Prison Privatisation Report International

No. 65, November 2004

Published by the Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), University of Greenwich, London, England. 
www.psiru.org/justice
This publication is supported by a grant from the Foundation Open Society Institute.

UNITED KINGDOM
Private sector: lower pay, longer hours, higher turnover

Average hourly basic pay for private sector prison and detention custody officers in England and Wales is 43% less than their public sector counterparts receive, a recent and as yet unpublished official study reveals.

The Prison Service Pay Review Body hired consultants to research comparative wages and conditions for staff in public and private sector prisons in England and Wales. The data helps formulate the basis of the government’s annual pay award for public sector prison staff.

At the time of the research four companies were involved in operating ten privately run prisons and five immigration centres:

• GSL - three prisons, four immigration centres.
• Premier Custodial Group (Serco) - four prisons.
• Securicor Justice Services - one prison.
• UK Detention Services - two prisons, one immigration centre.

Extracts of the report’s main findings, dated September 2004, are set out below. The figures are based on details of pay and conditions as at 12 July 2004 and include privately run prisons and immigration detention centres.

The study compares the pay and benefits of staff in typical operational roles with those in the prison service. It also assesses the effectiveness of the private sector employment packages in attracting and retaining the staff they need in their local markets.

Private prison operators submitted details except for UK Detention Services (UKDS). The company declined on the basis that “ … all prisons would be market tested over the next few years, they see the prison service as a direct business competitor. In the light of that they feel that the information they have normally given to us would now compromise their competitive position.”

The study incorporated UKDS pay and benefits, but not recruitment and retention, data from published sources or extrapolation from 2003 information.

The report was made available to members of the review body, prison service management and staff representatives and to the private companies who participated in the survey. “We have assured the companies that in using and reporting on the information they gave us, we would be able to safeguard their legitimate commercial interests. In line with our assurances, and indeed our normal practice in dealing with confidential information, this report therefore contains no information about named individual companies or employees.”

The following table shows how far prison service pay leads that of comparable private sector jobs for roles up to senior officer level. Differentials have narrowed slightly at all levels.

Pay Comparisons – Operational Support Grade, Officer and Senior Officer Levels

% Lead of Prison Service over Private Sector Pay (Based on Hourly Rates)
(2003 % figures in brackets)

However, within the South East [of England], prison officers receive locality payments varying between £1,100 and £4,000 a year. By comparison, in the private sector:

• The average starting pay of prison custody officers (PCOs) and detention custody officers (DCOs) in the South of England is some £2,700 higher than elsewhere. But the average current basic pay for such private sector staff is less than £1,000 higher than elsewhere.
• In comparison, based on the hourly rates, a prison officer recruit outside the South of England joining at the minimum receives nearly 20% more pay than his or her private sector counterpart.

We believe the public/private sector differences are explained by the following two principal factors:

• Pay costs are the largest element in the costs of managing a prison or immigration centre. In order to compete successfully to win or retain contracts while remaining profitable, the companies are therefore under sharp pressures to keep pay costs down, while still attracting, retaining and motivating staff.
  
  This is not to say that the prison service is not under any such pressures but there is a wider range of factors that influence pay settlements: for example relativities with other parts of the public sector.

• The private companies all have freedom to gear their pay specifically to the local market in which each prison or centre has to operate. While the prison service does operate a local pay policy in London and the South East, pay is otherwise national.

In addition, prison officers have much longer average length of service than their private sector counterparts and have a long pay scale up which to progress. There has been some increase in pay progression in the private sector since last year. But while, most privately managed prisons and centres now have some form of progression, none currently has progression of more than about £3,000 and in several cases it is much more limited.

The following table shows how far private sector pay leads that of comparable jobs in the prison service for the more senior roles.

Pay Comparisons – Principal Officers, Managers and Governor Levels

% Lead of Private Sector Pay over Prison Service

* Some comparable prison service jobs are at Manager G or F level but most are Principal Officers
** Based on average salaries of Managers E in operational roles – 2003 figures for Managers E are estimated
*** Based on average salaries of Senior Managers in Governing Governor roles in broadly comparable prisons – this breakdown was not available last year.


The main points are:

• Private sector pay for middle managers remains nearly 10% higher than that of principal officers but the jobs are also slightly larger in the privately managed prisons.
• At Head of Function level the private sector roles are also slightly higher but the pay lead is only 5%.
• At governor/director level, directors pay, including any bonuses, leads by 29% that of governors of broadly comparable establishments to those in the private sector (based on numbers of staff and prisoners).
• The Prison Governors Association and some individual governors expressed concern to us about the rate of pay progression available for new governing governors and the competitiveness of salaries for good staff.

Hours

Average contracted weekly working hours have slightly reduced in the private sector to just under 41, varying between 39 and 44, compared with 39 in the prison service.

Benefits

The Table below shows how the prison service’s superior pension and holiday benefits increase the overall lead over private sector salaries at senior officer level and below based on hourly rates. Private sector benefits have shown little change, though holidays have slightly increased in some establishments.

% Lead of Prison Service over Private Sector Pay (Based on Hourly Rates) With and Without Valuation of Pension and Holiday Benefits
(2003 values in brackets)

• The value of pension schemes for public sector operational support grades and prison officers is 7.5 % and 9.5% respectively more than their private sector counterparts.
• The contributions for prison service staff give them guaranteed benefits whereas those for most private sector staff do not.
• The prison service retirement age is 60 whereas it is 65 for many company staff.
• Prison service staff receive an average of around seven more days holiday than the average for their private sector counterparts.
  

The next Table shows how the lead of the private sector over the prison service at middle and senior management levels is affected by private sector cars and medical insurance and by prison service pension and holiday benefits. However, these figures may in practice somewhat understate the advantage of prison service pensions.

% Lead of Private Sector Pay over Prison Service
With and Without Valuation of Pension and Holiday Benefits
(2003 figures in brackets)*

*Notes to Tables 2 also apply

Job Security

There have been no developments to change our views that:

• Private sector prison jobs are only slightly less secure than those in the prison service for most staff.
• Companies’ contracts from the immigration service to run immigration centres are often more temporary in nature, so there is inherently less job security.

Recruitment and Retention

• Generally the average private sector package is sufficient to enable companies to recruit the staff they need, but it is under pressure at several establishments.
• The overall average resignation rate of 25% PCOs/DCOs is the same as last year and remains high. But equally the prison service resignation rate is exceptionally low (2.6 % for prison officers).
• Among establishments that have been open for five years or more the average resignation rate of PCOs/DCOs was 19%. For more recent establishments it was 34%.
• There was little difference between the average resignation rate for PCO/DCOs at establishments in the South of England and for those elsewhere. There were, however, considerable variations between individual establishments: the highest resignation rate of PCOs/DCOs at any establishment was 43% and the lowest 11%. Neither of these is in the South of England.
• Resignations of OSGs and equivalent averaged 37% of staff in post compared with 7% of OSGs in the prison service.
• While the establishments with the best retention rates tend to be those in areas of higher unemployment and lower house prices, those with greater retention problems are not confined to the South East. Newer establishments tend to have the highest turnover.
• Several establishments report recruitment and retention difficulties. Again these are not confined to the South of England. Economic development and the rapid house price growth in the Midlands and North have made labour markets more competitive in almost all areas.
• While there are several reasons for turnover, including age, length of service and the stability of establishments, a further important factor is competition from much more highly paid jobs in the prison, police and probation services where the skills learnt by PCOs and OSG equivalents are directly relevant.
• The reward package and the absence of much opportunity for pay progression at some establishments have contributed to turnover.
• Nonetheless, vacancies among PCOs/DCOs averaged some 4% of average staff in post, slightly down on last year and less than for prison officers in the prison service (5.2%). As noted last year, this is surprising, as the very low voluntary wastage rates in the prison service would suggest that vacancies should on average be fewer.
• 2% of PCOs/DCOs (36) were dismissed during the year, some being those who did not satisfy initial training standards. 1% of prison officers were dismissed and 6% of OSG equivalent were dismissed (12-half of these at one establishment) compared with 1.4% in the prison service.
  

Sickness Absence

Sickness absence in the last year averaged some nine days a year per PCO/DCO in the private sector establishments compared with an average of 12 last year. We do not know if the reduction is due to specific initiatives or to differences in recording.

The average sickness absence rate for prison officers was 16 days a year in the same period (down from 18 last year). Apart from possible recording differences, the difference from the private sector is likely to be at least partly because:

• The sick pay arrangements in the private sector are notably less generous.
• Employees in the private sector are younger.
• Nearly three quarters of the [private] prisons and centres do not give sick pay for an initial period after an employee is recruited, varying between six months and three months.
• Two thirds of the 14 prisons and centres do not give sick pay for the first three or five days of sickness in any episode. However, in some establishments these ‘waiting days’ may be waived if the employee has had no sickness absence in the previous 12 months.
• Sick pay is based on full pay in establishments except one where half pay is paid after an initial period on full pay.
• Some companies also give free membership of schemes that will provide 50% or 60% of full pay to employees who are prevented from working beyond a six-month period.
• By contrast, prison service staff can receive full pay for six months, with the possibility of as pension lump sum on ill health retirement in the event of long term incapacity. This is significantly better than for private sector staff without access to permanent health insurance but affects only a small minority of staff.
• All companies provide free medical insurance to function heads and directors and about two thirds to middle managers. The value of this may be estimated at, say, £1,000.

Source: Privately Managed Custodial Services, DLA MCG Consulting, Prison Service Pay Review Body, September 2004.

Parc prison: independent board’s concerns

The Independent Monitoring Board for Securicor-run Parc prison raised serious concerns in its recently published report for the period 1 March 2003 to 29 February 2004 (see PPRI # 64, 63, 60, 56, 48, 44-42, 38, 34, 30, 29, 23 & 21-18).

The Board noted that, following the escape of a prisoner on 10 October 2003 and the prison’s poor ‘key performance indicator’ performance, Parc found itself at #132 on the prison service’s performance standard weighted scorecard in February 2004. “Not only was this six places from the bottom but also the lowest position of any of the contracted prisons in England and Wales.”

An action plan was agreed between Securicor, which opened the prison in 1997, and the Office for Contracted Prisons with various targets set to improve the performance in numerous areas including:

• security of doors and gates;
• prisoner movements within the establishment;
• communications room;
• incident reporting system;
• vehicle searching;
• security issues;
• level of MDT [mandatory drug test] positives;
• segregation staff training;
• regimes;
• programmes and resettlement;
• dental treatment;
• response to requests and complaints;
• support to other Securicor contracts;
• staff attrition;
• staff deployment;
• accuracy and availability of information received by the Controller;
• standards of cleanliness and general housekeeping;
• accurate contractual information particularly staffing numbers.

The board also noted that staff morale continued to be an issue throughout the period; “the high staff sickness levels particularly amongst uniformed staff are perhaps indicative of this. The Board again urges Securicor Justice Services to overcome this problem.”

Other impacts on staffing were the contract won by Securicor to repatriate illegal immigrants. Parc staff assisted at the early stage of the contract by using their rest days and annual leave. The Action Plan requires the Director to provide advance warning of any redeployment and provide a written undertaking as to how staff are to be replaced.

“In terms of lock downs using the smaller units to minimise disruptions to the least numbers of prisoners is not the appropriate answer.”

The Board was also “totally frustrated by the lack of visible means of identification of staff within the prison. This problem was highlighted in the last annual report and the Board urges Securicor Justice Services to resolve this problem.

Other issues included:

• Juvenile Remand Unit
  “The fact that the Youth Justice Board Placement Section repeatedly failed to fill the Juvenile Remand Unit is a matter of grave concern. So too is the fact that despite numerous vacancies, Welsh boys on remand to Welsh Courts are held at HMYOI Ashfield. This is neither sensible nor cost effective. If nothing else it defeats one of the criteria behind the decision to locate a juvenile remand unit in Wales: the need to house Welsh youngsters as close to their home and local community as possible. Action must be taken to resolve this regrettable situation. The average population figures for the 2003 – 2004 period are no better. The Board again urges the Youth Justice Board to ensure that Welsh boys on remand from Welsh Courts are housed near their homes.”
  
• Contractual Obligations: Purposeful Activity and Hours Out of Cell
  “Securicor Justice Services has again failed to meet its contracted obligations for purposeful activity and out of cell hours. While the Independent Monitoring Board recognises that there has been some improvement in delivery levels over previous years, it trusts that SJS will meet the action plan target set by the Office for Contracted Prisons by the end of May 2004.”
  
• Skills
  “It is disappointing that aside from Carpentry and Metalwork (Welding etc) no really useful skills are taught…” While the Board accepts that it is often impractical to provide training in many instances especially for those who are only in Parc for short periods of time, it argues that if the population is to expand further, more meaningful (‘purposeful’) activities must be developed…”
  
  There are insufficient serious work programmes and there is a limit to the number of cleaners and food servers that can be deployed. While the complex operates well on the whole, slow and inefficient movements of prisoners lead to drastically shortened hours of activity. It should however be noted that this state of affairs had improved somewhat at the end of the reporting period.

• Healthcare Provision - Juvenile Remand Unit
  In the 2002-03 report the Board expressed its concern at the lack of separate healthcare provision for boys residing in the Juvenile Remand Unit: “Unfortunately this state of affairs still exists and the Board urges the Youth Justice Board to rectify the situation as soon as possible”
  
• Dental Care
  The Board continued to receive a significant number of complaints from prisoners about the provision of dental services. “At the end of the reporting period there were 124 prisoners on the urgent waiting list and 53 on the routine list. Primecare Forensic Medical Services have been instructed to recruit an additional dentist and reduce the waiting list significantly by the end of April 2004. The Board expects the target of 59 on the dental waiting list by the end of April 2004 to be met.”
  
• Deaths in Custody - Outstanding Inquests
  There are seven inquests outstanding into deaths in custody at Parc. One dates back as far as 21 September 2002. The final inquest into the death in custody of a 17 year-old trainee, who was found dead in his cell on 6 October 2002, has also not been held. “The Board requests that the Coroner for Mid Glamorgan holds this inquest as soon as possible.”
  
• Prisoner Representation at Race Relations Meetings
  “… despite the fact it is a mandatory requirement, there is still sporadic prisoner representation at these meetings. The Board asks Securicor Justice Services to actively recruit inmate participation at these meetings.”
  
• Self-harm continues to be a serious problem. “Although the numbers placed on the ‘at risk’ register each month is fairly stable at around 50, the proportion of those that actually self-harm is variable, but typically between 14 and 34 in the Adult / YO population and between 1 and 7 in the Juvenile Remand Unit. As last year the numbers increase when the Juvenile Remand Unit is fully populated.
  
  “The sad fact is that with a large, and it has to be said not very intimate institution like Parc, with inmates from difficult backgrounds, it is always going to be a struggle to manage this issue, staff should be commended for what they are able to achieve in difficult circumstances.
  
  “There was only a small minority of racial problems/incidents. These varied from two to nine per month, which were reported to the Race Relations Liaison Officer, they were then investigated and dealt with quite quickly. Unemployment was a major issue throughout the prison as a whole, but within the minority ethnic population it has been even more difficult. This year the rise in unemployment was attributed to more minority ethnic prisoners coming into the establishment.”

• Reportable Incidents
  There were 868 reportable incidents during the period. “This represents a huge increase (77.9%) over the previous year’s figure of 488 incidents. There has been an element of under reporting in the previous year, this has been identified in the Action Plan, the staff training log in the use of the LIDS Reporting System is being inspected on a monthly basis by the Controllers team. There is also a target of two failures to comply with PSO 1400 by the end of May 2004; eight failures were recorded at the end of February.
  
  There has been a significant rise in two particular areas (assaults and prisoner self harm), an increase of over 50% on the previous year’s figures. It should be noted however that a number of inmates self-harmed twice or even three times a day. The escape on 10 October 2003 led to an Unannounced Security Audit Visit by the Office for Contracted Prisons on 6 and 7 January 2004, this resulted in an ‘Adequately Managed’ rating. Unfortunately, three inmates died while in custody during the reporting period, two died after a period of illness and another was found unconscious in his cell, toxicology tests are awaited into the cause of this death. At the time of writing this report there are seven inquests outstanding into deaths in custody at HMP / YOI Parc, one dates back as far as 21st September 2002. The Board is extremely concerned at the length of time it takes to hold a final inquest into deaths in custody in the Mid Glamorgan area.
  
  There were 132 reportable incidents on the Juvenile Unit during the reporting period this compares with 75 incidents in the first nine months the unit was operational (March to November 2002). The number of drug finds and damage to cells, furniture and equipment rose considerably.

• Adjudications
  As is the case in all contracted out establishments, the Controller, Deputy Controller and Assistant Controller carry out adjudications at HMP & YOI Parc. Following the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling which removed the right of the Controller’s team to award “added days” to prisoners, any adjudications which may result in this form of punishment are adjourned for the Independent Adjudicator. They conducted 1,907 adjudications during the reporting period; a rise of 458 on the number carried out in the previous reporting period.

HMP & YOI Parc, Sixth Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) to the Secretary of State, 1 March 2003 to 29 February 2004. www.homeoffice.gov.uk/justice/prisons/imb/annual2004.html (The IMB provides a voluntary ‘watchdog’ role on behalf of ministers and the general public providing lay and independent oversight.)

ENDS

Prison Privatisation Report International
Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU)
Business School, University of Greenwich
Park Row, London SE10 9LS, England
Internet: www.psiru.org/justice
Email: ppri@dsl.pipex.com