Locked into a numbers game

Locked into a numbers game

Despite his chronic overcrowding crisis and delicate industrial relations, prisons chief Phil Wheatley remains focused on cutting the reoffending rates, says Richard Ford

FEW top managers in either the public or private sector have faced the challenge that has confronted Phil Wheatley as prisoner numbers have risen remorselessly.

As director-general of the Prison Service, Wheatley has had to find cells for the surging number of offenders being sent to jail while at the same time ensuring that the establishments remain stable and the prisoners safe.

He is having to do this against a backdrop of poor industrial relations and a strained relationship with the leadership of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA). Last week those difficulties exploded when the POA called a 24-hour wildcat strike that caused chaos in prisons and courts in England and Wales.

Wheatley and his staff have also had to continue with their efforts to try make the vast majority of prisoners who leave jails in England and Wales less likely to reoffend.

All of this has been taking place during an overcrowding crisis that has seen prisoners being driven around the country to wherever a space can be found and being held in emergency accommodation at police stations and courts.

It is a tribute to his leadership and his staff that this has been achieved without major riots and with escapes at a record low – just one from within a jail last year and six from escorts.

Wheatley, 59, is not a complainer but he thinks his staff could be given a bit more credit by the public for their achievements. He said: “The people selected to be locked up are those that behave badly in the community and many, unless we are very careful, behave badly in prison. We are looking after them for 24 hours a day. We look after their every need, feed them, clothe them, and we are trying to work to reduce reoffending, which has meant working in ways we have never worked before.”

Wheatley added: “We need good staff, well trained and well motivated and a recognition of the difficulty of what they are doing. Because the media don’t give staff that recognition, we have to work hard to try to counter the negative stories they read.”

Although numbers in jails have risen, Wheatley sees it as part of a long-term trend which, with a few blips, has gone on since the end of the Second World War. He says the real change in recent years has been the way the service deals with the problem. It used to be almost a victim of whatever was happening and simply accepted it as inevitable.

“Since 1999 we have worked very hard, we have reduced escapes and are making a small but measurable impact on reoffending by former prisoners. It has been achieved by people doing a much better job and by people being motivated to do a better job. We organise better; we train our staff better and we have very clear standards against which we measure what is going on.”

The prison system is running at maximum or near maximum capacity and Wheatley is still looking to drive up performance.

With 80 per cent of his £2.2 billion funding going on staff-related costs, the room for improvement is clearly limited.

He makes no apology for running a tight ship. “It is right as it is the country’s money.

We should use it and get the maximum out of it.”

But Wheatley recognises that what the public really wants is less reoffending. He admits there is no simple solution when his staff are attempting to remedy the results of “awful upbringing”, illiteracy, drink and drugs abuse and unemployment. “We have not got any magic cures. We have a succession of things that if we do it well and we motivate offenders to engage, we can make a difference.” Richard Ford is Home Affairs Correspondent of The Times

Date of Birth: July 4, 1948.

Education: Leeds Grammar School 1959-1966; LLB (Hons) University of Sheffield 1966-1999.

Career: Prison officer, Hatfield Borstal 1969-70; various assistant/deputy governor posts 1970-86; Governor, Hull prison 1986-90; various Prison Service management posts 1990-1999; Deputy Director-General, Prison Service 1999-03; Director-General, Prison Service 2003- ;

What he says: “We will never find a way either in custody or the community of intervening with a sort of magic bullet that cures crime.”

Little-known fact: First job was labouring in Leeds city parks.