Oral evidence: Pre-appointment scrutiny of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and HM Chief Inspector of Probation, HC 624
Tuesday 24 November 2015
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 24 November 2015.
Audio link to evidence session
Members present: Robert Neill (Chair), Alex Chalk, Alberto Costa, Philip Davies, Mr David Hanson, John Howell, Dr Rupa Huq, Marie Rimmer.
Questions 1–126
Witness: Peter Clarke, Ministry of Justice’s preferred candidate for the post of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, gave evidence.
Q1 Chair: Good morning, Mr Clarke.
Peter Clarke: Good morning, Chair and members.
Q2 Chair: It is good to see you. It has been a while, I think—since the Metropolitan Police Authority.
Peter Clarke: It could be 10 years.
Q3 Chair: It is about 10 years. That gets my declaration of interest out of the way, because that is where we previously knew each other. It is very nice to see you. Are there any other declarations in relation to any connection of any kind with Mr Clarke? You will know those of us who are lawyers and those of us who are not.
Peter Clarke: Indeed.
Q4 Chair: Welcome. Thanks very much for coming along. If you become chief inspector, will you keep on the work with Crimestoppers? You are doing good work there.
Peter Clarke: I would very much like to, because it is a wonderful charity; they do some tremendous work. As with any other thing that I do, if there were a perception that it could be either damaging or embarrassing, of course I would withdraw.
Q5 Chair: That is fine. I genuinely think that it is an interesting charity.
Peter Clarke: I would very much like to continue. They do terrific work.
Q6 Chair: They do. Absolutely. When I look back, it strikes me that you have been a very senior and successful career police officer. You have been doing interesting stuff around Kellogg Brown & Root and other things outside. Why make this move into being chief inspector of prisons—not of constabulary? Why prisons, and why you?
Peter Clarke: Apart from the fact that there is no vacancy at Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, as far as I am aware—
Q7 Chair: That is as good an answer as any. I give you that.
Peter Clarke: You have to go back to when I left the police seven and a half years or so ago. I decided to go into a mixed range of interests, in consultancy and non-executive advisory work. I found that incredibly rewarding and enjoyable, but after a few years I suddenly found that I felt that I was better equipped, because of what I had learned doing those various roles, to do the job I had left in the police than I had been when I was actually doing it. The feeling began to build that I would really welcome a role in the public sector, on a full-time as opposed to a non-executive basis. In this country, it is not as easy to do that as it is in some other jurisdictions, such as America, where I know several colleagues who have stepped in and out of the public sector.
Last year the opportunity arose for me to do the education commissioner inquiry in Birmingham. In essence, that was a full-time role for three or four months. I found that immensely satisfying and rewarding, because it played a part in informing policy and changing things. When this opportunity arose, I looked at it and it seemed to me that the essential criteria for the role matched pretty closely those I thought I possessed. It is an important role and a role in which there is the opportunity really to make a difference, so I applied for it.
Q8 Chair: It is interesting that you mention Birmingham. Are there specific things that you picked up from the Birmingham experience that would be useful in the role you are a candidate for?
Peter Clarke: Yes. One thing in particular is that, inevitably, because of the roles that I have performed in the past, the media have typecast me, to an extent. They seem to be unable to write about me without calling me a former terror chief, even though I spent most of my police service in communities of London. When I was appointed to the role in Birmingham, there was quite a lot of negative comment from a range of sources, including the chief constable, the police and crime commissioner, some members of Birmingham City Council, some of the teaching unions and some Members of Parliament. At the very outset of that exercise, I went to see as many of the stakeholders as I possibly could and assured them about the way in which I was going to approach the role—with complete objectivity, coming at it not from a particular direction but simply with the ambition of establishing the facts.
It could well be that, if I am appointed to this role, again people might think, “He’s only coming at it with one particular aspect in mind.” Something I would do very early is what I did in Birmingham, which was to go and see as wide a range of stakeholders as possible as soon as I could, to engage with them and explain how I was going to approach the essential aspects of the independence, objectivity and integrity of the role of chief inspector.
Q9 Chair: Are you going to sort out with them the thought that you might be Michael Gove’s man—the man he sends in?
Peter Clarke: They could think that, but I could play back to last year, when he appointed me to the role of education commissioner in Birmingham. I remember pointing out to him very clearly that, although I was appointed by him, as a ministerial appointment under the Education Act, I regarded my role as completely independent and that, therefore; if I found anything to the detriment of the Department for Education, I would say so. I did, and I put it in my report. I also made some comments to that effect in oral evidence to the Education Select Committee.
Q10 Mr Hanson: Since you left the police, how many prisons have you visited?
Peter Clarke: I have not visited any prisons, as far as I can recall, in this country.
Q11 Mr Hanson: When was the last time you were in or near a prison?
Peter Clarke: The last time I was in a prison was Belmarsh, during some of the terrorist trials that my department was conducting.
Q12 Mr Hanson: I say this genuinely, as I had not been in a prison before I did two years as a Prisons Minister; I am just interested in your perception. Having not been in a prison, what do you think are the main challenges facing the Prison Service today? Could you give me the top three?
Peter Clarke: First, I spent a lot of time in prisons earlier in my career, inevitably, but less so later. The challenges facing prisons? Anyone who has read your predecessor Committee’s report on policies and planning in prisons, Nick Hardwick’s last annual report and Lord Harris’s review cannot but be struck by the fact that there are enormous challenges facing prisons. A fundamental one is of course overcrowding, because that gives rise to regimes that get in the way of delivering the objectives around purposeful activity, rehabilitation and resettlement. There is that set of challenges.
Clearly there are challenges around violence and self-inflicted violence and needing to understand what sits behind them. There is bullying and debt, some of which is undoubtedly caused by whatever currency is in use in prisons. It would seem that nowadays a significant part of that is the psychoactive substance problem, so there is a huge challenge there. The other challenge, of course, is trying to take pressure off the whole system by refreshing the estate—getting out of the Victorian, very tired, unsafe jails into more modern establishments.
Q13 Mr Hanson: What do you see as the role of the prisons inspector in dealing with those three big policy issues? Could you take each one in turn?
Peter Clarke: I will start with the last one first—the new jail builds. There would appear to be something of a history of new jails—in particular, some of those run by the private sector—having difficult start-up periods and receiving poor inspection reports. If, like any inspectorate, the prisons inspectorate is going to be constrained in its resources, it really needs to be risk-based and intelligence-led on where it commits its resources. History would suggest that, to some extent at least, it should look at the new builds and try to support the regimes that are put in place, to make sure that the treatment of people in those prisons is as it should be.
Q14 Mr Hanson: You have admitted that you have no experience of visiting the current Prison Service. How do you understand what the challenges are in relation to good, bad and developing practice when you are dealing with the 30-year or 40-year professionals who are planning that process? It is rather like a police officer who has had 30 years in the service having an inspector of police who has not experienced it recently come in to tell them what to do. How do you deal with that?
Peter Clarke: One thing I learned very clearly in the police is to rely upon the expertise and experience of the people you are working with. The prisons inspectorate is blessed with a very strong staff. The latest people survey shows just how committed they are to the task that they are doing. In the process of getting up to speed, which would have to be a very quick process—apart from anything else because of the shortness of the overall term of the appointment—I would certainly draw on the experience not only of the staff in the inspectorate but also of all the other people who are so deeply involved and experienced in running jails.
Q15 Mr Hanson: Could you give me a concrete example today of bad practice in prison that you think is endemic in the system and that the inspectorate should look at, as part of a thematic, in the next two years?
Peter Clarke: Obviously I have to rely upon what I have read and the research that I have conducted. One thing that has shone through, all the way back to Lord Ramsbotham’s days as chief inspector, is the importance of the initial reception process into places of custody. If that is not right, it can have a deeply unsettling effect on people going into those establishments. If there is inconsistency across the estate, that is something that a thematic inspection could examine and potentially help to resolve.
Q16 Mr Hanson: Can you give me an example of good practice in that one area that the inspectorate should champion as part of a thematic?
Peter Clarke: The whole area of good practice and the role of the inspectorate in that is something we may come on to. From what I have heard and read, the initial reception should not be spread over too long a time. People should not be left by themselves, in isolation, for too long. There are issues not about the culture—that is probably the wrong word—but about the approach of staff to the individuals coming into custody. Is the searching, for instance, risk-based and intelligence-led? Does there or does there not need to be a strip search of every person coming into that area? I know the inspectorate has made recommendations that it should be more risk-based and intelligence-led. That sort of issue could be examined.
Q17 Mr Hanson: Could you give me one or two other examples of areas where you think thematic inspections could take place in the next 12 or 15 months?
Peter Clarke: I would need to take wise counsel on this. The legislation setting up the chief inspector of prisons says that the chief inspector will look particularly at the treatment of prisoners; it does not say, however, that the chief inspector will look exclusively at the treatment of prisoners. We know that contraband coming into jail, particularly psychoactive substances, is causing a great deal of difficulty, in terms of violence, debt and so on. I have not seen whether the inspectorate has played a significant role in helping NOMS and others establish how that is happening and what could be done to stop those materials coming into prison. As the Secretary of State said to this Committee, he finds it extraordinary that people can go into Pentonville and come out with a bigger drug problem than they had when they went in.
Q18 Mr Hanson: I am not trying to pick; I am just trying to explore your knowledge and the approach that you would take. If we take that issue, could you give me three examples of good practice by the current Government or previous Governments to tackle the issue of drugs in prison?
Peter Clarke: I can certainly give you examples of good practice that are used in other areas. Inevitably, because of my background, I have quite a lot of experience around aviation security. I have looked at security in nuclear establishments and security overseas. Clearly, technology plays a huge part in stopping things arriving where they should not—put it like that. I do not know, because I have not yet had the opportunity to see, how technology is used in our prisons. I do not know whether or not it is properly integrated with all the other security systems and intelligence systems, but it seems strange that institutions that are incredibly secure in terms of keeping people in cannot seem to keep a whole range of contraband out.
Q19 Chair: What about contraband ideas—radicalisation? What is the role of the inspector around that?
Peter Clarke: As you know, Ian Acheson is currently conducting a review of that area on behalf of the Secretary of State. I believe that he will report in the new year. Whatever recommendations are made, there will probably then be a process of implementation. I suspect that at some point the inspectorate would either be asked or would volunteer to inspect against those recommendations to see how the implementation was proceeding.
Q20 Chair: Beyond acting faithfully on what you are asked to do, what are your thoughts on it?
Peter Clarke: Instinctively, my thoughts are that there is a difficulty—a real problem. You look at the over-representation of Muslims, in some prisons in particular, and the mix; obviously I know some of the people who are particularly challenging in that respect, anecdotally at least. I have read an excellent report by Alison Liebling about what was happening in one particular prison, which gave a very insightful and quite stark description of what was happening.
Q21 Chair: Leaving aside radicalisation, having spent a lot of your career putting people inside prison, how objective can you possibly be as chief inspector?
Peter Clarke: I think that I can be completely objective. I do not mean to sound pompous about this, but my entire service in the public sector has been guided by where the public interest lies. As a police officer, the public interest lay in conducting objective, evidence-based inquiries and investigations to place people before the court, if that was the appropriate outcome. To my mind, there is clearly an overriding public interest in having prisons that are secure but decent places, where there is the opportunity for rehabilitation and resettlement to take place. If they are not decent places—if there is not an orderly regime and people do not feel safe—clearly the opportunity for rehabilitation is much diminished.
Q22 Marie Rimmer: Do you understand that there is a degree of scepticism about a career police officer going in to be the advocate of prisoners and places where they are detained?
Peter Clarke: I can understand that, which is exactly why I said that I would seek very early on to reassure as wide a range of stakeholders as possible.
Q23 Marie Rimmer: Particularly the prisoners. Would you like to expand on how you would do that?
Peter Clarke: I do not mean to be flippant about this, but many of the people I have dealt with over the years who have ended up in prison know what they have done wrong, at the end of the day. They appreciate that. They may not have a great fondness for the police, but I would like to think that my reputation for objectivity and independence would carry some weight.
Q24 Marie Rimmer: They know what they have done. Do you think they understand the gravity of what they have done?
Peter Clarke: I have found over the years that many do, yes.
Q25 Marie Rimmer: How would you help them to understand what is wrong with what they have done? How would you work to rehabilitate them?
Peter Clarke: I am not sure that it is the role of the inspectorate to work to rehabilitate. It is certainly the role of the inspectorate to try to understand what works and what does not and to report on that completely objectively, so that people whose job it is to formulate policy and develop approaches can understand, potentially, the impact of what they are doing, but it is not the role of the inspectorate, I would suggest, to work with prisoners and to carry out rehabilitation.
Q26 Marie Rimmer: But the role is to influence those who manage prisons and set policy. Do you accept that?
Peter Clarke: Through the robustness of the reports, absolutely.
Q27 Marie Rimmer: Could you be objective, and independent of politicians?
Peter Clarke: Exactly. As I described earlier, I have already shown that: last year, in respect of my role in Birmingham; and I spent over 30 years as a police officer, carrying out a wide range of roles, where the independence of the office of constable was absolutely vital to doing that in what I consider to be a proper way.
Q28 Marie Rimmer: Do you know the five value statements that inform the work of the inspectorate?
Peter Clarke: I have read them, absolutely. Please don’t ask me to recite them, but I have read them.
Q29 Marie Rimmer: But you are sure that you could be absolutely impartial.
Peter Clarke: I cannot see any reason why I should not be. You are harking back to my role as a police officer. The whole job of a police officer is to conduct completely objective inquiries. My job as a detective officer was—
Q30 Marie Rimmer: It is a matter of transferring those skills to the prisons inspectorate.
Peter Clarke: Absolutely. It is evidence-based. I know the difference between assertion and evidence—that is very clear in my mind. I see developing completely evidence-based reports as the bedrock of independence and as the only way in which the inspectorate—as an inspectorate, not a regulator—can influence policy, because it has no powers.
Q31 Chair: The problem is that you are seen as being a former officer who is also favoured by the Secretary of State. How will you get around that baggage?
Peter Clarke: Chair, as I have already explained, I will just have to rely upon whatever personality I have to assure everybody who might think it that that is not the case. I can only say again and again that I will be completely objective and robust in my independence.
Chair: Okay. Mr Costa, do you want come in before Mr Chalk?
Q32 Alberto Costa: I want to go back to a point that David Hanson raised about security. I have a couple of points to make. Clearly you have a good record of being a consultant on security matters within the commercial world. Anyone who knows anything about prisons understands that they are not hermetically sealed establishments, and never can be. There is a big difference from your expertise in the commercial world, which is that they are businesses; they run for profit and they have money to invest in technology, which is quite costly—you mentioned aviation, for example. Of course, the public sector, particularly the Prison Service, has to operate within a very tight public budget. In addition to that, it has to operate respecting prisoners’ convention rights. How would you be able to use your expertise in the commercial security world to look at the security considerations David Hanson touched on, given that there are those important considerations that you need to take into account?
Peter Clarke: There are a couple of things. First, the commercial security world has given me an insight into some of the latest technologies and approaches that are available, but a lot of my work has been in advising Government and public bodies about security issues. I sat on the independent oversight committee for the Olympic Games that was set up by the Home Office. I have conducted work with the civil nuclear sector, looking at security at nuclear establishments.
To take it back even further—I believe you have my CV in front of you—you will see that for four years or so I was the commander of the royalty and diplomatic protection department, which meant that, with all the constraints of public sector finances, I was responsible for the security of the royal palaces, the Palace of Westminster and the diplomatic community in London. Those are all institutions that require a degree of openness and access. The Palace of Westminster was never slow in reminding me that the public needed to be here. I am well aware of the different types of security regime that are important in different places.
Q33 Alberto Costa: None of those you mentioned has any Human Rights Act considerations. For example, prisoners have the right to receive mail that is unopened and it is sometimes a vehicle to be used. There are plenty of cases of the Prison Service opening mail and the inspector commenting on that. How would you marry that with your expertise, which is quite different from the security considerations that are required specifically in the Prison Service?
Peter Clarke: It is a different expertise, to put it that way, but the fact of somebody having their mail opened when it should not be is a fact. The most important thing, from an inspectorate perspective, is to find out whether or not that is actually happening. If it is, it is the duty of the inspectorate to report on that.
Q34 Alberto Costa: Are you familiar with prisoners’ rights in terms of legal correspondence, for example, and the abuse that we have seen of that historically? Are you familiar with any cases involving that?
Peter Clarke: I have read some of what has happened, yes.
Q35 Alberto Costa: How, for example, drugs have come in through such vehicles.
Peter Clarke: Yes.
Alberto Costa: Chair, if you want, I can go on to the next question.
Chair: Yes. Why don’t you do the next one, Mr Costa?
Q36 Alberto Costa: Okay. You touched on the next question, which is about political considerations, and I want to flesh that out a little. We are sitting here with someone who is a former appointee as education commissioner of the current Secretary of State, in his previous role. As the Chair rightly pointed out, what confidence do we have that you are taking into account political considerations and that there is no conflict? You touched on your expertise in Birmingham. Can you give specific case examples where you have had political pressure applied and have dealt with that robustly and professionally?
Peter Clarke: I can think of a specific example. I have to be a little careful in what I say. It goes back to my work in the police, when leading major counter-terrorist investigations. I never had any political pressure from within the British Government, because the independence of the office of constable was fully recognised, but there were some major counter-terrorism investigations that affected other countries and there were occasions when an attempt was made to bring political pressure to bear from overseas. I resisted that, because as far as I was concerned the only thing that mattered was the safety of the British public and the gathering of evidence to put suspects before a court. I resisted that pressure, which was quite significant but which came from elsewhere.
Q37 Alex Chalk: Can I pick up that point? In that job, you were focused on the safety of the British public. Is that correct?
Peter Clarke: Yes. That is the prime consideration.
Q38 Alex Chalk: You wanted to make sure that people who were a danger to the British public were put in their rightful place—behind bars. Correct?
Peter Clarke: If that could be done in a safe way. The balance was always between gathering evidence and running an operation so long that you lost control of what the suspects were doing, and, potentially, an attack or whatever could be launched while you were doing that. Ideally, you would gather evidence, but public safety always came first.
Q39 Alex Chalk: Putting it bluntly, you wanted dangerous people to be behind bars. That is where they should be, isn’t it?
Peter Clarke: That is not a matter for an investigator.
Q40 Alex Chalk: In your previous job as a counter-terrorism police officer—
Peter Clarke: That is what I mean, Mr Chalk. It is not for me as a counter-terrorism officer to say that I want people behind bars. It is for me to gather evidence and present it to the prosecuting authorities so that they in turn can put it before a court, if that is felt to be appropriate.
Q41 Alex Chalk: Perceptions are important, aren’t they? One of the five value statements is that you have to “believe in the capacity of…individuals…to change and improve.” Is it likely that prisoners will feel confident that you believe in the capacity of individuals to change and improve in circumstances where you are a counter-terrorism officer who played an important role in putting them behind bars?
Peter Clarke: It might not be the easiest thing to put over, because obviously the profile of my previous career focuses on the counter-terrorism role; but, as I said earlier, for many years I worked in boroughs and communities in London, where a lot of work and effort went into diversion and helping young people in particular. When I was divisional commander at Brixton, a huge amount of work was going on there to try to keep people away from the criminal justice system. I fully understand about perceptions. If because of something that I did in the past I am henceforward disqualified from performing what I think is an important role in the future, so be it, but it would be unfortunate, in my view. It would not reflect the reality of what I think I have, which is a fiercely independent view—a view that if we can keep young people in particular out of the criminal justice system, that is by far the best way.
Q42 Alex Chalk: In answer to questions from Mr Hanson, you mentioned overcrowding as one of the three problems. Do you know what the prison population is at the moment?
Peter Clarke: We are hovering around 86,000.
Q43 Philip Davies: I am slightly puzzled as to why, as a former police officer, you are so embarrassed at the prospect that Mr Chalk put to you—that dangerous people should be in prison. I would have thought that virtually anybody in the general public would accept that dangerous people should be in prison. I have never yet come across a police officer who has not thought that dangerous people should be in prison. Why all of a sudden are you so embarrassed at the prospect that dangerous people should be in prison?
Peter Clarke: With respect, Mr Davies, I am not sure that I did say that I was embarrassed that they—
Q44 Philip Davies: You seemed very embarrassed about wanting to admit that you thought that dangerous people should be in prison.
Peter Clarke: No.
Q45 Philip Davies: I will give you another opportunity to make it clear then. Do you think that dangerous people should be in prison?
Peter Clarke: If the court sentences dangerous people to be in prison, that is where they should be. The first duty of the Prison Service is to implement the sentence of the court. I am not in the least embarrassed about dangerous people being in prison. I am partially responsible for some people being in prison who should remain there for a very long time, but I think everyone would agree that there are some people in our prisons for whom it is not the best place.
Q46 Philip Davies: Where do the public’s opinions fall in your remit as the chief inspector of prisons? What strength do you put on the public’s view about prisons, what the prison regime should be and all the rest of it, or are you just going to be a spokesman for prisoners?
Peter Clarke: The answer to the last bit—whether I would be a spokesman for prisons—is no. Obviously one should be aware of public opinion, and all other areas of opinion, but the only things that should sway and inform the reports of an independent, robust, evidence-based inspectorate are the facts and the evidence as seen.
Q47 Philip Davies: Do you think that prisons should be a place for punishment?
Peter Clarke: The punishment is the sentence of the court. Prisons should not be a place of punishment over and above the sentence of the court.
Q48 Philip Davies: Do you take the view that the lack of liberty is the punishment?
Peter Clarke: It is the sentence of the court. Whatever the court says is the punishment is the punishment. There should not be further punishment, or what amounts to further punishment, because of the nature of the regime—the crowding, the bullying or whatever is happening.
Q49 Dr Huq: I didn’t the catch the year when you were in Belmarsh—sorry. You said that that was the last time. I just wondered when that was chronologically.
Peter Clarke: Probably about 10 years ago; it might have been nine years ago.
Q50 Dr Huq: I would echo all the other comments that have been made about impartiality. It was not quite the same job title, but historically, when Derek Lewis was director of prisons, there was the stand-off with Michael Howard and the 15-times question on “Newsnight”. We all want reassurances that you would be able to stand up to the Home Office, the Justice Ministry and so on.
We know that the nature and scope of public services and crime are changing. If we are crystal ball-gazing, what key challenges or priorities do you foresee in the next few years? How do you intend to address those?
Peter Clarke: For the inspectorate?
Dr Huq: Yes.
Peter Clarke: I do not know what the settlement will be this week, but clearly resourcing—as with the rest of the public sector—will be an issue. The challenge for the inspectorate is how to maximise its impact. As with other parts of the public sector, if it is getting smaller, it is wrong to make an assumption that the impact has to diminish. I know that when Nick Hardwick spoke to this Committee he said that one of the things he wished he could have done more of was spreading best practice. That is terribly important if you are going to try to maximise your impact. If, for instance, the capacity to conduct the number of inspections were to diminish—I hope it doesn’t—you would have to look for other ways of deriving the maximum amount of benefit from the inspections that are carried out. When you read the inspection reports, it is clear that there is a huge amount of knowledge and expertise sitting in the inspectorate about what is happening within the Prison Service. There needs to be a strong focus on implementing recommendations and, more generically, on drawing out best practice from what has been learned and sharing that with NOMS and other stakeholders, to drive that across the prison estate.
Q51 Dr Huq: What is your opinion on the current structure? Do you think that it is okay? There is talk of mergers with other inspectorates. How would you see your relationship with other bits of the criminal justice system and other inspectorates?
Peter Clarke: I know that at various times it has been discussed at some length as to whether the criminal justice inspectorates should merge. At the moment, I do not see an overwhelming case for them to do so. I do see the need for increasing the amount of co-operation and collaboration with other inspectorates. That is only common sense. Throughout my entire career, I have been very driven by the fact that the most effective and efficient way to deliver good outcomes is by collaboration and partnerships across agencies. That is something I have always looked to do and would look to do again in the future, if appointed to this role.
Q52 Mr Hanson: In addition to prisons and other institutions in the MOJ sector, you have responsibility for inspecting the immigration estate. I would welcome your assessment of the challenges for the immigration estate in the next 12 months. What is your view about your relationship with the Home Office, given your long experience of working with it?
Peter Clarke: I would always look for collaborative and positive relationships, which does not mean in any way taking a subsidiary role or anything like that. I know I keep coming back to it, but the independence of the inspectorate is its main and primary strength. Without that, it is nothing.
As far as the immigration places of detention are concerned, they are an area where there is very little knowledge publicly about the extent of the issues in them. I think that we are still the only country that has indeterminate immigration detention. Instinctively, that feels uncomfortable, but I would need to get fully acquainted with the issues before making a substantive comment on that.
Q53 Mr Hanson: On the role of the inspectorate, when you make recommendations, whatever they may be, what do you expect Government to do with them?
Peter Clarke: One of the issues I found out about in researching this is that there appear to be a substantial number of recommendations that are either rejected or only partially accepted. In the last year, about a sixth of the recommendations made by the inspectorate have not been fully accepted. That feels quite high to me, when I think back to the sort of inspections to which I used to be subject by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary.
Q54 Mr Hanson: Is that because the recommendations are unrealistic or because the Government simply have different priorities?
Peter Clarke: That is potentially one of the issues, in that the inspectorate has its own standards but is also looking at international standards. It may be that some of those international standards are unachievable in this country, either on grounds of cost or for other reasons. There is always a risk that, if one makes what might be termed aspirational recommendations, they will be rejected or only partially accepted because they simply cannot be implemented. If that happens, there is a risk of undermining the credibility and strength of the rest of your recommendations. Again, this is an area I would need to look at very carefully and understand more about.
Q55 Mr Hanson: It goes back to Mr Costa’s earlier point about, ultimately, how political you get, in terms of putting pressure on recommendations you feel strongly about and the Government reject.
Peter Clarke: I am not sure that they are being rejected by the Government. I think that they are being rejected by the individual establishments.
Q56 Mr Hanson: When I was the Minister, every Prison Service inspectorate report that was ever done landed on my desk. I had a comment on it before it went and the response was given. The chief operating officer would have a look at it and respond. Ultimately, we were accountable to the House of Commons for those reports and for action or lack of it accordingly. If you made a recommendation that you felt was very important and the Government Minister, the establishment or the chief operating officer of the day rejected it, what would be your view of that? How would you respond to that?
Peter Clarke: There may be a way into this. If you are making a recommendation that you know is unachievable, you can acknowledge that. You can say, “This is where we should be aiming to be,” recognising the challenges that would mean that at the moment it was not achievable, and pointing towards a pathway and veering away, perhaps, from the starkness of a recommendation that just sits there on the piece of paper as a rejection. You could point out that something is not as it should be and cannot be achieved at the moment but that it could potentially be moved towards in the future. That seems to me to be a fairly constructive way of moving forward and, hopefully, of informing and influencing policy.
Q57 Chair: Mr Hardwick had a lot of difficulties with the previous Secretary of State. Why do we assume that you are not there to make sure that you do not argue as much as Mr Hardwick did? What should the relationship be between you and the Secretary of State?
Peter Clarke: Anybody who has known me over the years will know that I would not shy away from a disagreement with anybody. I don’t like to use a cliché, but I am not afraid to speak truth unto power, if that is what is required. I would be betraying the independence of the role of chief inspector of prisons, were I not to be robust.
Q58 Chair: What about the idea of, for example, annual appraisal of the chief inspector by the Department? Many of us would think that that was rather offensive. What is your view of that?
Peter Clarke: I have seen Nick Hardwick’s comments around this. Perhaps we can find some way through it that involves having some external and some internal appraisal.
Q59 Chair: Are you comfortable with the idea that the people you are appraising appraise you, in effect?
Peter Clarke: I don’t mind anybody saying what they think, but it is not going to influence what I write; it simply will not do that. A hugely useful exercise for anyone in the position is to take views from stakeholders. How do you think we are doing? How do you think I am doing? What should I do better? What should I do differently?
Q60 Chair: I understand that. It just seems to me that your point about speaking truth unto power is rather undermined by the approach that is being adopted, which is to seek to appraise the chief inspector on that basis.
Peter Clarke: To be frank, if somebody wishes to put something in an appraisal that is less than complimentary, so be it.
Q61 Chair: I understand that. What about your relationship with this Committee? We do not seek to interfere and tell people how to do their jobs, because that would be wrong. We are just interested in how you see the public accountability end of your role.
Peter Clarke: I would welcome a deeper relationship with this Committee. There have been discussions about whether the person in this role should be appointed by Parliament or by the Secretary of State, but we are where we are. At the moment, the legislation is quite clear, both in the Prison Act and in the Criminal Justice Act, that it is a Crown appointment, on the recommendation of the Secretary of State, but I hope that would not stop a constructive and useful dialogue being developed between this Committee and whoever holds the post. I would certainly welcome that.
Q62 Mr Hanson: I have one final question. Given what we have discussed today and the fact that, potentially, you will commence the post early in the New Year, at what point do you feel that you will be at the top of your game in the post? How long in?
Peter Clarke: When Nick Hardwick was giving evidence to your predecessor Committee on 4 March this year, in what was supposed to be his valedictory, he said that he felt it was a mistake that his successor would be appointed for only three years, because it took 18 months to get up to speed. Given that the appointment is for three years, my view is that there aren’t 18 months and I would look to get up to speed very quickly. I cannot put a precise time on it or define what “up to speed” is, but in terms of my being able to give effective leadership to the inspectorate I would look for that to happen very soon.
Q63 Chair: Mr Clarke, I am very grateful to you. You answered our questions very fully.
Peter Clarke: Thank you.
Examination of Witness
Witness: Glenys Stacey, Ministry of Justice’s preferred candidate for the post of HM Chief Inspector of Probation, gave evidence.
Q64 Chair: Ms Stacey, you have obviously been sitting in, listening and seeing what goes on. I will ask the same thing: why this job, and why you?
Glenys Stacey: I have been doing an independent regulator job for almost five years. My term of office is coming to an end. I went to Ofqual, which was then a fledgling thing, to establish it as an independent regulator and to build its competence and capacity. I believe that I have achieved that. It is now time for someone else to take up the challenge for the next five years. Having declared my intention to stand down—I did so in July—I was beginning to think about what to do next. I was fortunate enough to be approached about a number of things, none of which seemed to me particularly exciting. When this came along, it really did excite me. The reasons are that I think in many—
Q65 Chair: Can I just interrupt you? Who approached you about this one?
Glenys Stacey: I was approached in two ways. I had a telephone call from Michael Gove, who phoned to say that he was sorry to hear that I was standing down from my current job—
Q66 Chair: You had known him before, hadn’t you?
Glenys Stacey: I did not know him until I became the independent regulator for qualifications. That is when I first met Michael Gove.
Q67 Chair: But thereafter you had worked with him professionally.
Glenys Stacey: I have had the relationship that you would expect between an independent regulator and a Secretary of State. I have enjoyed that relationship with him and with the current Secretary of State.
Q68 Chair: He rings up and says, “I am sorry that you are finishing this one. Do you want to apply for this next one?”
Glenys Stacey: It was not quite that conversation, Chair.
Q69 Chair: What was it, then?
Glenys Stacey: The conversation was that he was very sorry to hear that I was stepping down. I do not wish to be immodest here, but he was very complimentary about the job that I had done. He mentioned that he had a number of opportunities coming up. This was one of them.
Q70 Chair: This was one of a raft, was it; that he put on offer to you?
Glenys Stacey: No. He didn’t offer me any job, Chair; he didn’t offer me any job.
Q71 Chair: You see, we are concerned about genuine independence here.
Glenys Stacey: No, I believe not. Could I finish answering your first question?
Q72 Chair: Yes—go ahead.
Glenys Stacey: He simply told me that the matter was in the hands of recruitment consultants GatenbySanderson. As it happened, I had an appointment to see GatenbySanderson in any event, for completely different reasons. The matter went from there and I decided to apply. Of course, I have gone through all of the proper process. As far as independence is concerned, I believe that there is no occasion when I have been anything other than an independent regulator. I believe that I have a strong reputation and an authentic, strong track record for that. Indeed, that has involved difficult conversations with Ministers, including the provision of advice that was most unwelcome.
Q73 Chair: What was your particular interest in the criminal justice system and probation?
Glenys Stacey: You will have seen from my CV that over the years I have held a number of jobs in the criminal justice system. It has been a recurring theme. First, I have been chief executive of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. I have been the justices’ chief executive for Greater Manchester magistrates’ courts. Indeed, I am a solicitor as well, married to an ex-chief Crown prosecutor. I have family members in the system. It is in my blood.
Q74 Chair: It was a logical thing to do. I understand that.
Glenys Stacey: It is not only that. One of the many things I have been exposed to in my current job is the precious nature of youth and what can go wrong, as well as what can go right, in young people. I have become very aware of the nature of life chances. That makes me particularly interested in that area of work.
Q75 Chair: Tell me a bit more about it. What do you think we miss out around the nature of life chances? As the chief inspector, where can you or can you not make a difference?
Glenys Stacey: If I look at my current job, I am leading the reform of qualifications. They will be better qualifications and will be more demanding. Not every young child will find themselves able to achieve the equivalent of five A* to C grades—those magic grades that lead to improved life chances—but it does not mean that they are failures. However, it can mean that their life chances are diverted. They are labelled and perceived as failures. They may make poor life choices or have fewer life opportunities from that. That is not in any way an irremediable situation for them—not at all.
Q76 Chair: Going back to your own past experience, which you disclosed very properly, do you think that there are any ongoing potential conflicts?
Glenys Stacey: I have been racking my brains about that, as you would imagine. There are several things to mention. One of our daughters, Charlotte, is a former YOT worker. For reasons that escape me, she has now decided to be a food engineer, so for the moment she is off the conflict register. I have a lovely sister-in-law, Diane Nelms, who is currently a volunteer with Basic Caring Communities, which is operated by Pact, a charity that supports offenders on release. I have already mentioned my husband, a lovely man and a former chief Crown prosecutor and CPS director of central casework. I do not think that that is a potential current or future conflict. Personally, I know of none.
Chair: That is fair enough. We just have to go through these questions. You have talked about your work at Ofqual. Mr Chalk, do you want to come in?
Q77 Alex Chalk: I want to ask a few questions about how your previous experience might be of assistance—or, indeed, not be of assistance. You mentioned that you are married to a former CCP. That is fine, but it does not impact directly on probation, does it?
Glenys Stacey: Not as far as I can see.
Q78 Alex Chalk: So that does not really help. You were previously chief executive of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. That is reviewing and investigating suspected miscarriages of justice, isn’t it?
Glenys Stacey: It is.
Q79 Alex Chalk: So it is not really related to probation, is it?
Glenys Stacey: No.
Q80 Alex Chalk: Equally, you were CEO of the Greater Manchester magistrates’ court committee. That is about delivering summary justice—
Glenys Stacey: It is.
Q81 Alex Chalk: In other words, convicting the guilty and acquitting the innocent. It is not really related to probation, is it?
Glenys Stacey: No, but I was a member of the local criminal justice board there. The local chief of probation was a fellow member. We were involved in work together to deliver common objectives—for example, dealing effectively with persistent young offenders and in a sufficiently timely way, but it was not a direct involvement in probation.
Q82 Alex Chalk: In fact, your exposure to the world of probation, as distinct from the criminal justice system overall, is pretty narrow. Would you accept that?
Glenys Stacey: That is very fair; yes.
Q83 Marie Rimmer: What do you see as the role of the inspectorate in contributing to the probation service and achieving the stated policy objectives, such as reducing reoffending and improving through-the-gate provision? What exactly do you see as through-the-gate provision?
Glenys Stacey: The inspectorate is relatively tiny. It is a rather venerable organisation, is staffed, seemingly, with competent staff and is well respected. In my view, it has a significant role to play. First, it is out there inspecting. It is looking to make judgments about the standards of work and needs to continue to make those good judgments. It needs to do work with others to define those standards, as far as is possible. They are not clearly defined at the moment. There are difficulties with that, but we can do better work to be clearer on what is to be expected as things have been changing.
It needs to do good, well-balanced inspections, to come to firm, clear judgments and recommendations, and to make sure that it promulgates those recommendations well and follows them through. To use a well-used expression, it needs to shine a light on good practice, where it sees it. There will be a big debate about what good practice is, but at the moment the inspectorate speaks of enablers and barriers; other inspectorates adopt that terminology as well. It needs to do more work in that area. It aspires to do that, but it is early days for it.
It needs to continue to develop its audit approach. It has good aspirations there and is piloting a new approach, but that will need honing, shaping and evaluating to make sure that it does well. It certainly needs to look at its audit programme. As new priorities have come alongside the long-standing priorities of public protection and safeguarding, so the inspectorate must reshape its audit planning and audit programme to reflect those other priorities. There is hard thinking to be done there.
Through-the-gate is a big challenge for the inspectorate. We do not have a good record. It is not just probation; the other inspectorates play their part here. We do not have a good record of joint inspections. We do not do enough of them and, seemingly, we are not very good at it. All of your outgoing inspectors are telling you that. There is a job for us to play our part in getting through the gate the other way ourselves, doing really robust and realistic inspections there. We know that the offender management units have had their difficulties. We have a review of that going on. We need to play our full part in making sure that we can get those within prison, rehabilitation and offender management services as good as they can be.
Q84 Marie Rimmer: You said that it is not clear at the moment. Could you give a couple of examples of that, please?
Glenys Stacey: What is not clear?
Q85 Marie Rimmer: When I asked about the work of the inspectorate contributing to the probation service achieving the objectives, you said that they were not very clear at the moment. Did I hear you correctly?
Glenys Stacey: I did not mean to infer that the objectives were not clear. I do apologise if I have done that. No—what is expected of us is pretty clear.
Marie Rimmer: Okay.
Glenys Stacey: Inspectorates will have their purpose expressed in various ways, but the job of all inspectorates, when you boil it down, it is to set standards and drive improvement. That is what we are about.
Q86 Marie Rimmer: What is your assessment of the main messages coming from the inspectorate’s early implementation reports on the new transforming rehabilitation landscape?
Glenys Stacey: First, I very much welcome the reports, particularly the most recent one, which is very clearly expressed and makes five or six recommendations for CRCs and a similar number for the National Offender Management Service. The focus is now very clear in those reports. Having had any number of issues at the beginning, we are seeing some improvement, but there are some seemingly intractable issues, if we are not careful, coming forward.
We know that we have some cumbersome systems. There are long-standing issues with those systems. There have been some improvements, but they are still rather clunky and creaky. We can also see that, maybe because they are clunky and creaky, not all staff are using those systems and doing the risk assessments that they should do. We are always reliant on those risk assessments. In a more fragmented delivery landscape, we are increasingly reliant on them. It is clearly a big priority for those delivering probation and for the inspectorate to make sure that those systems are developed as well as possible and that people use them as well as they should.
Q87 Chair: Are you happy, as far as you can see, with the relationship between NOMS, the National Probation Service and the new CRCs?
Glenys Stacey: There are some tensions there—in-built and unavoidable tensions. You want those tensions to be what I would call healthy tensions. From what I can see—from the reports that I have read so far—it varies across the country, as you would expect. Things are generally improving, which is a welcome sign. There are ways in which best practice can be shared with others. For example, some of the local management units are managing that relationship extremely well. We need to see more of that.
Q88 Chair: In your role as inspector, would you be concerned about the state of morale among probation staff?
Glenys Stacey: Yes.
Chair: When did you last speak to a member of probation staff?
Glenys Stacey: I have not spoken to a member of probation staff in this round of recruitment. Indeed, I cannot remember the last time, but obviously I have spoken to those representing the inspectorate and there are probation staff on loan there. Of course, I have looked very closely at what is in the public domain directly from probation staff and those who represent them. I can see that, in general terms, a good number of staff are feeling underpaid, undervalued and that their jobs and traditional probation values are at risk. I quite see that.
Q89 Alberto Costa: Good morning, Ms Stacey. By your own admission, your exposure to the world of probation is very limited. You have just answered the Chair that you cannot remember the last time you spoke to a member of probation staff. Why on earth did the Secretary of State call you for this job?
Glenys Stacey: You would have to ask the Secretary of State why he made that call. I imagine—
Q90 Alberto Costa: Is it a case of friends in high places, perhaps?
Glenys Stacey: No. I would not in any way describe my relationship with any Secretary of State as one of friendship.
Q91 Alberto Costa: It is not every day that people get calls from Secretaries of State, with all due respect.
Glenys Stacey: I quite accept that, but, as I understand it, Secretaries of State routinely make such calls. I have no doubt that they call more than one person as well, because they will want as good a field as possible for jobs such as this.
Q92 Alberto Costa: Do you know whether he called another person in this instance?
Glenys Stacey: I would not know, but it would not surprise me.
Q93 Alberto Costa: You do not know.
Glenys Stacey: No, I do not.
Q94 Alberto Costa: How can you assure this Committee that you can maintain independence from the Secretary of State, given that he called?
Glenys Stacey: If it is independence from this particular Secretary of State that concerns you, I can give examples of some of the difficult exchanges that I have had with this Secretary of State in the past.
Q95 Alberto Costa: Could you?
Glenys Stacey: Yes, I could. I will look to two or three of them. Forgive me—I am just referring to my notes. I do not know whether you will recollect this—perhaps not, as this may not be your area of interest. Two or three years ago, the then Secretary of State, Michael Gove, had determined that he would introduce a new type of qualification to replace GCSEs—something called an EBacc certificate—and invite exam boards to present their proposals to him subject by subject. There would not be a defined curriculum for each of these qualifications. They could be designed in any which way, and the Secretary of State would choose the one that he preferred. That would be the one that would be available for state schools, and no other exam board could provide it.
There are some obvious risks and issues with that proposal, but he had made that decision and declared it publicly. I went to see the Secretary of State and advised strongly against that, for some pretty clear reasons. I did not appear to get any traction there. I wrote a formal letter to the Secretary of State setting out the clear risks. That may not seem unusual, but in fact it is pretty unusual for an independent regulator to set out specific concerns and advice about what appears to be at least half-determined.
Q96 Alberto Costa: You must have had a good relationship with him if you did that—if you set out your concerns in a letter to Michael Gove.
Glenys Stacey: Would I define that as a good relationship? I was—
Q97 Alberto Costa: You have just admitted that it is not usual for a regulator to have done that, so you must have had a relationship to have given you the confidence to write to the then Secretary of State.
Glenys Stacey: Forgive me, but it was not the relationship: it was my statutory role. I am an independent regulator. I have statutory objectives to meet. That is above all what drives the advice I give to a Government, the actions I take and the way I run Ofqual. It serves me well to be able always to be guided absolutely by the role and what is expected of me. Yes, it is uncomfortable to do those things, but it is required and it is done.
Still I gained no traction, so I went to see the Chair of the Education Select Committee to express my concerns and the risks that it would involve. Of course, I account to Parliament. It seemed right that, should this go ahead, the Select Committee would wish to have an interest and a view. As it happened, Christmas came along. The Secretary of State came back from a Christmas break and asked me to go and see him. He explained that he had changed his mind, which I was glad to hear.
However, it was not long before there was a second difficulty, because he had decided instead to reform all GCSEs and all A-levels. At Ofqual we already had what we called a five-point plan for improving GCSEs, but we were not intending reform on the scale that Government wanted, and certainly not at the pace that Government wanted. I went to see the Secretary of State to advise that, although he had decided that he would reform nine GCSEs—certainly all the traditional subjects—plus a tranche of A-levels, we would not do that. We would reform English, English literature and maths only at GCSE in the first tranche. They were the most deserving, for reasons I need not go into here. I was very aware of the scale and nature of the task and what it would involve. I could not be confident that we and exam boards together could reform nine GCSEs at the same time as A-levels, which at the time were thought to be an easier prospect.
Alberto Costa: Thank you. I think that you have given us enough evidence. Going back to the Chair’s point, you clearly had a working relationship with the then Secretary of State. My final question is, what approach do you intend to take as chief inspector, if successful, to promoting public understanding of or confidence in probation, particularly given that you have now declared in public that the Secretary of State called you to suggest that you apply for this job?
Glenys Stacey: Could I deal first with the working relationship point you make? Just to be clear, I have no personal relationship with the Secretary of State. I have only ever—
Q98 Alberto Costa: Nobody has suggested that. We understand clearly what working relationship means.
Glenys Stacey: Thank you. It was just the expression “working”, when actually the relationship is a little more formal than what one would normally describe as a working relationship.
Q99 Alberto Costa: Yet it led to a personal call from the Secretary of State.
Glenys Stacey: I am not sure that I will ever know why that call was made, but—
Q100 Alberto Costa: You have not asked him.
Glenys Stacey: No. I do not have a personal relationship with him. From what he said, I know that he thinks I have done a good job, and a good job as an independent regulator. I hope that that was why he made the call.
You asked what I will do to improve public understanding. Of course, I and others will always wish to do that. NOMS will wish to do that. CRCs will wish to do that. I see already some really good developments on individual CRCs’ websites, explaining the role that they do. I do not know whether you have had a chance to see that, but there are some much better explanations for the public than I saw in the old arrangement. Promoting that across all CRCs would be very good. Of course, in the reports that we do, we always seek to explain the role that we play and the role that probation plays, but it comes across as rather technical. We have a website ourselves, and there is an opportunity there for us to think about explaining the role in ways that are much more accessible than perhaps the rather technical way we tend to do it because normally we are talking to people who understand it better.
Q101 Alex Chalk: You accepted very frankly that you have had very limited experience of probation in the past.
Glenys Stacey: Yes.
Q102 Alex Chalk: Would you even have considered applying for this role if the Secretary of State had not called you?
Glenys Stacey: Yes, I most certainly would.
Q103 Alex Chalk: Had you considered applying before he called you?
Glenys Stacey: I did not know about the role at the time, but I knew about it when I went to see GatenbySanderson. I had already made an appointment to talk to them about general opportunities, and in fact they raised it with me.
Q104 Alex Chalk: They raised it with you, but what inquiries had you made off your own bat into the possibility of this role before you received the call from the Secretary of State?
Glenys Stacey: I had not made any inquiries. I did not know of the role. It is fair to say that, having just declared that I was standing down from my current position, I had not made inquiries about any role. Instead, I had been approached about a number of roles by recruitment consultants and others. I was in that early stage. I was very focused on making sure that the announcement I was making about my standing down went well and that arrangements were being formed and in place to find my successor in my current job, so it was very early days.
I would certainly have applied for the role—for these reasons. Without wishing to sound immodest, I think it plays to my strengths. I have had five years of regulating, part of which is inspecting. It is different, but there are a lot of similar tools; for example, audit programmes, audits, recommendations, reports, thematic reports, influence, being clear about your objectives and so on. I believe that both my recent experience and the knowledge I bring from being an experienced chief executive, a public sector chief executive and someone with experience of the criminal justice system make me at least a suitable candidate. Secondly, as I explained when the Chair asked, this is just the sort of role that I would dearly wish, because it is demanding, because it plays to my strengths and because it is doing something really valuable for society.
Q105 Alex Chalk: Some might say that being Her Majesty’s inspector of prisons fulfils all those things as well. Why probation and not prisons? Did you apply for prisons?
Glenys Stacey: This is probably rather awkward for a woman to say, but I rather felt that probation would take to a woman more kindly.
Q106 Mr Hanson: Nick Hardwick’s predecessor was Anne Owers.
Glenys Stacey: That is right. Nevertheless, prison is predominantly a man’s world.
Q107 Alex Chalk: You made a decision to go for probation rather than prisons on that basis.
Glenys Stacey: Yes.
Q108 Chair: Was that part of your discussion with the Secretary of State?
Glenys Stacey: No.
Q109 Alex Chalk: Did he mention the prisons position?
Glenys Stacey: Yes.
Q110 Alex Chalk: Did he suggest that you should apply for it?
Glenys Stacey: He did not suggest that I should apply for either of these jobs. He mentioned them and that GatenbySanderson were the consultants.
Q111 Alberto Costa: What was the purpose of the call? I am still not clear on this. Come on, be clear. What was the purpose of his call?
Glenys Stacey: First, I do not know. I did not—
Q112 Alberto Costa: When he called you, you did not ask him why he was calling you.
Glenys Stacey: No, I did not. I answered the phone. I was not expecting the call.
Q113 Alberto Costa: Was this your personal number, or was it the number of the office where you were working?
Glenys Stacey: I think that it was my mobile number. It was certainly of an evening. I had never before had such a call from the Secretary of State. He was expressing his regret that I was standing down. That seemed to me perfectly proper and, indeed, pleasant, in the sense that he was recognising the good work that I had done. He asked me what I was going to do. I said, “I am considering my options.” He mentioned that he had these two positions and that GatenbySanderson were the recruitment consultants. You may speculate as to the reason, of course. It did not seem to me to be at all—
Q114 Alberto Costa: I do not think that there is any requirement to speculate here. It is not a credible position for someone of your professional background not to have asked the Secretary of State the purpose of his call—or not at least to infer the reason for his call.
Glenys Stacey: I did not ask him the purpose of the call. I would never dream of asking that of a Secretary of State in a call in my own home of an evening. I understood the purpose of the call to be to express exactly what he expressed—regret at my standing down, confirmation that he regarded me as an excellent independent regulator and, yes, telling me of these opportunities. That was it.
Q115 Dr Huq: We will move away from what did or did not happen in this phone call and whether probation is softer than prison.
Glenys Stacey: I wish I had recorded it now.
Q116 Dr Huq: I am going to ask something completely different. You mentioned that you are not averse to joint working with other inspectorates.
Glenys Stacey: Not at all.
Q117 Dr Huq: With NOMS and whoever. Which other aspects of the inspectorate’s performance need to improve, and how would you go about achieving such improvements—blue-sky thinking?
Glenys Stacey: It is early days for me, isn’t it? If you ask me that in six months’ time, it will probably be a more nuanced answer. Earlier this year, there was a report from the National Audit Office on all the criminal justice inspectorates. It has been very helpful to me and, no doubt, to others applying for these jobs. It points out some areas for improvement and I look forward to talking those through with the inspectorate.
The first is in planning its work programme—what it audits, when and with what frequency, and whether audits are light or heavyweight. Because we now have new expectations of probation in terms of through-the-gate services and short-sentence offenders, we need to look at how the planned work programme reflects those priorities. How do we adjust our programme to reflect that? We also know that we do continuing work auditing youth offending teams in an established way. Pressures on youth offending will no doubt increase as budget pressures bite, so we will need to look at whether we are doing sufficient work there. We can work that through relatively easily.
More demanding are the changes that are being made now to the way we carry out inspections in the inspectorate. I very much welcome recent developments there. We have had rather a process focus; we are moving towards more of an outcome focus—a blend of the two, actually, which looks to me to make sense. Judging outcomes in any timely way is going to be enormously difficult. Determining whether outcomes are because of good work done in CRCs or good work done by those surrounding CRCs will be another issue. The development of our audit approach has been piloted and there has been a lot of consultation, but once it plays out in earnest we will see whether it is fit or whether it needs adjustments. Being able to evaluate that openly and sensibly will be so important. The inspectorate aspires to use other people’s datasets—Home’s, for example. That makes a lot of sense—doing the data evaluation before you go on an audit and then looking at the data when you come from an audit—but it is inexperienced in that area. Making sure that we do that intelligently will be a significant challenge.
All those who comment on inspectorates seem to agree that much rests on the inspectorate’s power of voice. Without other, harder-edged tools—sanctions or the ability to make the rules—much relies on what we say, how we say it and how we follow it through. There is a fair amount of opportunity there for the inspectorate. It has had a rather unfortunate history of leadership in recent years, which has probably made it quite difficult to get the tone consistent and right, so doing more work to make sure that we hold enough influence in what we say will be important.
Not just being better at joint inspections but being clear about how we follow up recommendations from all inspections seems to me quite important. It is not apparent publicly how good, bad or indifferent we are at that. I suspect that much of it is hidden from the public domain, but I am curious to know—let’s put it that way—how we approach that. How often do we do repeat inspection? What is our relationship with NOMS, in terms of following through recommendations that are clearly within their domain? That seems to me to be critical.
Q118 Dr Huq: What particular areas do you think would lend themselves to joint inspections?
Glenys Stacey: Through the gate and rehabilitation.
Q119 Dr Huq: What would your opinion be on mergers between the different inspectorates, or even a single criminal justice inspectorate?
Glenys Stacey: In recent years, I have always been surrounded by discussions about mergers. Where I am at the moment, the discussion on and off the shelf is, should there be one exam board or many? I am used to these debates and interested in them, but, frankly, the inspectorate is small, capable and can do a really good job. That is what I am interested in. If a Government start to discuss again the prospect of merger, of course I will engage in that debate with others. I do not have a predetermined view, but I think that this inspectorate can do a darn good job for £3 million.
Q120 Dr Huq: What other priorities, challenges and opportunities do you foresee in the next five years or so?
Glenys Stacey: I think that it is three years. There are plenty that are apparent and that I have already spoken of. The most immediate challenge for anyone lucky enough to get this job is leadership. There has been a patient crew, mostly in Manchester and out on the road. Recent staff survey results suggest that they want to know where they are going, and that is right.
Q121 Chair: Do you think that three years are enough to do this job—either of the jobs, actually—with a degree of genuine intent? It seems very short.
Glenys Stacey: It does. Perhaps I speak with some experience here, in that I am just finishing a five-year term as an independent regulator. Admittedly, at the moment I work in a remarkably technical area, but certainly the lead-in time was significant, to get up to speed. It is right to say that with five years you have a greater sense of certainty and independence; you get into the swing of it. If I were deciding the lengths of term, I would make them five years. Having said that, I am old in the tooth and quite happy with three, so it is not a personal issue for me.
Q122 Chair: No. It is a structural sort of thing.
Glenys Stacey: If I may say so, shorter terms limit the field. People are not prepared to put their head above the parapet.
Q123 Chair: There is also the danger that it is easier to remove those who speak truth unto power inconveniently, isn’t it?
Glenys Stacey: It is.
Chair: Thank you very much.
Glenys Stacey: Thank you very much, Chair.
Q124 Chair: Mr Clarke, you kindly stayed after giving your evidence. Can you help me on one further matter? For the sake of clarity, did you have any conversations with the Secretary of State prior to applying?
Peter Clarke: Yes, I did.
Q125 Chair: Did he telephone you?
Peter Clarke: Yes, he did.
Q126 Chair: Was it on much the same basis as Ms Stacey said?
Peter Clarke: Very similar. He phoned me—I do not recall exactly when; it was clearly after the election—and said that at some time in the forthcoming weeks and months there would be an advertisement placed for this particular role. He did not know whether or not I would be interested. I said that I did not know whether or not I would be interested either, because it would be a big change in my life and for my family. He made the point very clearly that this was a public appointment and, therefore, an open competition.
Chair: Thank you. I just wanted to be very clear from both of you in terms of the process. You have been very helpful about that. I am very grateful to both of you for your time and your evidence. Thank you very much. If everybody could leave us, we will go into private session. Again, I am very grateful to the candidates.
Oral evidence: Pre-appointment scrutiny of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and HM Chief Inspector of Probation, HC 624 23