Northern Ireland Prison Service Corporate Governance ... - cjini

this function and the team identified to
perform this task had to rely on what
they had been told as to whether
recommendations had been completed,
as these had not been audited or
physically checked.
3.12 The Board was advised that if it wanted
assurance in this area then the team
would need resources and operational
expertise – without this the team
had only a sketchy idea of what was
happening. From a governance
viewpoint, this information was
presented to the Board but it was not
clear from the attendant discussion how
the Board intended to operate its
oversight role.
3.13 The minutes record that the Board
noted:
• progress to date;
• constraints due to lack of resources;
• the planning in hand to take forward
recommendations;
• the need for a co-ordinated approach;
and
• agreed to a review of the situation
on a quarterly basis. 17
An internal NIPS paper to PSMB
members in October 2010 notes
that there remain ongoing issues with
quality assuring evidence regarding
implementation or completion of
agreed actions.
3.14 There were questions raised during the
inspection process as to the validity of
management information presented to
the Board. For example, it was asserted
that it took ten minutes to clean the
stairs on a landing but this was booked
for an hour of ‘constructive activity’.
17 Minutes Prison Service Management Board 30 April 2010.
25
When asked why, the response was that
“management are trying to make up the
figures to make the place look as though
it is working”. A member of the focus
group went on to say that the figures
were exaggerated and there were nine
orderlies in a named House to try and
“create jobs”, and “management want it on
paper that prisoners were out doing stuff
but they were not actually doing it”. Board
Members themselves presented some
disquiet to Inspectors on the validity of
the information they were getting to
assess performance.
3.15 In other cases, Inspectors were told that
performance figures in some areas were
expectations rather than actual statistics,
for example a two hour education class
was recorded as two hours, irrespective
of whether it finished early or over-ran.
The validation of information was
problematic and was not well
established.
3.16 Whilst Inspectors were not in a position
to confirm the veracity of these
statements, it was noted that no other
officer in the groups disagreed or
corrected them. A Governor in another
establishment confirmed that the
number of orderlies boosted the
activity hours and that visits and legal
consultations also contributed. Another
senior member of staff said that the
prisons could meet their targets like
out of cell time, but going to Court
was counted towards the figure. Also
managers said that attempts to increase
constructive hours in for example,
workshops, ran into difficulties because
staffing levels on the landings meant
prisoners could be often locked up.
Diminishing Task Lines meant that