Real Business

A fascinating document has just fallen into my hands, which goes some way to explaining why it costs £35,000 a year to keep each prisoner behind bars.

It is the checklist of 39 “mandatory actions” that prison governors must perform every time they want to employ a new member of staff. If you think this could be done by the simple expedient of putting an advert in the local paper and interviewing a few applicants, I’m afraid you’re out of touch with best employment practice in the modern and socially aware public sector.

Imagine you are a governor needing a part-time worker in the kitchens. First, you must consult the trade unions – an essential duty whenever there is to be any change in the number of staff.

Once that’s done, governors must give assurance that “consideration has been given to the transfer of any surplus staff and any staff for whom a managed appointment (including compassionate) has been identified”. In other words: have you got a screw who’s been off sick and can be transferred to a cushy job in the kitchens?

If not, on you go. You must open an A4 file relating to the appointment. This way, there’s somewhere you can keep all the documents just in case you overlook an applicant who then takes you to a discrimination tribunal. If you have a large prison and a high turnover of staff, I hope you have a very large filing cabinet.

Don’t let it be said that the bureaucracy is over-prescriptive. From what I can see, you are free to choose the colour of the file you use. The same is not true of the members of the interview panel you appoint to deal with the new appointment. Next task: make sure “efforts have been made to ensure that panel membership reflects the prison service principles on diversity”.

Not only must your panel strike the correct ethnic balance; all members
of the selection panel must have been trained in selection procedures to help “support and guide candidates through the process”.

Now you may place an advert for the job – but only in accordance with the standard template. No using your own initiative!

Next, the delicate business of sifting through the applications and selecting candidates. Remove the “ethnic monitoring” pages from the rear of the application form and score applicants in merit order according to the “model sift evaluation form”.

It’s vital to do this in the right order: you may only consider applicants’ sickness absence information after you have undertaken the assessment of competence. If you want to reject a candidate because they hardly turned up to work in their previous job, you’ll need approval from your “governing governor or head of group”.

A record of the sifting process must be kept on file – and be sure to inform unsuccessful candidates of their right to challenge your decision not to invite them to interview.

When the equal opportunities monitoring forms have been filled in and a standardised report of the interview procedure has been completed by the chairperson, you can recruit your new kitchen auxiliary, hopefully without spurned candidates hauling you to an employment tribunal.

But don’t count on it – the more employment law is enforced, the more aggrieved employees and failed interview candidates fancy their chances at winning compensation: in 2008, 189,348 cases went to tribunal, a one-third rise on the year before.

Maybe it’s time for the prison service to think about tightening its procedures. At the very least, it could think of rounding-up its form to make a 40-point checklist.

And perhaps adding this question at the end: How many thieves, rapists and murderers escaped while you were fart-arseing around, filling out forms to employ the new member of kitchen staff?