Official Report: Minutes of Evidence
Committee for Justice , meeting on Thursday, 25 February 2016
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr A Ross (Chairperson)
Mr Raymond McCartney (Deputy Chairperson)
Mr A Attwood
Mr S Douglas
Mr Paul Frew
Mr D Kennedy
Mr Seán Lynch
Ms B McGahan
Mr A Maginness
Mr Edwin Poots
Witnesses:
Dr Ian Cameron, Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland
Mr Brendan McGuigan, Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland
Follow-up Inspection of Maghaberry Prison January 2016: Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): I welcome Brendan McGuigan and Dr Ian Cameron to the meeting. I advise that the session will be recorded by Hansard and will be published on the Committee's website in due course. Brendan, when you are ready, can you give us a brief outline of the report? I will open it up to questions after that.
Mr Brendan McGuigan (Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland): Thank you very much indeed, Chair, for the opportunity to speak to the Committee this afternoon.
In November 2015, I published a damning report on an unannounced inspection of Maghaberry prison that had been carried out in May 2015. The findings of the multidisciplinary team of inspectors raised serious concerns about a wide range of issues, particularly the safety of the prison at the time of the inspection for prisoners and staff. When the findings were analysed, I asked the director general of the Northern Ireland Prison Service to produce an interim action plan to stabilise the prison.
Given the level of our collective concern, the inspection team took the unprecedented step of returning in January 2016 to assess the progress made against the nine recommendations that were made in the report. On our return to Maghaberry, we found evidence that the situation had changed. Some progress had been made towards addressing the inspection recommendations, and our overall assessment was that Maghaberry prison had stabilised and was safer. However, that progress was fragile. The current momentum and focus on managing the risks in the prison must be maintained, and the challenge in doing so cannot be underestimated or ignored. Maghaberry simply cannot regress again.
Collective failures in leadership that contributed to the unsafe environment at the time of the previous inspection had been addressed through the appointment of a new governor and a strengthened senior management team who were focused on stabilising the prison. Inspectors found that staff had begun to provide some supervision in the exercise yards and, by doing so, were making the prison safer for themselves and the prisoners in their care. We were also encouraged that there were plans to extend and embed that alongside a more dynamic, modern approach to prison security at the facility.
An independent review of the causes and management of the fire at Erne House, which occurred in April 2015, has been undertaken, and a synopsis of the findings was published last week. We welcome the fact that that work has been undertaken and believe that the report findings vindicate the decision of the inspection team to call for an independent inquiry into the incident. I understand that the Prison Service is taking forward the lessons that have been learned as a result of that exercise in terms of health and fire safety. I trust that the other issues raised in the recommendation on the identification of misconduct or neglect by those responsible, which have not been addressed in the published report, will be taken forward by the Prison Service.
Levels of violence in Maghaberry remain too high, and problems with the diversion of prescription medication and the availability of illicit drugs still need to be addressed.
The impact of separated paramilitary prisoners and the maintenance of their unrestricted regime on the wider prison population were also highlighted in November. Last month, we found that some attention had been given to reducing the impact of these units on the rest of the men in the prison, but it remains a challenging, complex issue that is far from resolved. Staff working there, however, are now better supported, and that is a positive development.
Concerns remain around the poorer outcomes being experienced by Catholic prisoners. More must be done to understand and steps taken to address that situation, along with further action to meet the needs of the diverse range of men held in the prison.
When the findings of the previous inspection were published, I raised serious concerns that the concentration of need in Maghaberry was not being met by the healthcare services. We were anxious about the way in which medications were administered, particularly the practice of prisoners holding their own prescribed drugs, which created the risk of medicines being diverted and vulnerable prisoners bullied. In January, we found that some aspects of primary healthcare had improved, but it was worrying that staff shortages had led to a deterioration in mental health provision. Given how widespread mental health issues are in the prison population, that, in our opinion, is a significant additional area of concern. The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust has been made aware of our views, and we understand that it is prioritising the issue. It is an area that will be subject to further inspection in the future.
On a more positive note, inspectors reported that reasonable progress had been made around education provision. There has been work ongoing to improve both the quality of learning and the skills provision in the prison. Belfast Metropolitan College has taken over responsibility for most of the education provision, and improvements were noted. More prisoners were spending less time locked up in their cell, and there had been an increase in the number attending activities. Achievements were also increasing, but reductions in the daily regime remained at a significant level.
A core day that seeks to mirror everyday life outside the prison had also been introduced in Maghaberry. While not fully supported by either staff or prisoners, that initiative has started to put greater shape, structure and focus on rehabilitation. Prisoners are expected to get up, wash, dress and then go to work, learning and skills, education, the gym or visits. After lunch, they return to a planned afternoon activity before returning to have a hot evening meal — much like the rest of us. In future inspections, we hope to see that positive step developed further, with increased access to work and activities.
The challenges that are faced at Maghaberry are very real, and some of the issues that need to be addressed are deep-seated. Senior management had started to raise their expectations of what they wanted from and for the men in their care, and that was reflected by some of the staff we met. Sadly, it was not the norm. Many staff in the prison still hold the view that prisoners are to be feared and that there is little that they can do to influence their behaviour while in prison or, in the future, on release. That is a cultural issue and one that will be difficult but not impossible to change.
We recognise that Maghaberry is our most complex prison, where many of the prison population have learning difficulties, mental health issues, addiction problems and personality disorders. As inspectors, we have always been mindful of the background and environment in which local prison officers work and the sacrifice that they have made. We know that none of this is easy, but the focus of a 21st-century prison is on rehabilitation and preparing prisoners for release back into society, while keeping them safe and secure in a decent environment when they are in custody.
Changing the culture in Maghaberry will take time, but, in our view, it is essential to secure the long-term modernisation of the prison and make it fit for the 21st century rather than reflecting a way of working that belongs to another era. I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge, but Maghaberry simply cannot be allowed to regress again, as it did in the three years between 2012 and 2015.
Given the risks that remain, the inspection team intends to play its part in supporting the prison governors to continue moving forward and overseeing the delivery of the nine recommendations we made in November 2015. Therefore, we will support the Prison Service by carrying out a series of announced, low-impact visits to the prison. They will focus mainly on the issue of staff and prisoner safety. We believe that that commitment will help to maintain momentum and will act, if required, as an early warning to prison governors, the director general, the Minister, you as members of the Justice Committee, other local politicians and the public, should progress falter or focus begin to shift elsewhere.
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Thank you very much, Brendan. Yesterday, you mentioned in your press release that the prison, in your view, had stabilised but progress was fragile. What do you mean by "stabilised" and "fragile"?
Mr McGuigan: Our sense was that it was safer, but, when we talked about that fragility, we understood the context in which we were visiting the prison. There was a new governor and a strengthened senior management team in the prison. Additional resources had been allocated to the prison, and we knew that many of the additional staff were those who had been functioning particularly well in other prisons. A deficit was being made in the other two prisons to support what was required in Maghaberry. In addition to that, the prison population was well down on what it had been when we inspected before: there were over 100 fewer prisoners. Those two things create the conditions where you can make progress.
We know that numbers in the prison are not really in the gift of the Northern Ireland Prison Service. We know, for instance, that there was a logjam in the courts process as a result of disputes between the legal fraternity and the Department of Justice and that that has now been resolved. It could well be that the prison population will start to rise again. We know that reducing the numbers in the prison, increasing the staff levels and putting a good structure around what a rehabilitative regime in the prison would look like actually make it safer, but it is fragile. Our sense of it was that, when we looked at the prison in 2012, we thought that there were green shoots, that the prison could move forward and that momentum could be built, but, when we went back in 2015, we found that it had regressed. In many ways, we are not immune to that experience of seeing how progress can be lost. My commitment was that we had to find a mechanism to support Maghaberry in ensuring that there is continued momentum and, indeed, to allow me, if it begins to falter or the focus begins to shift to other problems in either of the other two prisons, to bring that to public awareness and political awareness.
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Yesterday, when you were asked how you would rate Maghaberry out of 10, I think you said three or four, is that right?
Mr McGuigan: That is right.
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): What was your expectation, going in, for the follow-up report? Did you expect that level of progress? Did you think that it would be on the right track, or was less progress made than you had anticipated?
Mr McGuigan: To be fair, it is what I anticipated, given the resources and the fact that there was a strengthened leadership team and reducing numbers. I was expecting progress to have been made, and that is what we found: progress had been made. However, the judgements we made in 2015 still stand. We did not revisit the healthy prison test per se because that would have been unfair. We believe that making the transitional changes to get from "poor" to "not sufficiently good" is quite a step. In many ways, it was predictable that we would find some progress, and I was encouraged by that.
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): I suppose that, again, you have to measure it against prisons UK-wide, and there have been quite a lot of critical reports about prisons in England and Wales in the last month or two as well. It is about how you measure up against that.
Is the follow-up report an accurate view of what is going on in the prison? The first report gave a damning verdict, but that was an unannounced inspection. This one was an announced inspection, so some prison officers are telling us that the place was power-hosed and they had additional staff in because they knew a follow-up inspection was going on. Is it a realistic reflection of how Maghaberry is operating today versus back in May, or were you getting a rose-tinted version because they knew it was happening?
Mr McGuigan: I do not believe that I was getting a rose-tinted version. At the end of the inspection in May 2015, I sought an interim action plan to start addressing what I saw as the significant failings at Maghaberry, such was our concern. In many ways, although the report was published in November 2015, the Prison Service had been working and developing an action plan in response to the recommendations that we were making.
There is always the risk of wondering whether you are getting the best possible projection of the prison, given that your visit is on an announced basis. We are citizens in this place, and, to be fair, Ian and I spent a lot of our time looking at the Prison Service. It is our area of greatest risk in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. In our work on monitoring the prison reform programme, Ian has been spending an extensive amount of his time in each of the prison establishments. From sitting in on internal meetings and operational meetings in the prison environment, we have a real sense of the progress that is being made. There are also the linkages and connections that I have with the Prisoner Ombudsman and the other organisations that work in the prison environment. We are not immune to picking up the nuggets of intelligence that tell us how the prison is functioning. It is not just down to the inspection visits to the prison.
Dr Ian Cameron (Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland): Another thing worth pointing out is that the inspections are pretty detailed affairs. We interview lots of prisoners and lots of staff and management; we look at statistics over long periods of time; and we select cases to look at over long periods of time. There is always the possibility that things can be made better for the day of the inspection, but we look at the stats over a longer period.
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): I welcome the engagement that you will have over the next 18 months. When you made your first report, I suggested that we needed regular monitoring of the situation to make sure that there was an increase over a longer period. What does that engagement look like over the next 18 months?
Mr McGuigan: I believe that it will be akin to the work we did on the reform programme, which I felt was particularly successful, given that the Prison Service will provide us with assessments of the progress that they feel they are making. We will then go in and inspect and dip-sample to ensure that the progress has actually been made. It will be us, the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) and the Inspectorate of Prisons that will conduct the work. We wanted them to be low-impact because we understand that full inspections can distract a lot of attention in the prison. In many ways, Ian's work on the reform programme looked extremely low-key at one level, but any of you who have read the recommendations in his report will realise the detail that we were able to bring to our overall assessments. I believe that it would be something akin to that this time.
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): You said that mental health was one of the areas that had deteriorated since the last time, that there was still violence in the prison and that drugs were much too easy to get hold of. There are other issues, such as a lack of leadership and relationships that are not great, but how much of it is simply down to the fact that the staff resource is not there? The prison has been understaffed for far too long, and it means that prisoners are locked up for far too long, which creates tension and more violence. They are not able to go to the education workshops because there are not enough prison officers to monitor them or move them around. All of this has an impact on the tension in the prison and on the prisoners, and it strikes me that, if any improvement has been made recently, it is because staff have been drafted in from other prisons. That was not available to the leadership at the prison previously, so how much of this is simply down to the number of staff available at the time in the prison?
Mr McGuigan: I would not underestimate the fact that having increased numbers of staff helps, but clearly the leadership team has been strengthened. My assessment was that, this time round, unlike the last time, there was a higher level of problem-solving, creativity and innovation and that decision-making had been driven downwards. There was not a blame culture in the prison towards people who were trying out different options as regards problem solving. That was my feedback to the leadership and management team at Maghaberry. I could see what they had attempted to do and was trying to pay tribute to their work, especially as regards starting to patrol the exercise and association areas. For me, this is a critical piece in trying to make the prison safer for staff and prisoners, as regards creating this dynamic security, rather than standing back off prisoners and believing that the walls and doors will somehow create the level of security required.
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Sorry for breaking in, but, in terms of that change, I understand how a set day and a routine, whilst it might be resisted at the beginning, can be beneficial in the long term. As regards monitoring exercise yards, I have been contacted in recent weeks about prison officers being concerned that the prison is still understaffed and that, in this new system of going into an exercise yard, you could have two prison officers to a hundred prisoners. Is that not putting them under additional pressure, and are there not safety issues as well? Whilst the changes might be desirable, if you do not have the full staffing compliment are you not putting prison officers at additional risk?
Mr McGuigan: Yes absolutely. Dynamic security is based on an assessment of the risks and the potential benefits of taking some of those risks. The reality is that you cannot have no-go areas in a prison environment; that should not happen. In May 2015, when Nick Hardwick and I went out into the exercise yard to talk to 120 men, we were cautioned by staff that they could not guarantee our safety. Some of the men looked at us and said, "You should not be here". We were saying, "What if something happens out here? Who is looking after you, and whose responsibility is that?". These are the cultural issues that have, unfortunately, been allowed to develop, and they need to be challenged in Maghaberry. The thing about this is that these issues have been addressed in other jurisdictions. Simply standing back off prisoners does not work; you have to engage with them, find out what is going on for them and understand if they are developing suicidal ideations. You have to understand if they are high on drugs and need to be carefully monitored. You simply cannot stand back off them. Dynamic security, which has been created in other jurisdictions, needs to be delivered here because it is the basis on which you build everything in that prison, including the delivery of rehabilitation, which is what prisons are about.
The Chairperson (Mr Ross): We spent some time looking at the needs of prisoners, including their mental health needs, being able to contact their families, being out and about and having their routine, but obviously the risk to prison officers is hugely important as well, as they are doing a task in incredibly difficult circumstances that, I think, none of us would want to do. Have you noticed whether there is any change in staff morale and whether they feel that their health needs are being looked after by the Prison Service adequately?
Mr McGuigan: Ian, you did some of the staff surveys.
Dr Cameron: They were starting to introduce a staff rotation policy, and the staff who were working in the separated houses felt that that was a big improvement.
Mr McGuigan: The other thing I would say is that, once again, when you spend time there — during the first week there were a few inspectors and a research team, and for the second week there were over 30 inspectors in the prison — you get a sense of how staff feel. The body language and behaviours of the management team at Maghaberry were completely different from what they had been when we were there in May 2015, and I expressed that to them. When we came out of Maghaberry in May, we stood outside the walls and there was a real sense of despair: "What are we going to do? What is required to transform this prison, bring it back, stabilise it and make it safer?". The collective view of the inspectors in January was one of hope. The feeling among the staff and their comments and body language were different, and the interactions that we observed with some of the prisoners were much better.
Mr Douglas: I have a couple of questions, and you have probably answered part of my second question. Back in November, Brendan, you said:
"Maghaberry had become unsafe and unstable and was in a downward spiral".
Are you saying today that that has been halted to some degree? Are you hopeful and more optimistic?
Mr McGuigan: Absolutely; the prison had stabilised. I produced a short report because I felt that the public concern around Maghaberry, for the staff who worked there and for the people detained in the prison, was such that, if there was a message that I could get out before purdah kicks in at the Assembly, that would be the best thing to do. As you can see, a fuller report will follow with more detail in it.
Our sense was that it had stabilised and that progress had been made, although not sufficient to change the overall gradings. For some of those things to change they would have to be embedded. Some of the stuff that I have talked about here, such as the patrolling of the exercise and association areas, is only beginning, as, indeed, is the structure around the core day. When you go inside that prison, you will see some prisoners engaging all the time, but, when you go on the wings and landings, you will find others doing nothing and not wanting to do anything. Hundreds of them make the choice to do nothing. The challenge for the Prison Service is to engage in a different way to ensure that rehabilitation is foremost among its objectives in making it safer for the community when these people are returned.
Mr Douglas: You also mentioned mental health. Dealing with mental health can be a long-term situation for some people — I have seen it in my family — but for others it can take the form of a short-term intervention for a number of months, given all the difficulties that mental illnesses such as depression can cause. Did you get a sense that things are changing in that regard, although not as much as you would want, and that there are improvements in people's mental health?
Mr McGuigan: During the inspection week, for instance, we saw an incident involving a couple of prisoners who had been segregated for their own safety but were clearly suffering from mental illness. I am not clinically qualified, but it would not have taken a genius to work out what was wrong with those individuals. The care and compassion that was being shown to them by the staff was amazing, but they needed more than that. The reality of it was that, when we went in this time, our assessment was that mental health needs had become acute in the prison. It was worse than it was in 2015, despite the fact that there were smaller numbers in the prison. The needs of some of the people who were there were more acute.
I understand the frustration and how difficult it is to retain staff sometimes. That, clearly, was the problem for the South Eastern Trust. It had fewer mental health nursing staff, and yet the demand had risen. As I said, it is a situation where the prison officers are really trying to do their best. It was unbelievable to watch that level of care and compassion, but those prisoners needed a lot more. Maghaberry prison did not have the resources to meet the needs. That is a wider issue that goes outside of prisons and even Justice.
Mr Douglas: Finally, I think you also mentioned to us that there needed to be more flexibility, more innovation, more calculable risk-taking and a culture change. Those are four big areas. Will you comment on them?
Mr McGuigan: Certainly. We heard of that. When we were there in May, the frustration of some of the house managers was that they were not being listened to for their ideas and solutions to problems. Everything was simply getting directed upwards instead of trust and confidence being shown in people at house manager level to make appropriate decisions, provided they had considered the risks and were prepared to manage them. We saw that.
As for the issue around the staff canteen, prison staff never thought that they would see a situation where prisoners were preparing food and working in close proximity to prison officers having their meals etc. That can happen and very successfully. It starts to build a different narrative around what a prison officer thinks about a prisoner. The officer starts to see him more as a human being rather than somebody who has been sent there and has to be dealt with.
Mr Kennedy: Thank you for the presentation. Last night, when I heard your radio interview, I was struck by the fact that the original assessment had been 1 and had gone right up to a fairly unimpressive 4. Nevertheless, it was progress. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit Hydebank Wood. I was really impressed by what is happening there. I could see some kind of relationship between prisoners and officers.
It comes down to the point in your last assessment on the issue of respect at S14:
"Fewer prisoners in our survey were satisfied with relationships with staff than in 2015 although most said they were treated respectfully ... the majority of staff-prisoner interactions were respectful, but somewhat distant."
What further measures need to be taken to improve that situation? We had evidence from the Prison Officers' Association (POA) on the last report. The association did not receive the report officially, and there were issues about who had read it and who had not. The relationship between the prison authorities and the workforce seems to be a significant issue. That also goes into the mix of the relationship between the prisoners and the prison officers. What other measures need to be taken to tackle this and reassure everybody concerned of the balanced nature of the regime? What thoughts do you have on that?
Mr McGuigan: It starts with the leadership in the prison and permeates out. There are some excellent staff working in the Northern Ireland Prison Service. Some of the men and women who work there are doing fantastic work; there is no doubt about that. However, there are others who distance themselves from it. The experience of delivering a service during our Troubles meant that they kept themselves safe by drawing back from that level of engagement with prisoners, because otherwise their own security could be compromised. There is no doubt that that is a legacy.
I have been to some of the prisons in England and Wales. One of the more depressing prisons that I went to was Preston prison, which is an old Victorian radial prison just like our Crumlin Road, yet what I was able to see the staff doing there was amazing. Staff were working with prisoners, sorting out issues that prisoners were having at home, conveying messages and helping prisoners to prepare for bail applications. I was going, "What a wonderful level of engagement between prison officer and prisoner that creates that opportunity". There is role modelling going on and very creative work that helps to support the concept of rehabilitation.
I am not naive about this. Prisons are full of dangerous people. The public need to be protected from them, and prison officers need to be protected from them. However, many in the prison population will respond positively to that sort of engagement. For me, it is about challenging what is going on on some of our landings in Maghaberry, where prisoners do not come out and are happy enough to just mooch about and do very little. In my view, if we look at how much it costs to keep a prisoner in prison, we see that the taxpayer is getting a very poor return.
Mr Kennedy: Surely what is different from Preston is the backcloth of the conflict. You effectively still have paramilitary structures in places such as Maghaberry. Until that ends or is addressed in some way, we will never be able to recreate a Preston-type scenario, because of the level of suspicion and so on. It is not just violence and criminality that you are dealing with; there is another ingredient in our prisons that needs to be tackled and squared up to.
Mr McGuigan: I do not disagree with some of that. However, you paid testament to what you saw at Hydebank Wood. The Committee has been to Magilligan and seen what can be achieved in other prisons. The challenge now is to make that happen at Maghaberry. There is no doubt in my mind that, with reduced numbers of prisoners in the environment and the staff available to do this, now is the time to make real progress.
Mr McCartney: Thank you very much for your presentation. When you were last here talking about the May report, I was struck very much by the fact that you identified failure — I think you called it a significant failure — in leadership and the relationship between Maghaberry and headquarters, for want of a better word, and the culture of blaming other people rather than seeking to solve problems. I was also struck by the fact that you called for an investigation of the fire. We have seen a synopsis of the fire subsequently and got a sense of it. What made you feel that there needed to be an independent investigation of a fire at Maghaberry?
Mr McGuigan: It came to us from every direction, including from staff in the prison and from prisoners. A cursory review of it suggested to us that an independent inquiry was needed, and we have been vindicated in making that recommendation. In some ways, it reinforced the dysfunctional relationship that had developed between headquarters and the senior leaders in the prison. The assessment that it was foreseeable and wholly preventable is damning in itself. It was clear to me, in looking at it, that the situation that developed that day was one that must happen on a daily basis in prisons everywhere, where some prisoners rail against the lawful instructions that they have been given. There has to be a mechanism for dealing with that and dealing with it quickly. For me, it is unforgivable to allow the situation to be exacerbated when operational staff are standing there ready and able to deal with the situation. It made terrible reading, to be honest with you, and I hope that the recommendation is followed through in full.
Mr McCartney: In any organisation, never mind the sort of organisation that Maghaberry is, if there is significant failure in leadership, how is it going to work?
Mr McGuigan: If the leadership is not there in any public service delivery organisation, for me it becomes like a rudderless ship. It might stay afloat, but it will be subject to all sorts of perils. Genuinely, I think that the staff at Maghaberry were looking towards their leaders to support them and to point the path that they needed to follow.
Mr McCartney: Two weeks ago, you were here as part of the review oversight team. It is noticeable that most of the recommendations have been followed. We talk about Hydebank Wood and Magilligan: you can see a clear pathway and can see that people followed the Owers report. In Maghaberry, it is the complete opposite, and the outcome is then what we are dealing with. One thing struck me about the Owers report. She had obviously been around prisons and prison systems and around that whole backdrop of culture, custom and practice: in both the interim report and her final report, she said that, if it was not implemented within six to 12 months, the opportunity would be lost. Those in and around the system long enough know that, if you ride it out for six or 12 months, nothing changes. Is that what has unfolded in Maghaberry?
Mr McGuigan: I do not underestimate the fact that there is a culture in the Prison Service that, to some degree, has resisted some of the change because they do not accept it and do not believe that it will improve things. All we can do is continue to reflect what we see as best practice in other establishments. We can point to the fact that other jurisdictions have faced those issues and have come out the other side. We were hoping that the successes achieved at Hydebank Wood and Magilligan would start to spread in Maghaberry. Having said all that, I do not underestimate the challenges at Maghaberry and the fact that it is a really complex prison. It is spread out all over the place. You have a prisoner mix there that is extremely difficult and can become extremely volatile. The reality is that Magilligan benefits from the fact that you can select the people who go there. Maghaberry has no such choices. It has to take whatever comes, and, for me, part of the issue around the fragility of it is that this is a great start, but it could be derailed by factors outside the control of the governors and, indeed, the wider Prison Service.
Mr McCartney: I have said this from the beginning of my time on the Justice Committee, and we have visited Maghaberry on numerous occasions. I know that the Committee has been there at least twice. We know the complexity, but Anne Owers, in my opinion, pointed up a mechanism to ease that complexity, which is to have three mini prisons. I have said in Committee and to the senior managers at the prison and at headquarters that I find that there is nearly a resistance to that. There is no evidence of it taking place, and it has been put on the long finger because of resource. I have no doubt that resource would add to the ability to do it, but Maghaberry is designed in such a way that you turn it into three mini prisons with a degree of intent, and I do not think that the intent is there. While the intent is not there, the complexity remains. Ineffective leadership will lead to the outcome that we have, which is you coming in to say that progress is at four out of 10. Two years into a reform programme, that is not good enough.
Mr McGuigan: You have seen the newer accommodation in the prison estate, where you design out a lot of the issues. There is no doubt that the square houses are not fit for purpose, and they are extremely difficult to even manage from a prison officer perspective. There is a requirement here for investment. In the oversight group, we had access to the plans, which I am sure were shared with you. It is about bidding for the capital investment that Maghaberry needs. Hopefully, work will commence this year on the 360 block that is planned, and that will take a lot of pressure off. It will be much easier for staff to manage the prisoners who are housed in there, simply because of the design.
"The disparity in outcomes for Catholic prisoners across many areas remains unchanged."
That is from as far back as the first report that you ever submitted. I do not like to do it in that way, but there is something there that allows that. Is it a disconnect, or is it that they are not treated with the respect that they should be treated with?
Mr McGuigan: As you said, we raised this first in 2004. It was very clear to us, and it was one of the recommendations in the Owers report. We feel that, in that part of the recommendation, you actually needed some additional research to understand the reasons for this. The monitoring is very good, and, to some degree, the Prison Service is hoist by its own petard. There is nobody else doing the sort of monitoring that it is doing. It flags up these differences and problems. We would like to see staff having the confidence to think about using some discretion where there are opportunities to do so, as opposed to continually going to formal discipline in an effort to encourage prisoners to comply much more easily, rather than getting into these continual stand-offs.
I dare say that there is a wider societal issue around this, because our work across the justice system shows that a disproportionate number of Catholics come into the justice process and they make up the majority of the prison population. We know from the work that has been done that young Protestant men and young Catholic men are coming from areas of social deprivation. Their literacy requirements are substantial, and the challenge for me is to get them to stop pumping iron and taking supplements and to get them into classes and thinking about learning and skills and employability. There are significant challenges to address in, particularly, the young male population in our prison environment.
Dr Cameron: You are obviously aware, through the Committee, that we reported on this through the oversight group in June 2014 and May 2015. What we said was that, with regard to the tactical management of it, the equality and diversity committees now operate much more effectively but longitudinal information is flagging up red back over quite some time. We recommended at that stage that the Prison Service should engage some consultancy or outside academic support to help to get to the bottom of it.
Mr McCartney: My final point is that something radical needs to be done now. I cannot sit here and say what it is. We are constantly trying to fix something that remains broken each time we try to fix it. We do not seem to be adding to it. I just wonder whether there is room for some sort of initiative where people take a serious look at it and say, "How do we come up with a model that will give this prison the best chance to work?".
Mr McGuigan: I suppose that, in many ways, we have attempted to support the Prison Service to improve its equality monitoring. It has done that, but now it has got to a stage where there is a problem and we need to understand what that problem is about. It may well be that academia, together with some of the other statutory bodies that have responsibilities around equality in Northern Ireland, take some responsibility for this as well.
Mr Poots: It is always a challenge to work out which Mr McGuigan we will get. The first time that you came to the Committee, Maghaberry was a terrible prison. Then we find Ms McWilliams, just a few weeks ago: I posed the question of whether it had improved after the Owers report, and I was told that it had. You did not seem to have any issues with that comment. Today, you tell us that it has regressed for three years from 2012 to 2015. It is kind of difficult, Mr McGuigan, to work out where you are coming from on a particular day because of the inconsistencies in the evidence that you provide to the Committee. As regards where we stand, given the fact that there are 150 fewer prisoners and that resources have been provided, are you satisfied with the progress that has been made?
Mr McGuigan: Yes, I am. My assessment was that it would have been unfair to expect more than what we saw last month.
Mr Poots: Right. In spite of the fact that there are 150 fewer prisoners and additional resources, you are satisfied.
Mr McGuigan: I am satisfied with the progress that was made, yes.
Mr Poots: I am sorry, Chair, but we have to get back to the consistency issue. In your report, you say that many prisoners remain very negative about many aspects of respect and decency:
"Fewer prisoners in our survey were satisfied with relationships with staff than in 2015 ... The number of complaints had increased and a large proportion of this related to dissatisfaction with accommodation ... too many men still had no activity and not all the opportunities available were being used ... Access to the gym during the weekends had become increasingly restricted. As a consequence, attendance at gym sessions had decreased by approximately 20% since the same period last year."
If this prison, which your group spun as being amongst the worst or the worst in the United Kingdom last year, has had resource put into it and has fewer prisoners, why are you listing these issues and coming to us today and spinning again that there is great progress whilst indicating all this? Aside from this, has the drugs problem increased or decreased?
Mr McGuigan: It is still there. I do not believe that it has increased or decreased; it is still there.
Mr Poots: I think that it has increased. If you had done your work properly, you would have identified that. Perhaps you could answer that question about why you have said all these things in your report and then turn round and spin that there is great progress.
Mr McGuigan: The same inspection team inspected in May 2015 against the expectations of a healthy prison. The judgements that were formed were based on the evidence that we could find. The issue around prisoners' experience in the survey could, to some degree, be affected by the very negative press that there was around the publication of the report, which was basically only a couple of months before it, because we —
Mr Poots: There is no empirical evidence of that, Mr McGuigan.
Mr Poots: That is an assumption. You have no empirical evidence to sustain that comment.
Mr McGuigan: No, but at the same time —
Mr Poots: There is no point in making bland, unsustainable comments. Let us keep to facts.
Mr McGuigan: That is fine, but as part of that inspection we look at the data. In the first week, we researched the data to find out what it was telling us. The prisoner surveys will tell us something. The staff surveys will tell us something. Together, we develop our judgements around that, although not exclusively, because they are based on what the inspector sees. The background to it is some of that material, and you will be able to see it for yourselves. That will take a little more time, unfortunately. I did not have the time to produce it and get the report out, but it will be available, probably after May.
Mr Poots: Did you welcome the additional staff who have been given to the prison governors?
Mr McGuigan: I definitely welcomed the strengthened leadership team at Maghaberry.
Mr McGuigan: And the additional staff, absolutely.
Mr Poots: And the three people added to the governance and management team.
Mr Poots: Would it have helped the previous governors to have had that support?
Mr McGuigan: I am not sure. I could only hypothesise on that. I am just not sure, to be honest with you, because there were things that we saw in May 2015 that deeply concerned us, not least around the Erne House fire, for instance, which was symptomatic of a wider issue.
Mr Poots: Was one of your deep concerns that, in spite of there being requests for additional staff from the previous governor, who had left, there had not been a sustained effort by headquarters to provide those staff?
Mr McGuigan: I was aware that the prison had requested additional staff, but I was also aware that the number of staff on the sick had increased substantially. There was no sense of action being taken to deal with that issue.
Mr Poots: That is very much the headquarters line, is it not?
Mr McGuigan: It was our observation at the time.
Mr Poots: It was very much a headquarters line. You mentioned sick leave: I think that 60 of the people who were on long-term sick leave have now left and moved on.
Mr McGuigan: I am not sure what the levels are today. When we were there —
Dr Cameron: We have not been back since the inspection, so we do not have that information.
Mr McGuigan: I cannot honestly tell you.
Mr Poots: As someone who has participated in a lot of interviews, I always find that it is more useful to know more than the person who is interviewing you. It would appear that you are not in that position today. Are there currently around 60 or 70 staff off sick?
Mr McGuigan: I really do not know.
Mr Poots: You should know. You have just made a comment about the outgoing or past leadership and the problems that they had. You made a suggestion, almost, that they had not adequately dealt with sickness and that, therefore, prison headquarters was right to withhold support from them, yet you do not seem to know what is going on today. I am identifying to you a still considerable problem with sickness, yet you do not seem to have an issue with headquarters' support for the current governor.
Mr McGuigan: The issue around sickness was at the time of the inspection. I have come here today to talk about what we found in a two-week period in January. I realise that the situation can change on a daily basis. I am trying to give you the information that I can guarantee at this stage. That was the situation in January — just the same as what the situation had been in May 2015 when we inspected.
Mr Poots: The situation is that there is a greater number of drug incidents, prisoners are less satisfied with the service that they are getting, sickness levels are still high, prisoners are concerned about their safety and well-being, and you spin us something and expect us to swallow it. Frankly, Mr McGuigan, the facts do not stack up with the spin. We operate on substance.
Mr McGuigan: I do not engage in spin. I am giving you a factual assessment of what the inspection found.
Mr Poots: I read your report out to you. Are you still telling us that great progress has been made but it is hard to identify?
Mr McGuigan: What I said was that progress has been made, but it is fragile. You asked me what I thought about that. I think that Maghaberry has stabilised and is safer, and certainly, for the combined inspectorates, the assessment was exactly that.
Mr Poots: The prisoners do not feel safe. Are there fewer or more attacks on prison staff now? Do not tell us that you do not know.
Mr McGuigan: Dr Cameron, can you remember the background to that at the time?
Dr Cameron: I do not have the figures here.
Mr McGuigan: I will certainly come back to you on that.
Mr Poots: I am trying to assist you by giving you some substance here.
Mr McGuigan: I suppose that that is one of the problems with giving an executive summary, but that information will certainly be available to the Committee.
Mr Poots: I asked you a question — "Are there fewer or more attacks on staff?" — and you do not know the answer. How can you tell us that the prison is safer? You were asked to back it up with a little evidence, and you do not have it.
Dr Cameron: Some of the safety factors that we highlighted in the earlier report were inadequate supervision in the yard areas, resourcing issues and regime predictability. The other major issue that we highlighted in that report was that certain aspects of healthcare were graded by the RQIA as unsafe. When we returned this year, there had been some improvement in those areas.
Mr Poots: Do you regret the role that you played in scapegoating the two senior officers?
Mr McGuigan: I absolutely do not regret producing a report based on the findings of the inspection.
Mr Poots: Do you regret that the two officers were scapegoated?
Mr McGuigan: I do not personalise the inspection. What I said was that there was a leadership team there, at that stage, that was seeking to transfer the blame onto others, rather than trying to find solutions locally.
Mr Poots: Are you talking about the leadership team at headquarters?
Mr McGuigan: It was an inspection of Maghaberry prison. We have been through this before: I was not inspecting headquarters. When we do a prison inspection, it is about what we find in front of us.
Mr Poots: Who, for example, is responsible for managing sickness in the prison?
Mr McGuigan: The prison governor has responsibility for that.
Mr Poots: No, you are wrong: headquarters and the director of personnel in headquarters have responsibility for sickness. I am absolutely aghast, Mr McGuigan. Bear out the facts. If I am wrong, write to the Committee. The director of personnel at headquarters is responsible for sickness: were you not aware of that?
Mr McGuigan: They may have ultimate responsibility, but surely first-line supervisors in any organisation have responsibility for monitoring and ensuring that sickness —
Mr Poots: Management of sickness lay with the director of personnel at headquarters.
Mr McGuigan: That would then be delegated. It is the same with any organisation. You had George Hamilton here from the policing organisation. If you asked him about sickness levels, he would say, "Excuse me, I have HR managers in every district in Northern Ireland. They are supposed to manage it. I take ultimate responsibility for it, but they are supposed to manage it". So I —
Mr Poots: Who was responsible for recruitment at Maghaberry prison?
Mr McGuigan: That is at headquarters level, just as recruitment of people into George Hamilton's organisation would rest with him.
Mr Poots: If you are not ashamed of the scapegoating of two individuals for a problem that extended well beyond them, you should be. It was absolutely and totally wrong that that happened. Headquarters has a huge responsibility for what happened at Maghaberry prison. You were dancing on the head of a pin with Mr McGlone, who was sitting over there last time, trying to excuse headquarters. Your position is to monitor prisons independently, and, frankly, I do not see that independence in the role that is being played.
Mr A Maginness: Thank you for your presentation today. I know that it is a truncated report, but I accept that you are highlighting the situation as you saw it in January. You said that the situation had stabilised but was still fragile. You said that some progress had been made, and you characterised the current situation as being a four out of 10. For someone like me, who has been fully supportive of efforts to transform the prison regime, particularly in Maghaberry, it is extremely disappointing. I share the view expressed by the Deputy Chair, Mr McCartney, that we do not seem to be able to identify precisely what is wrong.
Great efforts have been made. The Anne Owers report or the largest part of it has been implemented, yet we still see a lack of transformative change in Maghaberry. We have seen change in Hydebank Wood and in Magilligan. I accept all the complexities about the prison and the demographics in it, but how can we — certainly my colleague and I here — assure ourselves that there will be a sustained change in Maghaberry that is beneficial to all — the staff working there, the prisoners and society as a whole? I hear what you say about physical development and the need for capital investment, about leadership at middle management level as well as at headquarters level and about change resistance in the prison, and there are all sorts of historic reasons for that. Yet, we have continued problems with sickness management and what seems to me to be a lack of basic training for staff. Can you identify the areas in which we as a society can invest in order to guarantee that transformative change?
Mr McGuigan: Ian and I come from a policing background. I have said to the Committee, in terms of the reform programme, that it is unrealistic to expect a large organisation to reform in a three-year period and to do it on the cheap. I know what it took to make a difference in policing: you are talking about at least a 10-year programme and substantial finance being available to support the delivery. Some of that is about the buildings and how people feel about them, there is no doubt about that. The other part is that, with smaller numbers and good leadership in somewhere like Hydebank Wood or, indeed, Magilligan, you can get results. It is the concentration in Maghaberry that, to some degree, works against the reform programme. Many of the buildings that house the prisoners and the configuration of the prison conspire against moving the issue forward. Raymond raised a point about the three mini prisons: that could be the enabler to crack that nut.
Mr McGuigan: No, we are not.
Mr A Maginness: I see the three mini prisons as the basic solution to the physical layout and management of the prison, but we are not at that point at all. We have not established those three sectors within the prison.
You talk about money and so forth. Professor Monica McWilliams and her colleagues from the oversight team said, "You are not paying staff properly. If you do not pay staff properly, although you will attract staff initially, you will not retain them". Do you agree with that, or is that outside your remit?
Mr McGuigan: I am quite aware that the Prison Service lost some of its new staff when the police started to recruit again. The police not only paid better but was seen as having better career prospects. To be fair to the Prison Service, it identified the top 50 people in the organisation to develop. We talked about this. In the past, the inspectorate conducted inspections of prison officer training and development. Over the years, there has been significant underinvestment in developing the leadership skills that are required to take people through a reform programme of this nature.
In policing, I can recall that, as early as 1996 and 1997, the organisation was investing in people to prepare them for what a transition would look like. By the time that the Patten report came out, substantial work had already begun. That work was then progressed through a system of ventilating the organisation, creating development opportunities and training people to meet what was now required of them. You cannot do it any other way. It was overly optimistic to expect this to be delivered in three years. I hope that, when the Assembly re-forms after the election, prison reform will still be on the table and will get the continued attention of politicians to ensure that we can continue that programme. I will do what I can. We are a small organisation, but we can draw in support from others. We will continue to try to help the Prison Service as it moves forward.
Mr A Maginness: I agree that it should be a priority for the next Assembly. Unfortunately, I will have to leave it to you lot, but I wish you well with that. [Laughter.]
Mr Kennedy: We are inspired by your confidence. [Laughter.]
Mr Poots: You could become an inspector, Alban.
Mr Attwood: This is the first time in a long time that I have heard the word "spin" used to describe the word "fragile". One thing that you can say about use of the word "fragile" is that it is not spin; in fact, it is a word that suggests risk, vulnerability and uncertainty. I am surprised that somebody would describe the use of the word "fragile" as spin. At the very least, that is slightly incongruous. On the other hand, to say that the situation has stabilised could be viewed as a bit hopeful and overreaching.
My questions are about the idea of pointing the finger at headquarters. There may be some reason to point the finger at headquarters. My first question is this: on the basis of your inspection, what is going on in the prison at the moment? It seems that there are areas in the prison where you are right to use the word "fragile". I will give three examples. You said that, since the report in May last year, there are still "deep-seated issues", which is perhaps your most important comment. Those are historical, legacy and institutional issues, which have been there for a very long number of years and continue to present themselves. Your report states:
"Whilst the senior management team had started to raise expectations of what it wanted from and for the men in its care, and this was reflected in some of the staff we met, it was not the norm. Many staff continued to adhere to a view that prisoners were to be feared, and that they could do little to influence prisoners custodial, or future behaviour on release."
That is about staff — prison officers. Wherever the culpability might be for that being the case, that is the character of the people managing prisoners at the moment. On the basis of what seems to be a pretty honest comment about where the staff are, the overall system, the leadership of the prison officers, the management of the prison and people outside the prison, I do not see how that cultural issue will be addressed. If you do not address that, prisons will not become places of rehabilitation, education, learning and growth. You will be fighting against a critical mass of prison staff who do not understand the purpose of people being in prison in the first instance. When I look at the report, I see that and think that that is why the situation is fragile. Maybe you will want to comment on that.
My second point is about trying to see where the opportunities might be. While the situation with respect to mental health has gone backwards, you say that you have been reassured that:
"the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust ... is prioritising this issue."
If you were to be back there in six months' time, on the basis of that comment and the reassurances that you have received, what will be different?
My third point was touched on earlier and is a variation of my first question. Your report states:
"We were not assured that there was equal treatment for all prisoners, particularly Catholic men and those with disabilities."
That is another area of risk and fragility. Maybe you want to comment on those to see whether answers are forthcoming on the mental health issue. I hope that there are answers, and you seem to indicate that there are. What are the answers when so many prison officers do not have the right approach to a lot of the people whom they are dealing with?
Mr McGuigan: I am not sure who said that culture eats strategy for breakfast, but that is the reality. Changing the culture in an organisation is the most difficult thing that you can do, but you have to do it. We have been inspecting for 11 years, and some of the things that they had started to do in Maghaberry — the establishment of a core day, beginning to patrol association rooms and exercise yards and the development of a staff canteen with prisoners — were never on the table. It is incremental and is all very small steps, but that is the only way in which you can build it. It does not have the big bang approach that policing got. In the absence of that, the only thing that I can hope for is that the Prison Service will develop inspirational leadership by continuing to develop people through the organisation who understand it.
It is about seeing the success stories. I was trying to reflect some of that. It may be that you see some wonderful things happening but they are in isolation and are not the norm. You are saying that this can happen and can be done. It is about building confidence and marking off the fact that we can do this, it is OK to take the risk and we will be supported in doing it because it is the right thing to do as opposed to, as I said, the culture around security and depending on the walls, the number of staff, the doors and stuff like that.
My experience in policing is that, the closer you got to crowds, the better it was for understanding what was going on and being able to effect changes in behaviours and so on. I agree with you that the culture is one issue. These are small steps, and much of what we are doing is trying to support what we see as positive steps forward. We had not seen this before at Maghaberry; this is the first time. Even when the green shoots were described in 2012, we were not seeing these things. We were not seeing the core day, the patrolling of the exercise yards or the development of a staff canteen. I can look at what has happened at Hydebank Wood. Maybe there is no magic bullet, and maybe it will take time, support and patience to make the difference. I wish it could be quicker. It can be quicker provided there is still political support for a reform programme.
Mr Attwood: Those examples of better approaches do not in any way, shape or form deal with the fact that many staff see prisoners as people to be feared and to be managed and monitored and not dealt with in a healthier way. I recognise that there are examples. You know from policing changes that officers stopped using long arms and soldiers stopped wearing helmets. Those are examples of what could come about, but they did not do anything about the structure. I do not know how to address the issue of staff seeing prisoners as people to be feared. I can understand why, historically, in legacy terms, some might look at it that way, but that is not the right way to look at it. Is it the norm among prison officers to view it like that?
What about the mental health issue? Can we be more positive?
Mr McGuigan: On the mental health issue, I will meet the South Eastern Trust in a couple of weeks' time, and I have had direct discussions with the trust's chief executive. We meet four times a year, and they give updates on the issues and problems and how they are being resolved. I was reassured that this was on the agenda and that, despite all the other issues that the chief executive had to deal with, ensuring the mental health staffing levels at Maghaberry was discussed at the very highest levels, and actions are being taken to redress the situation.
There is a problem with recruiting and retaining staff in the prison environment. Once again, I do not have easy answers, and I look to my RQIA colleagues for that. Some of it is about the environment. We do not have the same problem at Magilligan and Hydebank Wood, where there is a more settled staff complement. There were threats to nursing staff at Maghaberry, and a lot of them decided to go. I remember that, after the publication of the report, I got an email from a doctor about unintended consequences. He had set up a wonderful initiative with diabetes nurses to deliver a clinic in Maghaberry. After the publication of the report, which referred to how unsafe it was for staff and prisoners, they withdrew from it, and I was going, "Oh no".
We were reassured that they will try to do that again, but that will be a challenge.
Mr Attwood: Maybe we should ask the Department and the prison authorities that question, Chair. I do not think that it is the job of CJI to micromanage what happens in respect of the recovery of the mental health staffing side in the prison. We should ask —
Mr McGuigan: We are engaged in prisons like never before to ensure that progress is maintained. On the issue of people suffering from mental health issues, I do not know what it was, but for some of the prisoners whom we saw it was absolutely pathetic. Individuals had been sent to a prison for a mental health assessment and had been waiting over two months for that assessment even though there were clear mental health needs and they were struggling to deal with the issues of confinement. It was breathtaking.
Ms McGahan: Brendan, thank you for your presentation. I want to focus on the employability skills that you spoke about earlier and the difficulty that you faced in getting prisoners to engage with the education system. I do not think that there is much there to inspire or encourage any prisoner to engage in education. You referred to the limited opportunities to gain a qualification beyond level 1. I sit on the Committee for Employment and Learning, and you will find that few employers will take someone on with a qualification at level 1. Serious consideration needs to be given to that.
You also referred to the Open University. For remand prisoners who move on to be sentenced prisoners, level-1 qualifications are not a good foundation to engage with the Open University. That creates a barrier for any prisoner who wants to enhance their qualifications or education. That is a concern. I contacted the Open University to get its opinion on that. You referred to changes to delivery and support arrangements. I assume that that is the Open University.
Ms McGahan: OK. Is the restricted access to ICT on the part of the prison?
Mr McGuigan: Yes, there were concerns about prisoners having access to some of the —
Mr McGuigan: We have to say that the bar has been lifted slightly since Belfast Metropolitan College took over, although it will take time for that to filter through.
Ms McGahan: Brendan, it is not beyond level 1, and that really is no good. There are no opportunities to study GCSEs or maths. That is no good. That is my experience from the Committee for Employment and Learning. We get it left, right and centre.
Mr McGuigan: I do not disagree with you.
Dr Cameron: Chair, if I could make one point. For the Committee's benefit, I have discovered that I have the stats that Mr Poots asked for. Six months before the inspection in 2015 there had been 30 assaults on staff. When we went back in 2016 that had reduced to 29.
Dr Cameron: In the 2015 inspection there were 69 assaults on prisoners. When we returned in 2016 there were 54.