"Most important audience"
mark leech made this Freedom of Information request to Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.
Dear Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales,
The PPO's Terms of Reference (https://tinyurl.com/y58w9xgb), updated in 2017, make clear that the only people with the right of audience to complain to the PPO are prisoners, immigration detainees, and offenders who are, or have been, under probation supervision.
No-one else.
Those same Terms of Reference make clear that the Ombudsman must be 'impartial'.
Yet, on 28th March 2019 and contrary to this, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Sue McAllister tweeted her support for the public statement made by Deputy Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Kimberley Bingham, who stated that "crucially" none the above Offender or Immigration Detainee groups who possess the exclusive right of PPO audience represent the Ombudsman's 'most important audience' - that description according to Ms Bingham is reserved for Prison "Officers on the landings" who are not mentioned once in the PPO's Terms of Reference at all. (https://tinyurl.com/y273oprp)
Can you please tell me:
1. Who, in the PPO's view, are the Ombudsman's "most important audience";
2. How prison "officers on the landings" can be at the forefront of the PPOs mind when they do not as a group feature in her Terms of Reference; and
3. Was the statement of her Deputy Ms Bingham a view shared by the Ombudsman.
Thank you
Yours faithfully,
Mark Leech FRSA
Editor: The Prisons Handbook for England and Wales
@prisonsorguk
Dear Mark,
Thank you for your email. Kimberley Bingham was talking about the PPO's Learning Lessons publications and the audience for these specific bulletins/thematic reports. The Learning Lessons publications identify lessons to be learned from collective analysis of our investigations and our aim has been to encourage a greater focus on learning in order to contribute to improvements in the services we investigate, potentially helping to prevent avoidable deaths and encouraging the resolution of issues that might otherwise lead to future complaints. You will appreciate that the lessons from our investigations are to be learnt by the services in remit, and their staff "on the landings" most crucially.
Obviously, people in detention, and the circumstances of their detention, are absolutely the focus of our independent investigations. People in detention are clearly the PPO's most important audience. There are others, such as the family members of people who have died in detention, who we also know to be a key audience. But Kimberley's point was that, for our publications which set out how the services in remit can work to learn the lessons from our investigations, the services in remit - and the staff on the landings in particular - are the people we are most keen to reach. We are delighted if people in detention, their families, NGOs and others read what we have to say about the lessons that the services in remit should be learning. But it doesn't seem to us to be controversial to say that, for these specific publications, they wouldn't be the "most important audience".
I hope this is helpful.
Kind regards,
David Ireland | Policy Officer | Prisons and Probation Ombudsman
E: [email address]
www.ppo.gov.uk | Twitter: @PPOmbudsman | 10 South Colonnade, London, E14 4PU
Dear David,
Thank you for your reply - the focus is all wrong here.
I don't disagree that the 'learning lessons' are important - indeed they are vital - but the simple fact is that 'reaching the staff on the landings' is not the PPO's job.
The PPOs terms of reference are clear: their function is to investigate impartially and issue reports with lessons to be learned - but it is NOT for the PPO to go further and enter the training or cajoling arena, they are not funded for that - and it attacks their impartiality later once they have done so.
Translating the lessons to be learnt into practice, as identified by the PPO, are functions not of the PPO but of the organisations themselves, the MOJ and HMPPS.
It is for the MOJ and HMPPS, or 'services in remit' as you call them, to reach their 'staff on the landings' and ensure the lessons learned are implemented - and to be called to account by the PPO and HMIP when they fail to do so.
If the PPO tries to do this, it is just letting those organisations who are charged with implementation off the hook when they do not deliver.
The PPO needs to focus on monitoring the implementation of their recommendations by the organisations themselves who employ those 'staff on the landings', because they are the ones who need to take action and ensure compliance.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Leech
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