Q141 Mr Davidson: I am not quite sure whether or not that is telling me that nonetheless you still pay less and have worse conditions or whether or not it simply reflects the going rate in poorer areas.
Mr Narey: The truth is that the private sector has been able to pay less in areas where wage levels are lower. The prison service has been bound by national wage rates, although for the last few years we have been trying in the public sector to concentrate, in the pay deals we have agreed with the unions, on giving much more money, significantly more money, to people working in the south-east to try to achieve some sort of regional balance. It is the case that out of the south-east somebody working in the public sector prison service will earn more money and work fewer hours than somebody working in the private sector.
Q142 Mr Davidson: In those circumstances, has the prison service been looking at building more new prisons away from the south-east where costs are lower and staff, as we find on a number of other occasions, are more reliable, notwithstanding the fact that I recognise there are questions of proximity to family and so on?
Mr Narey: That has been the case. We have been able to contract the private sector prisons on sites we have found which have been away from the south-east. It is where we have needed them for prisoners; we have not built them for the sake of it. A real challenge for the private sector is to be able to show that they can run successful and decent prisons in the south-east, for example running a prison at Ashford near to Heathrow airport, against all the wage competition which will apply there, will be a significant challenge for UKDS. I know from their proposals that they are trying to meet that by paying salaries which are much closer to public sector salaries than the salaries quoted in here for the private sector.
Q143 Mr Davidson: Closer but still lower?
Mr Narey: Closer but still lower.
Chairman: Certainly we were told at Altcourse that the average pay there was £13,000 a year and, in the words of the governor, "They had to beat away the applicants they were so heavily oversubscribed". You wonder whether Altcourse would be so successful if it were in the south-east. That is just a comment.
Q144 Mr Williams: Can you just clarify a point which is genuine misunderstanding? In Figure 9 on page 15, cost per penalty point, Ashfield is £94, Altcourse is £293. Why is the cost per point three times higher in one than in the other?
Mr Narey: It is because each penalty point regime- and I confess to having had to have a tutorial on this just this morning-is unique to that particular prison. If you want to compare how a particular prison has performed against another one, you cannot just look at the penalty points incurred, but you will see that prisons have very different base lines, that is the number of penalty points which are tolerated before a financial penalty is enforced. That again reflects the fact that we have different schemes for different prisons.
Q145 Mr Williams: Why was Ashfield set at £94? Why is it so different, particularly in view of subsequent events? The worst offender of the lot, yet it has the least disadvantageous penalty point system?
Mr Narey: It has been significantly at a disadvantage in terms of the money we have taken from it, a total of £4.2 million, as Mr Beeston said. Whatever the penalty point regime, the fact is that we have been able to use sanctions against Ashfield going way beyond the use of penalty points, in this case in closing places and saying this is not a safe enough place in which to put young prisoners so as to make a very significant financial sanction.
Q146 Mr Williams: Was the £4.2 million based just on penalty points or on other factors?
Mr Narey: No, the £4.2 million was primarily based on closing places and saying we do not think this is a place which is safe enough or good enough to meet our standard requirements so we are not going to put young people into there.
Q147 Mr Williams: Who carries the cost of having an institution which is half full of prisoners and has a full staff complement?
Mr Narey: The private sector do.
Q148 Mr Williams: Completely?
Mr Narey: Yes.
Q149 Mr Williams: What are they in the process of doing to remedy that? Is there anything they can do or is it within their control?
Mr Narey: What Premier have done at Ashfield, without wishing to embarrass her, particularly since the arrival of Vicky O'Dea, has been to bring a great deal of leadership to bear there, a great deal of leadership bringing much more confidence amongst the staff. I have seen efforts made to pay more money to retain staff. I have seen a transformation in the calibre of teaching staff at Ashfield, for example when I was there on Friday the education department was a very different place.
Q150 Mr Williams: That all sounds very good, but what went wrong to explain the fact that the level of assaults was equal to 74% of the population, so markedly unlike any of the others?
Mr Narey: Ashfield had grave difficulty in opening and coping with the population, in part because the requirements we imposed on it changed. It is only fair for me to say, as legislation changed, the requirements we put on the place changed, but it did not open successfully.