Q103 Mr. Dave Anderson: What sorts of numbers [of paramilitary prisoners] are we talking about?

Mr Cromie: Republicans 39, Loyalists 42, but there are numerous sub-groups within that; 39 and 42, as of yesterday.

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Q117 Mr. Dave Anderson: On support staff, last week we were talking about auxiliary staff being moved in to replace prison officers; what is the practical difference between them in a day-to-day role and what is the difference in things like terms and conditions?

Mr Cromie: At this moment in time, we have employed night custody officers who work a 44-hour week, seven nights on, seven days off. I will make a certain stab in the dark here, I think they are paid about £21,000, £22,000, around that salary range. We have just started recruiting and training new PECCS officers to do the court escorts and to take over the magistrates' courts. We already run the High Courts in Northern Ireland. I believe their salary range is about £18,000, £19,000.

Mr McAleer: About £14,000 or £15,000.

Mr Cromie: About £14,000 or £15,000. I am led to believe we will be employing operational support grade; there will be a competition later this year. I have heard a figure of about 230, 240 that will be taken on. I am led to believe that their salary range will be about £21,000, £22,000. Current basic grade prison officers, I believe it is two-tier, I think the older prison officers, who are on different terms and conditions, then the last batch who came in some years ago they can go to a maximum, I believe, of £34,000 and the second-tier prison officers are on about £28,000, so there is a substantial difference. In essence, night custody officers and PECCS officers and the operational support grade officers, when they come in, will have very limited prisoner contact.

Mr McAleer: Probably the PECCS staff have more prisoner contact, actually quite a lot of contact, because they are in the dock with the prisoners and also they keep them in their holding cells, and they are pretty poorly paid in relation to even the night auxiliary officers. That might be a problem for us later on.

Mr Cromie: Our stance at the start of this whole process, whenever the High Courts decided they were going to have three different types of support staff, our argument was, no, have one type of support staff so that you can move them between the three different jobs, because there will be times when you will be short on nights and at the moment if you are short on nights you are going to have to bring in real prisoner officers to help out on a night guard. I think it is a missed opportunity and if you had a generic grade of support staff working in courts and on nights and doing the jobs that have been identified at operational support grade, our view was that would be a much better way of doing it.

Q118 Chairman: That is a very interesting point. Could you let us have a little paper on that, could you put your thoughts down, because we would like to take due note of that for when we come to do our report?

Mr Cromie: Yes.

Chairman: I do not want to get bogged down in it now, but it is a very, very important point and we would be grateful. Thank you very much.

Q119 Mr. Dave Anderson: Within that could you give us a note on how well you are recruiting, because I would have thought, if you are offering somebody £14,000, £15,000 that is not very good money for a job like that?

Mr Cromie: In Northern Ireland, we had initially 5,000 enquiries and 2,500 applied for 65 posts.

Mr McAleer: I think we are going to have a problem with turnover.

Mr Cromie: I think they have done it the wrong way round, in that the people who have been recruited for the Court Service are on the lowest wages and the people who are going to be on the highest they are recruiting last, and to the best of my knowledge everybody who was training to become a PECCS officer is also going to apply to become an operational support officer, so we could end up with nobody running the courts.

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.

The full transcript may be read at http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmniaf/uc520-ii/uc52002.htm

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