Reflections on the Spurr Era

It's been a couple of weeks since we heard that Michael Spurr would be departing from the MoJ and I didn't want to miss this bit of historical analysis from Rob Allen:-   

Spurr's Relegated

A few years ago, I attended a leaving do for a NOMS official with whom I’d worked closely. Michael Spurr paused his generous speech a couple of times as he wanted to be kept updated about a hostage taking incident. His warm words and care about realities on the ground- in this case thankfully resolved peacefully- show why he has been such a well-liked leader in the prison service. Having worked his way up from the wings at Armley Jail, few know or care more about prisons in this country. But there’s no getting away from the fact that his period in charge has coincided with their catastrophic decline. The probation service has all but been destroyed and the oft and much heralded development of electronic monitoring something of a fiasco.

How much responsibility should Michael bear for these failings? Not much is the emerging consensus. I agree that the lion’s share of the blame for the deterioration of prisons lies with the first three Justice Secretaries Spurr served as NOMS CEO. Kenneth Clarke offered enormous Departmental savings to the Treasury predicated on prison population falls that he could never deliver. Chris Grayling made a Faustian pact with Unions resulting in much lower levels of staffing as an alternative to privatisation as well as signing unsustainable maintenance contracts for prisons. Michael Gove’s lofty rhetoric of redemption merely acted as a distraction from the growing problems of safety and control in many jails. (Unsurprisingly an evaluation of Gove’s six Reform Prisons due this summer has not materialised)

Michael fared slightly better with his second trio of Lord Chancellors, particularly the underrated Liz Truss who managed to obtain much needed funds to recruit more staff. Davids Lidington and Gauke have continued a pragmatic approach to repairing the enormous damage inflicted by their predecessors. But Gauke has now decided that the uncomplaining Spurr should be relieved of his duties. Maybe last week’s POA action has prompted the move.

I have no doubt that Spurr will have spoken truth to power when giving advice about policy options, but as Julian LeVay has argued, his job was then to implement whatever Ministers decided. Could he have done more to blow the whistle about the likely consequences?

As accounting officer, Spurr might have sought ministerial direction about the feasibility of some of the measures he was asked to implement- particularly the probation reforms whose risks were so widely voiced in and outside government. It’s worth recalling that it was warnings about the consequences of overcrowding made by Spurr’s predecessor Phil Wheatley which forced Labour ministers to introduce a temporary early release scheme in 2007. I hope Spurr and the Permanent Secretary gave clear and explicit warnings about the impact of staffing cuts on violence, self-harm and disorder in prisons. If ministers ignored them, shame on them. But maybe that advice was not given with sufficient force.

In 2016 the National Audit Office found that Permanent Secretaries appear to lack confidence to challenge Ministers where they have concerns about the feasibility or value for money of new policies or decisions, not least because standing up to Ministers is seen as damaging to a civil servant’s career prospects. That’s nothing new. I remember when Kenneth Clarke dreamt up the absurd idea of Secure Training Centres for 12 year old persistent offenders, we officials hoped the Permanent Secretary might intervene, joking that he was “keeping his powder dry”. When he reluctantly attended a meeting with Clarke, the PS said virtually nothing other than berating me afterwards that my submission was too long.

So what are the lessons for Spurr’s successor? Prisons need a Whitehall heavy hitter able to stand up to ministers more than they do a knowledgeable and experienced practitioner. Someone like Simon Stevens who has carved out some freedom of manoeuvre as head of the NHS . And whether Probation should stay linked with Prisons should be carefully considered. Probation has not gone well in NOMS or HMPPS. I'd devolve it but lets see what the consultation brings.

Rob Allen

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Comments:-

"And whether Probation should stay linked with Prisons should be carefully considered. Probation has not gone well in NOMS or HMPPS"

It is an unequal and damaging coupling. That the CEO of HMPPS will never come from Probation ranks is an oft quoted given, and demonstrates the problem. I wonder if the D word might actually be Divorce. It's an unequal partnership where one is suffering at the hands of the other, and whose identity is being swallowed by the dominant other.

Leave! I want to cry, you are brilliant and strong and have so much to offer the world: you just need a bit of support to get back onto your feet again. The point of leaving is risky, so you need a good plan and some strong support, but you would be so much greater and happier and safer without him.

I am stretching this analogy because there is a more direct gender issue going on here too. Gauke under pressure from a resisting public servant threatened to "get macho"... an extraordinary and revealing thing to say. If we ascribed gender to Prisons and Probation, (and I suspect you could do this also by looking at the gender ratio of staff)… could we say that Probation is the departments feminine side?

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What?! I hadn't the honour to hear any of Mr Spurr's 'generous speeches', but do remember his formulaic responses to disturbances, including terrible suicides in prison. They would go something like this: to be regretted - complex prison - we are now setting up some measures for the future- here are some good things done - confidence in the governor and staff. And the suffering, with same responses, would go on and on elsewhere. Of course he had to support those working in prisons, but never any sense of the primacy of the need to fundamentally change - the politicians' responsibility I know, but they could go to bed comfortable after Mr Spurr's musings.

Grayling is doing enough to confirm his incompetence without further comment needed, but as for Ms Truss, a know-nothing do-nothing stop-gap, completely out of her depth, she has the residual function of making her successors look competent if not overly bothered by much, while a moment could have been taken to note Ken Clarke's description of the continuing iniquity of the IPP sentence, a preventive measure to keep people inside just in case they might do something in future, a measure against all notions of justice, as a 'stain on the justice system', a stain all of the above, & Gauke, are obviously perfectly at ease in letting continue. The prison service is a disgrace and starved of money by politicians who don't care is not the only issue.