Earlier this week, Justice Secretary Michael Gove told the House of Commons, not for the first time, that he wanted to see prison governors given
more freedom along the lines of Academy Principals or NHS Trust CEO’s. Gove
believes that with increased autonomy in a structure of clear
accountability, significant improvements can be achieved in the prison service (whose dire performance was once again indicated by the latest data on deaths,self-harm and assaults).
At the same time a mile or two away, Michael Spurr the Head of
the National Offender Management Service was telling the Annual General
Meeting of CLINKS (the umbrella organisation for prison charities) just how
difficult it was going to be to make Gove’s governor autonomy policy happen in practice.
In an admirably candid talk, Spurr said he had hoped for a
period of consolidation after the substantial changes to prisons and probation
wrought by the last government. But Gove’s refreshing reform agenda offered
huge opportunities, with 10,000 new
prison places in 9 new prisons enabling a new model of imprisonment in which
overcrowding and idleness could be, if not eradicated, then much reduced.
But as for the governor autonomy agenda, Spurr admitted there
were many thorny issues to resolve. In a perhaps too candid example, he
pondered aloud whether a governor who wanted to introduce overnight family
visits would be allowed to do so. A lot of head scratching in Whitehall seems
to be going on about where the limits to freedom of action should lie. But
don’t bet on conjugal visits surviving the first ministerial briefing or outing
in the Daily Mail.
In education, freedom from local authority control has
brought with it the ability to depart from the national curriculum, set pay and
conditions for staff, change the length of school terms and school days. Along
with greater control over budgets principals have responsibility for their
buildings and their management. Could
prison governors be given these kind of powers?
Take the analogy with the national curriculum. Would Gove’s
brave new world allow governors to disapply Prison service orders or
instructions if they so wish? As things stand, even private prisons which seem
to be Gove’s model, can’t do that. A recent study of competition illustrated
the weight of prescription by showing 15 pages of a contract specifying how
prisoner can use their own cash to buy goods.
Are these to be ripped up and if so how many of the pages? Will newly
empowered governors be able to opt out of the ACCT suicide prevention scheme or
relax security procedures? Or decide to dispense with accredited offending
behaviour programmes in favour of activities of their own liking? These standards are there for a reason. They
reflect the fact that prisoners are in a uniquely vulnerable position and both
they and society have the right to expect they are cared for in an ethical and
principled way.
Presumably some
standards will be required to be met (and inspected) in the new regime, but in
prisons unlike schools the price of failure is counted not in not poor exam
grades but escapes, reoffending and human rights violations. If things go wrong, ministers will not be
able to stand idly by. Spurr took some flak yesterday for his honest appraisal
of the way the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms have weakened the ability of
the centre to intervene in probation services now contracted out and paid by results. CRC’s
who have failed to engage with third sector providers, whatever promises they may have made, look untouchable. Will
that be the case for Gove’s Governors in his nine new prisons?
In existing jails, education, health and, since last year,
resettlement activities are all outsourced. Prison Governors haven’t had a say
in how those contracts have been let. Of course they could do so in future.
There’s a lot to be said for concentrating commissioning responsibility in the
hands of the governor but unless Gove can buy out existing contracts he’s stuck
with the existing choreography for several years to come in the bulk of his
system. With Wrexham opening next year
and the new facilities scheduled during the lifetime of the parliament there are
opportunities for the new model to be introduced. But by the time it starts to
happen, there’s a fair chance Gove will be out of government and by the time
it’s finished his party may be out of power.
But what his scheme will enable in the short term is a bonfire of headquarters,
with no longer a need for policy development, learning lessons, monitoring
outcomes or system wide planning. Devolving power will provide a pretext for
big cuts at the centre and the eventual disappearance of NOMS. Gove said today that his reversal of
Grayling’s legal aid cuts had been made possible in part by economies he has made elsewhere in his
department. This is probably one of them.
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