Supplementary written evidence submitted by Sodexo
I would like to take this opportunity to provide additional observations from our experience as a strategic supplier, beyond the time which was allowed during the session. We are keen to support the Committee in its remit to scrutinise the relationship between strategic suppliers and government and how to best realise value for money for the taxpayer.
Therefore, please find below both helpful context and additional specific points that were requested by the Committee in relation to HMP Northumberland, as well as details of our Modern Day Slavery Policy.
Our experience as a strategic supplier
We believe that the relationship between government and strategic suppliers is fundamental to delivering an effective market for the provision of high quality public services. Effective design, commissioning, dialogue with suppliers and monitoring of services are all essential components of an effective and functional market.
Sodexo has been a public sector supplier since 1991 and today provides 156 contracts to both central government, its agencies and the wider public sector. We became a strategic supplier in 2011 and have always been a green rated supplier.
We have always maintained positive and constructive relationships with government. However, we believe reduced opportunity, in recent years, to engage and shape services with commissioners, combined with an overriding focus on price, has had negative consequences. Specifically, government has reduced opportunities to flex services to changing circumstances and fewer suppliers are able to participate in the market. This is not conducive to ensuring the process works to optimise benefits for the public and we urge the Committee to look closely at these issues to ensure the market functions properly. In particular, we support an approach that places emphasis on value, and focuses on outcomes and the needs of the end user.
We were pleased that the issue of using the procurement process to maximise social, economic and environmental impact in accordance with the Social Value Act was raised positively during the session. At a time when public funds are limited this is a genuinely effective way to obtain public value in addition to the services being procured.
Social value is at the heart of Sodexo’s Quality of Life principles that we bring together as a set of measurable commitments in our Public Service Pledge, which we provided to the Committee. Our UK Public Service Pledge is an ethical manifesto for our contracts; our wider conduct; how we serve people and how we contribute to our communities. Social value is the additional benefit to the community over and above the direct purchasing of goods and services. Collectively it highlights our conviction that a business involved in running public services signs a social contract, as well as a commercial one, and must commit to a public service ethos.
We are encouraged to see the Government’s recent renewed focus on evaluating and promoting social value through the procurement process. We would urge the Committee to support this focus and to recommend government uses examination of public value as a way of differentiating suppliers and ensuring additional impact for the public purse.
HMP Northumberland
In order to properly address the issues raised in relation to HMP Northumberland, it is helpful to summarise the context in which the Panorama investigation and our ongoing work to address challenges at the prison took place.
HMP Northumberland as it is today, was only formed in 2011 when two existing prisons which were situated 100 metres apart, HMPYOI Castington and HMP Acklington were merged to create one prison. The Independent Monitoring Board report in 2011 acknowledged that “over forty years very different traditions and ambiences had built up; the staff at Acklington were Category C trained, but those at Castington had the very different job of working with young offenders and juveniles.”
Our contract for the operation of HMP Northumberland commenced on 1st December 2013. This is a 15-year contract to operate the prison on behalf of the Ministry of Justice as a ‘working prison’ with a contractual emphasis on increasing the volume of work and activity available to the 1,348 residents. It is not a PFI contract. The Ministry undertake detailed quarterly contract performance reviews, in addition to constant monitoring from the onsite controller’s team.
Although a lot of work had already been done to merge the two prisons, there was still ongoing work to be done, including the staffing rationalisation which had yet to be finalised.
The scale of this merger operation, combined with the age and state of the facilities as we took them on, and the need to embed a culture change from public sector to private sector employment, presented a series of challenges unique to HMP Northumberland and therefore cannot be compared to other private sector run prisons, including the four other prisons we operate under a PFI contract.
Since we took over the contract we have invested heavily into the prison to deliver the key aims of the contract and to address deficiencies identified in the infrastructure and fabric of the site. This has included:
• An additional £2.8 million on fire safety;
• New IT systems allowing the streamlining of processes, reports and data capture methods, freeing up vital staff hours to focus on the working prison elements of the contract and reducing reoffending;
• The introduction of interactive kiosks which allow residents to manage their money, family visits, menu orders and telephone credit.
As I acknowledged during the evidence session, we have faced a number of challenges at HMP Northumberland, some specific to this prison and some more common across the whole prison estate.
The Panorama documentary aired on 13 February 2017 included footage of incidents in the prison that had been gathered over a period of two months and condensed into a 30-minute programme with the help of an undercover reporter working as a Prison Custody Officer. It highlighted the challenges the prison faced in common with many prisons across the country, predominately around the increasing use of illicit psychoactive substances and associated levels of violence.
Much of the violence in the prison was attributable to the supply and use of drugs which included the relatively new phenomenon of psychoactive substances which contributes to unpredictable behaviour, debt, bullying and friction between different prisoner groups.
The key underlying priority areas reported on during the programme namely: drug misuse and associated violence; compliance with security standards and staff engagement; and confidence issues among the workforce, were already the subject of significant work by the leadership team at the prison. These issues were reviewed in detail with the MOJ in the light of the Panorama programme and additional work in the following areas began immediately:
Drug misuse
• A review of the number and regularity of lock down and proactive search operations, with support from the regional dog team.
• More focus by the on-site police officer, part funded by Sodexo, on criminal activity surrounding drugs.
• Closer working with drug and alcohol support providers to improve their response and support where an individual is known to be using psychoactive substances.
• Formalising operational, medical and incident management responses to psychoactive substance incidents, including incidents where staff may become unwell.
Security standards
• The selection and admission criteria for Houseblock 6 were reviewed and updated, with admission now requiring sign off by a Senior Manager.
• Renewed guidance on Accommodation Fabric Checks (AFCs) was circulated and discussed through team meetings to ensure they were being conducted.
• Additional security checks were implemented on external areas around residential units.
• Change to resident movement which had already been implemented were further reviewed to ensure the right resources to supervise movements across a vast site.
Staff engagement and confidence
• Each member of staff identified on Panorama was given the opportunity to discuss their personal views and given support where this was appropriate.
• Staff availability during the busiest parts of the day was reviewed– e.g. teatime when work movement, medications, gym sessions, meal times and association were taking place.
Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons published their latest inspection into HMP Northumberland on 21 November 2017 following an unannounced inspection conducted 19 July – 4 August 2017. All the actions outlined above were already underway by the time of the HMIP inspection but some of the consequent improvements (outlined in a recent report from the prison’s Independent Monitoring Board mentioned below) have taken longer to embed than the period between the airing of the Panorama and the inspection.
The planned actions in response to the 71 recommendations were submitted to the Inspectorate in January 2018. The report set out five main recommendations specifically for us to address. At the time, three had been completed and substantial action is being taken to address the other two. Of the three completed this includes drug supply concerns where we have seen a reduction in positive mandatory drug testing results from approximately 20 per cent in mid-2017 to just over 10 per cent twelve months later.
I have provided as an appendix to the committee a copy of the most recent version of the plan, which is used for internal communication on progress between the Director of HMP Northumberland and the MoJ Contract Controller. This is kept under regular review. At the time of writing, 42 recommendations are complete and all other recommendations have a target date for completion by October 2018.
The Prison Director, Nick Leader, has clear monitoring arrangements to assure delivery of all the actions and has launched a process for proactively addressing all HMIP expectations with the prison senior team.
Since the prison was inspected, we have also delivered a range of other significant improvements. These include:
• The prison went ‘smoke free’ in January 2018 in line with implementation plans required for all North East prisons.
• The prison was the first contracted prison to have commenced Key Worker (an improved personal officer scheme) with the introduction of 41 new staff to support safety arrangements whilst assisting residents better prepare for release.
• There has been further development of our Violence Reduction strategy, including:
• The prison has introduced Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) and opened a 20 bed resettlement unit to better support preparation of residents for release.
• Alongside the separately commissioned healthcare providers, the prison’s improved medicines management arrangements have recently been assured by a revisit from CQC health inspectors.
• The prison introduced a new core day and prison regime, extending access to more purposeful activity and education from 4 to 4.5 days.
• In-cell telephony has recently been installed across the prison providing residents with far greater opportunity to maintain family ties.
These improvements, as well as progress delivered against the action plan agreed following the HMCIP report, have been recognised in a recent report from the prison’s Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) published in May 2018. I have provided the Committee with a copy of the IMB report alongside this letter.
This IMB report recognises: arrangements being taken to support complex offenders; the provision of increased support to deal with health issues including mental health; the positive responses being taken to improve the delivery of resettlement plans; improved and more effective links to the local Community Rehabilitation Company to support residents planning for release; and achieving this whilst dealing with a more challenging population arising from the Prison Estates Transformation Programme.
Following the publication of the report, assurance on progress has also been provided through the Contract Management Team which we are aware has been independently addressed positively through correspondence from the Minister for Prison’s office. We are advised this should be published in the near future.
While we are pleased with the progress that has been recognised in the IMB report, we are far from complacent and acknowledge there are still significant challenges to address at HMP Northumberland. We are committed to ensuring we build on recent progress and continue to focus on driving further improvements.
Modern Day Slavery Policy
I also promised to share more details of our approach to combating modern day slavery. In addition to what I outlined during the session, I can confirm that all our suppliers are required to pass a pre-qualification audit prior to any engagement. Assessment of supplier suitability is carried out by professionals who are independent from the day-today operational management of the suppliers they evaluate. Sodexo uses central tracking of certification and documentation validity. As supplier qualifications reach their end date, the governance function is prompted to request new documentation.
As I mentioned during the session, we identified the textile industry, where we produce our ‘global uniforms’, as a key risk to modern day slavery. Sodexo has therefore taken the step of employing two external quality assurance & CSR auditors (UL and Intertek) based in Asia to solely work with our uniform suppliers to ensure both quality assurance but more importantly compliance to CSR/modern day slavery standards.
Conclusion
I would like to conclude by reiterating our continued willingness to support your work on this inquiry in any way we can.
We are a green rated strategic supplier working across several areas of important public service provision. Our experience and belief is that maintaining an effective market, with mixed providers from the public, private and voluntary sectors will deliver the best outcomes for the public both as service users and as taxpayers looking for value for money. Effective strategic suppliers’ relationships with government and the procurement frameworks under which all suppliers are commissioned are both key elements to delivering this.
These are important issues; we welcome the Committee’s focus on them and look forward to your recommendations and subsequent Government response. We are committed to working with Government to deliver for taxpayers, clients, and service users.
Sean Haley, Regional Chair, UK & Ireland
25 June 2018