MoJ Away Day 3

Yes it's yet another helping from that MoJ event last week. With an election just a couple of months away, I feel it's important we all know what's been said behind closed doors in order that blame can be laid at the correct door when the wheels inevitably come off TR - and we know they are already:- 

Man in the Pub is on form tonight - he says the big players are seeking to renegotiate the contracts already. Did someone once say "you couldn't make it up". I will let you know further when I can afford another couple of whiskys for him again. 

Your man is correct - my woman says matters referred to those damn consultants again 'for urgent advice' yes really.......

Sodexo have alerted us to a potential delay in their supply chain delivery of TTG work to the under 12 month population unless we can support this on an interim basis by using our own staff.

4th February 2015 London - Atrium Event for MoJ Staff

Chris Grayling: Great, thank you Lord Faulks, lastly but definitely not leastly, Andrew Selous the Prisons and Probation Minister.

Andrew Selous: Thank you very much, Secretary of State. I'm the newbie on the ministerial team, only appointed on the 16th of July last year, and to be honest after 13 years in the House of Commons I'd spend the previous four as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Iain Duncan Smith, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, arriving in government for the first time and I've been hugely, delighted I have to say by the incredible support I've had, not just from my private office, all of whom have given me outstanding support, but from the many, many people who I've met who’ve come in to brief me on a whole range of issues in my office, but also just as importantly I'm so conscious of the – the many, many people who do a huge amount of work for me that I never see.

I'm talking about the people who write, the ministerial correspondence, the freedom of information requests, the parliamentary questions. I know that is a massive amount of work, they're consistently of a – of a very, very high standard and I'd like to say a big thank you to, all of you who have done that work for me.

I've also been incredibly, impressed at the way in which the department has picked up and run with the issues which have been really important to me personally. One of the issues I've been concerned with is to try and make sure that the family relationships of prisoners stay strong while they're in prison, I'm supported in that belief by Chief Inspector of Prisons who did a recent thematic report saying that that was a very powerful rehabilitative factor.

The department has picked that up and run with it, we've had a day at NOMS with prison governors engaging on it, really, really pleased to see that.

I had a meeting only last week looking at what we can do to give prisoners, the second chance that they need, perhaps because the chance they didn’t get at their school in their early life in terms of their education, their literacy, their numeracy, their IT skills, and I think with the basic screening that we brought in August last year we had a real opportunity to drive that forward and not least because of the TR reforms which the Secretary of State started off with, that will make a massive difference as we continue that help, with education and with skills and with the world of work, as, offenders leave and go through the gate in – in to their supervision within the community.

It's been great to engage with all those in the transforming youth, custody team, and, the work that we’re doing on youth justice generally, I'd like to say thank you to everyone there. Those working on a whole range of reducing reoffending issues, that’s also been fantastic work. Those who work on the issue of foreign national offenders, a continuing issue of importance, one the Prime Minister takes a very close interest in. We’ll perhaps have an opportunity to take forward some of those discussions at the Global Law Summit which the Secretary of State referred to.

I'd like to pay tribute to the Estates Team, I know you've won a lot of prizes across Whitehall, when I was with the Chief Executive of my local hospital recently I asked her if the extension to my new local hospital was being, undertaken on the BIM system, the building information model, she didn’t know about it so I suggest that she put a call in to Janet Crawford of the Estates Team because I know we have huge expertise in that area here.

Earlier this morning I was over at NOMS just thanking one of the policy teams there for a piece of work that they’ve done and erm, I'd like to pay tribute to – to them as well, those involved in Public Protection.

And finally but very, very much not least, I'm generally in a prison every week. Last Thursday I went to two - Bristol and Cardiff. I try and get out as much as possible to visit our probation, officers and, our prison staff around the country who do an absolutely amazing job. I haven't yet come away from a prison or a probation office without being genuinely inspired by the things which I have seen there.

But a huge thank you, from me particularly to those of you that I haven't had the privilege of meeting who have supported me so well in my time in the department.

Chris Grayling: Well thank you Andrew and thank you to the team. And we've only talked about some of the areas today, and I know there are many of you in this room today who work for units we've not been able to talk about but the expressions of thanks go right across the whole department. Every one of you is performing an important role. Often the things that make a difference are the things that are not seen. There are many working on other important projects as well, I'm really grateful to all of you.

We are moving forward, we’re dealing with the challenges we've got, I think we’re making real progress, but it – none of this would happen without you and I'm very grateful.

I think now we’ll go over and take some questions, I think Ursula’s got one or two of the ones that have been sent in advance and then take some from the floor.

Ursula Brennan: Yes, I'm going to pick up a couple of the questions that were raised in advance and then if you be thinking about your questions, please make sure you stick your hand right up because we have some roving mics.

I'll start off with a question actually for the Secretary of State, which is a question about what direction you believe that the MOJ and the courts and tribunals will go. We know we've got these various reforms that we've got in place but what's your notion of looking beyond the election and for the longer term, where do you think, what the challenges are that the MOJ and the court service will be facing for the future?

Chris Grayling: Well so I would love to think that the financial pressures will go away after the election, but regardless of the outcome of the election they won't. So it's going to be I think a continuous process of transformation, and I think digitalisation of what we do, and there's been good work done already in the office of Public Guardian, there's good work now being done on the Common Platform Programme, I think that we’re going to have to be really cutting edge and embracing the use of digital technologies to make things work more effectively and more efficiently, and I think it's – it's inevitable that will happen.

Ursula Brennan: I've had a couple of questions in advance about pay. People have asked about the Chancellor’s autumn statement suggesting that public sector workers would have to be realistic about pay in the next parliament, and looking at the pay freeze and the 1% increase and people looking at, what's happening to people who are on the bottom of their scale and – and what will be happening to them and then people who are at the top of their scale and are not seeing pay rises, as the Secretary of State says realistically we've still got a really tough challenge after the election in the public sector because paying down the deficit is still going to require us to find more savings in public services.

When we come to look at pay we are trying to balance a number of things. We do want to shorten pay spines so people don’t perpetually find themselves hovering near the bottom of the pay spine. We do have to think about the extent to which our pay rates are consistent with what's going on in the market, and in the market pay rates do vary, according to the grades of our staff and the locations of them, so that's something that we have to try and bear in mind.

We also want to try and reward the people who are doing something extra, and we still have the ability to give people a reward in year for the people who have worked extra hard, but I know that in the next parliament that balancing act and that juggling act of a limited amount of money available for public sector pay and the different things that we’re trying to address and the need to attract and retain people with the special skills we need in the public service I'm afraid that is going to carry on being a challenge for the future. I can't see that getting hugely easier in the next few years. So I think it's important to be aware of that.

Chris Grayling: I mean, look, I know it's been a really difficult time on pay and I know it's probably gonna carry on being a really difficult time on pay, the first thing I wanted to say is that there's all kinds of stories around about politicians, about MPs and let’s just kind of clear the air from the point of minister’s pay.

The difference between ministers’ pay and your pay in terms of trends over the last five years has been this, ministers’ pay was cut by 5% in the first year, and it's remained frozen ever since, so although MPs got a 1% pay rise, that 1% pay rise was taken off our ministerial pay so we've had a ministerial pay freeze all the way through, and I think we’ll carry on doing so until we get to a point where public sector pay is improving. And that's right and proper and I support that, I would not want to stand in front of you having personally got a whacking pay rise and you guys not, that will not happen as long as I'm Secretary of State.

You know we have faced and will continue to face difficult financial decisions. Things are moving in the right direction in my view, but I would by lying to you if I said all the difficult challenges were behind us because they're not.

But, what Ursula has said is right, we will always do what we can on the pay front but you can only deal with the world as it is rather than how you would like it to be.

Ursula Brennan: Okay. Let’s see if we can take some questions from the floor, so if you've got questions, could you put your hands up please and I'll also carry on with the questions that have been supplied in advance.