Friday 17 August 2018

Headlines and Deadlines


Prisons Minister Rory Stewart is making headlines by offering to resign if his “Ten Prisons Project” doesn’t succeed in cutting levels of drugs and violence. It certainly seems refreshing to hear a minister put his career on the line in this way although I thought I’d heard him say something similar before. He did. Nearly seven months ago he told MPs on the Justice Committee:

If I am not able in the next 12 months to achieve some improvements in making these prisons basically clean, with more fixed broken windows and fewer drugs, I am not doing my job, and I would like you to hold me to account for that in 12 months’ time”.

It might seem churlish to ask but when should Mr Stewart expect his  performance to be judged? On January 24th, 2019 a year after his parliamentary offer. Or next August as he proposes today. Either way let’s hope  that the “new model of excellence” –will start to make a  real difference to life on the landings unlike so much of the rhetoric to come out of the Ministry of Justice in the last few years.

Today’s announcement puts more flesh on the bones of the strategy launched by Stewart’s boss last month. David Gauke’s 10 July speech was cleverly timed to overshadow the scathing annual report  of the Chief Inspector that followed the next day.  Is there something similar about the timing of today’s announcement?

Last Friday 10th August, the Inspectorate confirmed a BBC report that it had decided to issue an Urgent Notification (UN)  in relation to HMP Birmingham, following significant concerns raised by their inspection of the G4S run  prison . The Inspectorate  tweeted that they would not release any further information about the inspection until they had published the Urgent Notification letter they send to the Justice Secretary explaining their concerns. 

That  letter should be sent within seven calendar days of the end of the inspection on 10th August -so by the 17th of August. The fact that Rory Stewart visited Birmingham on Wednesday 15th as he put it “to follow up on the recent inspection”, suggests it’s been sent.  So why hasn’t it been published?

The protocol between the Inspectorate and the MoJ says the Chief Inspector “will publish an urgent notification letter to the SoS and will place this information in the public domain”. The MoJ document about the process says the letter will be published on the "Trigger Day"- the day the letter is sent.

Its the middle of August and people are away so that might explain the delay. I expect the letter will be published on Monday. If not , it will be legitimate to ask questions about whether the first private prison to be subject to the process is being treated  differently from the public ones which preceded it.


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