Q18 Mr. Dave Anderson: I can understand what you are saying about the move from prison officers to night support officers and to prison escorts, but what are the plans where you are replacing like with like, so when prison officers retire and you need to replace them doing full prison officer jobs is there a programme in place then which has a differential between new staff doing a full job and people who retire?

Mr Phillips: What there is is an agreement between the Prison Service and the main union concerned about staff reductions over the period associated with a pay deal, which helps over the period. I do not want to exaggerate the impact of this, but it helps over the period to start moving in the direction which you and your colleagues have identified as the correct direction of travel. It of course follows that new entries to the main grade officer cadre come in at a much lower level on the relevant scale, but that is not to say, because I do not want to mislead you, that there are two different scales in operation creating, if you like, a dual market because it simply has not been possible to negotiate that.

Mr. Dave Anderson: Can I raise something else in the same area? When we were there, it was just the start of the health provision in prisons being provided from the Health Service as opposed to being internal. Can you please tell us where you are on that now?

Q19 Chairman: Yes, is that working smoothly?

Mr Phillips: It is certainly working smoothly in broad terms, yes. It is a transition which only took place a few months ago formally -

Q20 Chairman: And it was much delayed.

Mr Phillips: -- and it was delayed and there was a lot of work done to try and see that the transfer would be as smooth as possible. I think it is fair to say, as I said to the Chairman, in broad terms it is working smoothly, but as you would expect there are all sorts of day by day little problems to iron out. But at this point, I think Robin Masefield would say that it was going as well as could reasonably have been expected in this timescale.

Q21 Mr. Dave Anderson: So there might be operational issues, but it is not bureaucracy problems or resistance?

Mr Phillips: I will just check with Nick Perry, because he is the best person. (Pause) Yes.

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 here.

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