Q111 Mr Osborne: Do you think there is a danger that the prison service is getting "targetitis", that is too many targets? You have 48 key performance targets.
Mr Narey: I do not think so. In terms of my managing Mr Wheatley as the Director General, the 48 key performance targets are essentially for him and that is how he manages the service and satisfies himself it is being well run. In terms of holding Mr Wheatley to account as Director General, personally in his own targets for this year, I concentrate on the main key performance indicators. They have increased in number and there are probably rather more of them than I would wish, but it reflects the significant change in the emphasis of the service from a service as little as eight or nine years ago only concentrating on security, to one which is now concentrating on reducing re-offending.
Q112 Mr Osborne: You said there are more than you would wish. Who decides what these targets are? Is it not you?
Mr Narey: I, but ministers ultimately, on recommendations made by me.
Q113 Mr Osborne: If there are more than you would wish, should you not recommend that there are fewer?
Mr Narey: The reason they have increased is that we have built on all the targets we have had previously, for example on security and escapes and so forth. So the new targets, which we have introduced in recent years, have been, for example, on numbers of educational qualifications, positive drug tests and so forth, numbers going through offending behaviour programmes. That reflects the changing emphasis in the prison service. I would hope, over time, that I might be able to reduce the number further and indeed I should like to move much more to a relationship between myself as Commissioner and Mr Wheatley as Director General which has a lower number of performance measures and a service level agreement between the two sectors as advocated by Mr Trickett.
Q114 Mr Osborne: These KPTs are going to be incorporated, indeed are starting to be incorporated, into PFI contracts. I was wondering whether the people here who represent PFI contractors feel there are too many of these KPTs and they are going to hamper what you are doing?
Mr Beeston: The issue I would just draw attention to is that with the key performance targets there is a need to be consistent across the public and private as an estate, if meaningful comparisons are to be drawn. One of the recommendations of the NAO Report is the fact that some of the performance targets which are reflected in the contracted prisons are in fact revisited and harmonised with the contracted performance targets and the key performance targets, which do not necessarily go hand in hand. We probably have more targets than the public sector prisons and I should like to see them harmonised.
Mr Banks: I would endorse the point in terms of consistency across the sector. The danger is focusing on too small a number of measures. You do need to get a comprehensive view of the performance of prisons. It is an area which needs to be kept under review.
Q115 Mr Osborne: In paragraph 1.33 on page 19 it says "PFI contractors expressed reservations about the proposed system . . . they are concerned that there are large numbers of KPTs and that some are based on inputs rather than outputs. They therefore concentrate on procedures rather than measuring results". Is that an experience you have had in running your PFI prisons and negotiating contracts?
Mr Banks: I believe as a system we are going to get more out of it, if performance measures are output related rather than input related. That then encourages innovation and new ways of delivering the outcomes.
Q116 Mr Osborne: Do you have any examples of distorting effects of targets, that is in order to meet a target to avoid a financial penalty you do something which is pretty silly, which you would not be doing otherwise?
Mr Beeston: One example I can give you is, for instance, around the penalty for not reporting. There is actually a penalty in the contracts for not reporting. Therefore you tend to report every incident, no matter how small, because the penalty for not reporting is often greater than the penalty for the incident itself. That is one example. Generally the point has been made that we would like to see standardisation rather than the two systems.
Q117 Mr Osborne: One of the things mentioned here is that there is no measure of actual reduction in re-offending rates. I would be interested to know whether you have any figures for the difference in re-offending rates in PFI prisons and public prisons?
Mr Narey: No, we do not. As I explained to the Committee last time I was here, because we move prisoners about so frequently, it is very difficult to attest to the particular work done by one prison. We know what our drug treatment courses provide in terms of reduced re-offending and offending behaviour programmes. We are trying to do work now, to try to see whether we can link future offending behaviour after release with the time spent in a particular prison. For example, if someone spent most of their time in Bullingdon prison and they have not gone back to re-offending, we will try to make a link between the prison where they spent most of their time and their future behaviour. It is very difficult. There are two exceptions to that. We know that Grendon reduces re-offending and we will be able to produce information shortly on the performance of Dovegate which, like Grendon, has a therapeutic community. While we move prisoners about quite as much as we have to because of overcrowding, it is very difficult to tie down and credit to a particular prison, what might have happened to someone after release.
Q118 Mr Osborne: So you would not be able to tell, for example, partly because of the hangover of change of policy, that Lowdham Grange has in effect a different activity scheme, work based rather than education based. Is there no way of measuring whether the work based scheme is more effective than the educational one?
Mr Narey: Indeed there is. We do that and we know that some of the activities at Lowdham Grange, which are borne out of a contract born in a different period, are much less likely to reduce re-offending than some of the things we are doing elsewhere and we are in discussions with Premier right now about changing the focus of that prison from an industrial workshop prison to one doing more education.
Q119 Mr Osborne: Your previous answer was that it is extremely difficult to measure re-offending at all and then you seem to have come to a fairly clear conclusion about what goes on in this particular prison.
Mr Narey: No, I said it was difficult to measure re-offending and then link it to a particular prison. I could, for example, give you a lot of research results from those right across the prison system who have completed offending behaviour programmes, those who have completed and got basic skills qualifications and education. We know from evidence based both in the UK and internationally that they have a modest but significant effect in reducing re-offending of around 10%. So I can tell you which things will work in reducing re-offending, but it is difficult to say whether it was a particular educational course in a particular prison which led to the reduction in re-offending.
Q120 Mr Osborne: One of the things I found a bit depressing in this Report was in paragraph 3.13, which says that the exchange of good practice between prisons generally and incorporation of innovation from the private sector is limited. You do have this mixed estate. You have a bit of diversity there, people trying different things. One of my fears is that this target regime will undermine that, but nevertheless should you not be exchanging good practice, learning the lessons, what works in some prisons and does not work in others?
Mr Narey: I acknowledge and accept entirely the Report's conclusions that we can do more to exchange good practice and I am anxious to exploit my current position in managing both sectors to ensure that happens. I should like to stress that a lot of it does take place; some of the innovative work which has been done across the sectors in the care of juveniles has been very successfully transferred from private sector to public sector and public sector to private sector. As we have discovered things which work, such as offending behaviour programmes- and we are the world leaders in those-developed in the public sector, we are now exporting those to the private sector prisons.