around economies of scale in relation to organising transport and a number of other issues where there could be some useful connection, but we need to recognise that we had a facility, we had Mourne House. There was a lot of bad history with it and we do not want to go back there, but some years ago we thought it was appropriate that women had their own dedicated resources and there was no good evidence to suggest to me that they still do not need it. It is expedient that they do not have it, but it is not right.

Q318 Chairman: That is very clear. So you are absolutely emphatic that there must be proper physical separation? You have an open mind as to whether it could be done within the one site, but if it could not you would want to move, is that correct?

Mrs Lyner: Yes, absolutely. The other factor is that there will be pressure on the Hydebank facility, if we continue in the way in which we are going, in terms that the numbers of young men requiring to be housed there will be an issue, so that would become another pressure. Now, part of that pressure could be released if we were firmer on the issue that those who were under 18 should not be in the YOC. We have another very good purpose-built facility in Bangor, the Juvenile Justice Centre, and we should be looking at whether or not there are young children who are in the YOC at the moment who in fact should be in Bangor.

Chairman: Perhaps you could let us have a note on that point. That would be very helpful. Could we move to healthcare and Mr Hepburn.

Q319 Mr Hepburn: What do you think are the benefits of transferring healthcare to the Department of Health?

Mrs Lyner: The immediate issue in relation to any transfer is to bring in other disciplines and other departments to take an interest in people who are essentially citizens. Whether we like the way in which they demonstrate their citizenship or not, they are citizens and the state is responsible for service to them. So I believe criminal justice on a broad sweep needs to engage very broadly with health, with education, the Department of Employment and Learning, the Benefits Agency, a lot of these organisations which actually have been quite happy to leave to the side those who have committed offences and who are in the care of the Prison Service. So the first major change would be that it would be a step in the right direction, an agency coming in, and one would expect that we would get a set of clinical engagements which would be the same as we would expect in the general public, and out of the inspections there have been of the prisons, which are coming through in a very transparent fashion now with the Criminal Justice Inspectorate and the Home Office, it is clear that there is a view that we are not getting the level of clinical expertise that we might expect. So we would hope that the level of that would be improved as a consequence, and that by bringing people in from externally that would open up the relationship between the Prison Service and a major state provider, and that would be a positive as well.

Mr Conway: I think we were also concerned with the clash of cultures when the transfer occurred and our understanding is that the process seems to have stalled, with the health side being unhappy about the standard they are expected to be involved in in terms of clinical governance. We have just heard that by hearsay, we have no direct evidence, but it seems to be doing the rounds at the moment.

Q320 Chairman: But the principle of the change is something which has your approval?

Mrs Lyner: Absolutely.

Mr Conway: Yes.

Q321 Chairman: If that is the case, then we have to make sure it works properly.

Mrs Lyner: Yes. A really important thing which happened in relation to that currently is the length of time which somebody who comes in, into the process, arrives into prison on day one and says, "I am on medication," has to wait before that script is sorted and you are back on your hard drug, or whatever, and that seems inappropriate. It would be much easier for the system which connects with those GPs on the outside to be able to make all of that work, and much safer as well.

Chairman: Yes.

Q322 Mr Hepburn: So with healthcare getting transferred over, who then would take full responsibility for the non-medical parts of the case, such as finding accommodation, life skills, that sort of thing?

Mr Conway: That should still remain with the Prison Service, and they should be the driver for that in association with other bodies like ourselves and Probation, but I think when you look at the numbers of people who go into prison and who, for example, have what are designated personality disorders and what is not done for them - and the percentage is very high on this - our understanding is that it is in the region of about 60% of prisoners who have a personality disorder of some description, yet those people cannot access the forensic psychiatric services. Obviously we did a major response to Bamford with particular regard to forensic services. I suppose the assumption is that the mainstream psychiatric services, the non-prison psychiatric services, for example, are of a high standard, whereas in actual fact most of Bamford is about saying that is not the case. So there are difficulties for prisoners accessing a service outside as well and ensuring the quality. Somebody once said to me, "A prison is not a psychiatric hospital yet it actually contains many individuals who suffer from psychiatric illnesses and personality disorders." So certainly we would welcome the health input and control of health-related matters, and that includes, if you like, mainstream medical physical conditions as well as psychiatric, but we would have serious concerns, particularly around the psychiatric elements of that, because if they are of a fairly low standard already - which everybody seems to agree - what chance is there of people who are in a contained situation accessing quality services?

Mrs Lyner: You also asked a question about such things as accommodation or social skills. The Resettlement Strategy, which we signed up to and which a number of other government departments signed up to, which is led by the Prison Service and Probation, has an agency involved with the Housing Executive and they are at the moment doing a pilot piece of work to look at what are the issues around the ending of tenancies for people who go in, and then getting people as they are coming out back on waiting lists, into social housing. There is similar work going on with the Benefits Agency. So a number of the agencies are perhaps not quite in a position that health would have been, where it was going to take over the full responsibility for health, but who are beginning to look at what are their responsibilities and when would it be useful in the period of the sentence for them to intervene so that we put together something which reduces the risk of people's lifestyles deteriorating and them returning to offending very quickly after release.

Mr Conway: I think the other key point is that we are not pitching for NIACRO to be responsible for resettlement services. We would welcome and fully endorse the involvement of prison officers, which has been the case for the past 10 or 15 years. There has been a gradual greater involvement of prison officers in care and resettlement issues and we would welcome that. It does not matter who delivers it, as long as it is delivered.

Q323 Chairman: As long as it is delivered, that is your point, but you are not seeking to extend your empire?

Mr Conway: Very small it is!

Q324 Chairman: But you are emphatic that these facilities need to be provided?

Mr Conway: Yes.

Q325 Chairman: That they are not being comprehensively and adequately provided at the moment, and therefore you are urging that any inquiry, including this one, should come up with some clear recommendations as to how they should be provided? Is that a fair summary?

Mrs Lyner: Absolutely, and a key issue here is consistency. To know that something is happening this year, or last year - I need to know that it is also available today, and those are the concerns, and inspection after inspection raises those issues about initiatives which are there for periods of time but are not consistently delivered.

Chairman: We greatly value your comments and your advice.

Q326 Lady Hermon: May I just ask you to summarise how you would characterise your relationship with (a) the Prison Service itself, and (b) the Prison Officers' Association? Is it good? Is it constructive?

Mrs Lyner: I can certainly give you a fair view. Our relationship with the Prison Service, I think, is mature.

Q327 Lady Hermon: That is good, mature.

Mrs Lyner: Yes. We respond to most of their consultations. We generally take issue with lots of things -

Q328 Chairman: You have a constructive dialogue?

Mrs Lyner: Yes, we do.

Mr Conway: Yes.

Mrs Lyner: It is a very constructive relationship and there is a degree of respect there and we would be known at a senior level throughout that. We do not as such have a relationship with the POA. Maybe that is a weakness on both our parts. That said, we would have a relationship but mostly with governors, at governor level.

Q329 Lady Hermon: With the Prison Officers' Association or just individual -

Mrs Lyner: No, individuals.

Q330 Lady Hermon: Just individual governors?

Mrs Lyner: Yes.

Chairman: With individual governors, yes.

Q331 John Battle: You do your work and I just want to ask the question, when people come out they need somewhere to sleep, they need a place, they need money and help with training and a job, and usually one person does one of those bits on the inside and they come out and there is somebody else somewhere. For example, to take housing, I find that there is no real connection between the efforts going on in the prison and when the prisoner comes out. No one has really communicated. There is no one in the council - because they are not going to buy a house and private rental is difficult to get - to help them tie it up there. Are there links with the statutory authorities outside to link with the efforts which go on inside? Are you brokering that for them so that when they come every prisoner knows where he is going to sleep the night he comes out, where his immediate money for the next week is going to come from and where his pathway and training and a job might be? I mean women as well.

Mr Conway: We are aware and have developed our particular model to cover all those elements. What that means is that we try and develop our staff to be aware of not only what they are responsible for but what are the other elements which will enable and facilitate resettlement. That does not mean to say that that person has to have a range of skills, but at least he knows where to look for the brokerage elements that you referred to. We do have advice workers, who are very good at what they do in terms of housing, benefits and all the rest of it. We do have people who are very good at getting people into employment. Sometimes there is a tension between those two things, because the issue obviously is that if you maximise somebody's benefits then they have to have a job which is financially attractive. We manage those elements also through things like ensuring that people can return to their community of origin safely. We have a project which facilitates that type of thing. So there is a broad range, but the weakness in all of this is the link, the gap between the prisoner leaving the gate and ensuring that there is adequate pick-up within the first 72 hours. That is the kind of golden three days. I think the police talk about a "golden hour" after a crime is committed. There is a phrase like that. We would argue that there is a golden three days, and if you can ensure that all the elements are hooked up from within the prison to the community outside then that will ultimately assist and make an impact in terms of somebody's resettlement and will reduce the rate of recidivism and impacts upon the potential victims. So that is what all our staff are clued into, but there is a difference - and I think the Prison Service accept this as well - between the principle and the operation, making that operational. That has proved to be the big difficulty.

John Battle: Everywhere!

Q332 Chairman: Once normality comes in its fullest sense to Northern Ireland, bearing in mind the numbers and the population of the province of Northern Ireland, there is no reason why you should not have the best and most integrated service in the whole of the UK.

Mrs Lyner: Absolutely.

Mr Conway: Yes.

Chairman: Indeed, I hope that our report will be directed towards making recommendations to bring that about. If there are other points which you want to put to us which you think would be helpful, then please feel free. We shall certainly be continuing our inquiry into the autumn and reporting to Parliament probably shortly before Christmas, but we have not got a definite timetable. We do know that we will certainly be still on our inquiry in the autumn, though. So thank you very, very much indeed. Thank you for what you are doing and for your helpful answers, and we wish you a safe journey back.