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Issue No. 85 Autumn 2021
Paul Laxton
It is amazing how the time rolls by so very quickly, and I find myself in the position that it is time for the Autumn 2021 edition of the Retired Prison Governor Newsletter to be put together and sent off for printing and publication. So as I sit here with the days growing longer, and the temperature slowly falling, it is not hard to turn my mind to the past few months and think about all that has passed.
First of all thank you for your responses to my first outing as editor for the Spring 21 edition. As I received no correspondence demanding that I give up the role immediately, and to never darken the pages of the Newsletter again, I have decided to give it another go.
You will recall that the reason that I took over the role of editor was because Paul Laxton had, understandably, decided to stand down from the role in order to concentrate on caring for his wife Lennie, who had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. Sadly, Lennie’s condition deteriorated quite quickly, and she died on the 15th of June. I know that many of you, when you heard the news, have contacted Paul with your own personal messages of sympathy, and I also know that Paul is very grateful to all those who did make contact with him.
Paul has written of his experiences during this time, and the terrible effects of going through such a traumatic event, at a time when lockdown and restrictions were in force.
You will also recall that in view of the fact that our colleague John Dring had also recently died of this terrible disease, I took the step of publishing a quiz, and asking for a donation with every entry, which would be match funded from the RPGA with the total proceeds donated to the Motor Neurone Association association in John’s, and as it sadly turned out, Lennie’s memories.
Unfortunately it would seem that the readership of the Newsletter are not particularly keen on quizzes, or maybe the questions were set at an obscure level. Whatever the reason may have been the result was
that I only received one entry, from John Rumball, and whilst John did not get all the answers correct, he was, by default, the winner. I did however receive a letter from a member informing me that whilst she did not wish to partake in the quiz she was enclosing a cheque for £100 as a donation. John was also kind enough to not only include a £10 donation with his entry, but also donated his prize as well. Mike Lewis, who set the quiz, and put up the prize money, also agreed that this should be donated to the charity. We also received an additional donation of £95 and so with match funding from the RPGA this meant that we were able to make a donation to The Motor Neurone Disease Association of £500. Their letter of thanks is produced on Page 6
To add to this, within the past week the Prison Governors Association have held their National Conference, the first for 2-years, and because of the connection with Paul Laxton, (ex NEC member and former conference chair), and the RPGA, they also nominated MNDA to be the Conference Charity. Over the 3-days of conference they raised £4450 for the charity through a combination of donations from exhibitors, a raffle, a donation from the Prison Service Charity Fund and delegates donating their T&S claims. So in all, in memory of John and Lennie, almost £5000 has been donated to help toward seeking a cure, and helping to support sufferers, and their families, of this terrible illness.
It would appear that whilst many of us who have served in Prison Establishments over the years, have at one time or another, turned our thoughts to writing a book about our experiences, some of our colleagues have got down to work, and actually written the book that we all think is in us.
Last month’s Newsletter carried a comprehensive review from Paul Laxton of Brendan O’Friel’s book The Prison Governor. Brendan and I have been in correspondence, and we hope to be able to publish an extract in a future edition of the Newsletter. In the meantime Brendan has graciously given permission for me to publish his introduction to the book, which you will find on Page 23.
Brendan also tells me that sales of the book are doing very well and that reviews have appeared in several publications including a very favourable one in the Howard Journal. He has also indicated that as news of the book has spread he has received correspondence from some very interesting people and that he may very well have something of interest for a future edition of the Newsletter. Also included in this section is a picture of Brendan at the launch of the book on the Isle of Man.
In this edition we are also publishing another extract from Bob Duncan’s self published auto-biography. In this extract Bob is off to university.
In the last edition I published an appeal for information from former Governor, Peter Atkinson, who was researching the events of 1986 at HMP Gloucester, when uniformed staff effectively walked out of the prison, and a group of Governor Grades were drafted in to run the establishment. Peter is grateful to those of you who provided him with information, and he has now completed, and published his piece on the subject. I am very grateful to Peter for granting permission for me to publish his work, which you will find on pages 8 to15. The only editing that I have done to this piece is to remove the glossary of terms, as I felt the readership of this Newsletter would have a full understanding of the terminology.
Last, but by no means least, we have a short memoir from Colin Ring, as he remembers his years in the service, and some of the people he met along the way. Within the past two weeks I have had the honour of acting as the Chair for the 33rd Prison Governors Association Annual Conference held at The Radisson Blu Hotel, East Midlands Airport, where we also held the RPGA Annual General meeting. For both events this was the first opportunity since October 2019 for members to meet in person with the restrictions of Covid ensuring that the 2020 PGA Conference or the RPGA AGM were not able to take place.
As I chaired the PGA Conference I was struck by the strongest of feelings of Deja Vu, as I listened to the motions that had been put forward for debate, and I started to get the distinct feeling that it is indeed possible to travel back through time, as many of the issues raised were indeed items on the agenda at the last conference I attended as an NEC member in 2007. I was struck by the fact that it is quite clear that the Prison Service of today is a very different service to the one I retired from in 2011, which in itself was a very different service to the one I joined in 1976.
It is to be expected that issues of pay will always be at the forefront of any PGA Conference but I found it unnerving to discover that whilst the grading structure may have changed beyond my recognition, the issues of pay remain very much the same. Required Hours Allowance (RHA) is still an issue and complicated by the situation, caused by Covid, where many of the Governor Grades in Non-Prison posts had been working from home, whilst those in Prison
Establishments had not only not been able to do so, but indeed their workloads had in many cases increased. This had led to calls from some for some form of Operational Allowance, something that was being discussed back in 2007. In addition many of the issues regarding pay that were supposed to have been addressed by the Job Evaluation process, actually still remain, and this was reflected in conference motions seeking clarity about a specific allowance for Deputy Governors, and about grade management issues.
There was considerable disquiet that in 2020, yet again the Government had failed to honour the pay award recommended by the Pay Review Body, and that it seemed likely that with the government announcing that Civil Service pay would be “paused” then this year would be the same story of no pay rise, or at best some adjustments to allowances. It was also lamented that the Prison Service seems incapable of ensuring that their submission to the Pay Review Body is delivered “on time”. Again, these were issues being discussed in 2007.
When I was a member of the NEC one of our constant complaints was that Prisons Ministers changed with a frequency that was both disruptive to the service, and showed how low down the list of priorities the Prison Service, and Criminal Justice in general actually sits. On the list of resolutions for debate at the 2021 conference was a motion calling on the Government to treat the Prisons Portfolio as a higher priority, and for some stability in its ministerial appointments.
As if to highlight this point for the current day, a new Prisons Minister had been appointed to post only 2- weeks prior to the conference. The minister, Victoria Atkins, had been invited to address conference, and indeed had accepted, only to call off at very short notice. She did however send a video message to conference, so brief and lacking in any content that it left the National Executive Committee, and delegates, stunned into silence. For those of you who can remember the sitcom Are You Being Served, it was very reminiscent of the appearance that used to be made by “Old Mr Grace” the owner in the shop, where he was wheeled through the store at a fast pace to tell everyone, “You Are All Doing A Wonderful Job” before disappearing again.
The real problem is that as well as being Prisons Minister, Victoria Atkins also has responsibility for all the issues to do with Afghan Refugees, so it is quite clear that for the foreseeable future her priorities will lie elsewhere.
Recruitment was another issue raised through conference resolutions and it was not surprising to learn that the Prison Service is struggling to both recruit, and retain staff at all levels, but in particular at what we would know as Officer level, now I believe known as Grade 3.
What I was surprised to learn was that not only is recruitment centralised, but has also been “contracted out” with staff recruited and trained with little or no input from establishments and the first time the establishment gets to see these staff is when they turn up at the gate, to report not for training, but for duty.
I was amazed to hear stories from establishments of members of staff allocated to them, who clearly have serious mental health issues, including self-harm, and that managing those members of staff is eating up valuable time and resources. One conference resolution was simply calling for it to be made part of the recruitment process that establishments get to interview candidates before they are accepted for training and posting.
There were however some lighter moment as the old chestnut of Governors wearing uniform was raised-yet again, although everyone was thankful that the other old chestnut of governor grades carrying batons did not make it to the list of resolutions on this occasion. What became very clear to me was that the past 18- months or so have been a very difficult and challenging time for prison service staff, and in particular for those people serving in operational posts in prison establishments. It is clear that the reason that Covid did not run rampant through our prisons, as was feared, was due almost entirely to the hard work and dedication of staff at all levels within prisons. One of the ways that this was achieved was through severe reduction in regimes, and a (not totally unexpected) bonus from this has been a significant reduction in incidents of violence, assaults and self harm.
However, I fear that the real problems are yet to come. As regimes start to open up, incidents of violence are already on the rise, and an added problem to contend with is that some junior staff, who took up post during the Covid Restriction period, and therefore have only ever worked under the restricted regime, now find that they do not like having to actually deal with the “real world” and are leaving, in quite significant numbers. So to our colleagues who are still managing our prisons I say thank you, and good luck for the future. As has become the norm, the RPGA held the Annual General Meeting at the same time and venue, generously supported financially by the PGA. Like them, we were meeting in person for the first time in 2-years. Unfortunately, but perhaps understandably, attendance was very poor, with only 1 member, (Eoin McLellan-Murray) other than committee members, attending in person, and only 3-people attending via ZOOM.
With this in mind it is perhaps not surprising that the meeting was not a long one. However the business of the association was conducted as required by the constitution which included the election of committee members.
Three committee places were due for re-election including the Treasurers position. All three existing committee members agreed to serve again and as there were no other proposed candidates Graham Mumby-Croft was re-elected as Treasurer, Harry Brett as Membership Secretary and Paul Laxton as Newsletter Editor.
There was only one other resolution and it was proposed by Graham Smith and Seconded by Eoin McLellan-Murray that a list of members names be published on the RPGA website. The resolution was passed. A full report on the AGM, and a copy of the minutes will be available on the website, and in the next edition of the newsletter.
This is the last of a very short run of The Newsletter to present to you, the membership. I do hope that you enjoy it, and please remember when reading these articles, if you think you have a better story to tell, or indeed think you are a better writer, then this is your Newsletter and the contents are in your hands. So please feel free to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, write an article and send it to Paul. The deadline for the next edition is the beginning of March 2022, so don’t be shy, start writing, you are “almost” guaranteed to be published. Paul can be contacted by email at relaxpaul@btinternet.com
Graham Mumby-Croft
(This Edition)
From the Editor
