Q36 Mr. Dave Anderson: Can I move on to the efficiency of the prison service? One of the things that we have been made aware of is the fact that there has been a remit on the prison service to move towards being more representative of the prison service and the population and there is a massive imbalance and (a) how big an issue is that and (b) what is being done to try and address that problem?

Mr Chivers: It is a serious issue. The Director of the Prison Services is on record as saying that he regrets that there was not a Patten type provision for the Northern Ireland prison service. The position at the moment is that from recollection I think it is about 10% of the staff are Catholic. The position is gradually improving because what is happening is that they are taking on auxiliary grades in addition to prison officers. There is very little movement in the prison officer population but they are taking in auxiliary grades and the auxiliary grades are being recruited in a fair and open recruitment process, which is bringing in some more Catholics, so I think the overall proportion is improving. But at the moment you are faced with an overwhelming population of discipline officers and it will take a long time for that to change.

Q37 Lady Hermon: Just for the record, Mr Chivers, would you like to explain to the Committee and the wider public how it is that the prison service has been so dominated by Protestant prisoners? Has it been as a result of intimidation or has it been as a result of any discrimination within the prison service itself? Was there any evidence of that?

Mr Chivers: You are going back into history, Lady Hermon. I am sure it would be true to say that there was a time when nationalists would not be willing to serve in the prison service and it is very understandable why the situation is as it is - there is no blame attaching to that, but that is the starting point.

Q38 Mr. Dave Anderson: How are you going to move forward in a way that is necessary when you have a workforce who do not want to be up and away because they are getting relatively good terms and conditions, and you also have a situation where the prison service compared to the rest of the United Kingdom is effectively massively overstaffed. You have a dilemma there that you have people who do not want to go and on a pure numbers game you should not be bringing anybody else in.

Mr Chivers: There will be a demand for increasing numbers because of the prison population increasing. So I think the strategy of the prison service is sound in that what it is trying to do is not to recruit any additional prison officers but to recruit auxiliary grades who are much more economical and do a number of the duties, with the hope that the prison officer population can then be trained up to do the more extensive range of duties, involving more interaction with the prisoners and more developmental work, which is what you expect a prison officer paid more than £30,000 a year to do.

Rosie Cooper: How will you change the religious make-up, if you like? You addressed the problem in response to Lady Hermon about the Catholic community not wanting to - that the same problem was evident in the police force and that has been addressed. I understand that you do not want to take on extra employees but there must be some strategy to try and deal over time with that balance.

This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee. Neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.

Promoted by Paul Foy on behalf of Dave Anderson, both of St Cuthbert's Church Hall, Shibdon Road, Blaydon, NE21 5PT