3.15 Staff costs account for about 80 per cent of the running costs of a prison. Consequently, innovation from the private sector has often focused on the more efficient use of staff. Shift patterns in PFI prisons allow receptions to open later, visiting times to be more flexible and prisoners on enhanced regimes to eat with their families. This is possible because employee terms and conditions were written with operational flexibility in mind. It would be harder to implement such flexibility in public sector prisons without changing working practices. However, the private sector has been less successful in developing its staff for senior management roles. Directors at private prisons have been recruited from the ranks of experienced Prison Service Governors, rather than internally (despite the fact that contractors have been managing prisons for 10 years). The private sector is therefore benefiting from the experience and skills of former public sector employees. However, the Directors felt the private sector used these skills more effectively by giving them the autonomy to run a prison with minimal interference.