|
Dick Winterton is Chief
Executive of Skills for Justice, licensed by the Secretary of State for
Education and Skills in April 2004, as the Sector Skills Council for the
Justice sector. Dick served in the RAF for 18 years, initially as a
pilot before taking a Masters degree in electronics, in order to
specialise in electronic warfare and training.
In 1996 he joined the
National Training Organisation (NTO) for the steel industry. the NTOs
were rationalised in 2000 and the network of Sector Skills Councils
emerged in their place. In 2001, the police approached him to set-up the
National Training Organisation for the Police Service in the UK, later
called the Police Skills and Standards Organisation. It became one of
three national training organisations that merged in April 2004 to
create Skills for Justice.
Steven Mitchell
(SM) Does your organisation cover the whole of the
justice sector?
Dick Winterton (DW)
Prisons had their own National Training Organisation (NTO) for custodial
care, the Probation and the voluntary sector had a Community Justice NTO
and the Police had the Skills and Standards Organisation. For good
measure we also added those parts of the Justice sector that hitherto
hadn’t been serviced by a NTO. That means we bought in Prosecution
Services, Court Services, magistrates and judges. We now cover the whole
of the justice system.
SM What is
Skills for Justice, what does it do…why does it exist?
DW Essentially
we are here to identify what skills are required by staff who work in
the justice sector to make them competent. We are set-up as a limited
company and are ‘owned’ by the various parts of the justice sector, for
example we have Chief Constables, police authorities, Prison and
Probation Services, in fact all parts of the Justice system, represented
on our board and they direct our operations. So as Chief Executive I am
directly responsible to a board drawn from all parts of the Justice
sector.
SM How many staff do you
have to cover this remit?
DW Skills for Justice has a
staff of 55 divided into three directorates, the first is Research and
Development headed by Lesley Dunlop with a staff of 12. We are
recognised, that is licensed, as the only people who are allowed to set
down the National Occupational Standards for all roles within the
Justice sector. Lesley’s main job with her staff is to identify what
those standards are and specify them. Next is the Directorate of
Implementation headed by Tracy Watersson. There is a regional network in
England, and we have offices in Belfast, Bridgend and Edinburgh,
covering the devolved administrations. England is divided into three
sections North, South and Central, and each is looked after by a team
of people who take the standards we develop and work directly with
police forces, prisons and others to integrate those standards into the
everyday routine. The third directorate is Corporate Services and that
looks after our administration.
SM Who pays for all this?
DW The Home Office is the
biggest subscriber, the police are about half the sector, the prisons
make up about a third. The rest comes from others we work for. Our
turnover is about £4.5 million and about £1.5 million comes from central
government. Another third of our income come from agencies like the
National Occupational Standards Board and the rest comes from projects
we undertake for other agencies. For example we do work funded by the
European Social Fund. Over the next few years I would like to develop a
commercial arm.
SM What has (say) the
Prison Service had back for the money they have given you?
DW We have recently updated
the existing set of National Occupational Standards (NOS) covering all
prison roles to reflect modern practices. They are going out for final
consultation as we speak. They will become the recognised national
occupational standards for the Prison Service and will be entered on the
national database. NOS define the performance required of a competent
individual and encapsulates best practice. The standards are set by
drawing upon the expertise of the sector. We are not experts, neither
should we be because an expert would write down what he/she thinks it
should be and then the process becomes useless. We observe and take the
best practice from where we find it in the sector and then encapsulate
it into the standard. Other functions, recruitment, selection, appraisal
and training all follow. They are very significant management tools.
SM So you produce a
specification, based on what you observe to be best practice, of (say) a
prison officer and what he/she should be capable of.
DW We give the manager an
output standard. Skills for Justice doesn’t take a view on how a person
is developed up to that standard. It could be done in a training
establishment or ‘on the job’. We just have a view of what constitutes
best practice in specific areas and the supply side need to gear
themselves up to meet that specification in a way they think best.
SM I think a few examples
would be helpful at this stage.
DW OK, this time from the
police. Let’s take the new pattern of probationer training, basic
training for coppers, where a sizeable amount of public money is being
spent. The new pattern is geared to 22 units of NOS that help the police
to define what makes a competent police officer. The England and Wales
police forces are using those standards to develop their training
programmes. The long-term residential courses are no longer viable.
Hendon is still used by the Met because it is local, other forces do
more of the training in house rather than sending probationers away on
courses for long periods. Many forces are using external providers. For
good business reasons it is sensible to wrap nationally recognised
qualifications around the training because NOS mean something.
SM So training is the next
logical step to take?
DW There is a Sector Skills
Council for every main part of the UK economy, 24 in all. They range
from finance, engineering, health, building construction and so on. If a
qualification is based on a NOS then it becomes a national qualification
and is recorded on the national database. The one everybody has heard
about is the NVQ. Police training might become a foundation group…the
Probation Service could be a diploma. A service that relies on the
competence of its people falls at the first hurdle if they are not
properly trained. It is often the case that police and prison officers
are put in harms way and the manager who has not assured him/herself of
their competence would be in breach of Health and Safety legislation.
SM All very well but how
does the boss assess whether somebody sent to do a dangerous assignment
is competent?
DW The standards are only
half the story as you have obviously twigged. Just as important is how
to lay down how a manager would assess an individual. What would an
employer consider evidence of competence? An examination might be OK to
test for book learning, or simulation or role playing for activities, or
your own eyesight when the job is being done for real under varying
conditions. Let’s take an example from flying…you are off on holiday and
the captain is up front ready for take off. He has passed his aviation
law exam, engineering systems exam, has spent many hours in a simulator
where he has practised his flying procedures. Is he competent to
take-off for the first time with you and another 100 people in the back?
No of course not. He has to demonstrate his skills in the air under
supervision and serve time as a co-pilot before he can be deemed to be a
competent captain. Draw a parallel with anything a police or a prison
officer has to do. Another example is one of the early units we
developed for Covert Human Intelligence Source Handling (CHIS) or the
way to penetrate organised crime, a very dangerous occupation indeed.
Again the would-be agent can do the book learning, study the psychology
of sources, the law surrounding entrapment and so on…and the work can be
simulated in training exercises but at the end of that would they be
competent. I hardly think so. They would be paired off with an
experienced operator and looked after in other ways whilst gaining
experience.
SM Learning the dangerous
bit on the job…similar to the co-pilot we used as an example before.
DW We defined new roles for
Special Branch following their reorganisation in response to the new
threat posed after 9/11. They bought in a new concept of operations to
deal with this new form of international terrorism. They were faced with
a group with no country of origin, any clear aims or objectives, very
much into sacrificial bombing to kill a lot of people without warning.
We prompted them with a single thought….by redefining your conduct of
operations are you confident that your personnel have still got the
skill sets they require?
SM I am putting a stick
between the spokes by saying they ended up killing an innocent man.
DW It is regrettable when a
firearms officer shoots someone they shouldn’t have or a police driver
knocks someone down. Police officers, like anybody else, sometimes make
mistakes. The skills of police officers are coming under increasing
challenge when things go wrong. The old excuse, ‘we sent them through a
training course’, no longer holds water because a barrister will ask to
see the evaluation of that training and all too often it has not been
evaluated. The line manager needs to be able to stand-up in court and
say, ‘I’m an expert in this particular area, also a qualified assessor.
I assessed the officer concerned and in my professional opinion he was
competent’. If competence can be proved then the Enquiry by the Police
Complaints Commission can move on to find other causes otherwise the
enquiry gets tangled-up.
SM That’s firearms - the
violent part of police work. What about the delicate nature of DNA
collection and analysis?
DW In the area of DNA
forensics the evidence is very strong; there is extremely little doubt
and a barrister, challenging such evidence, will concentrate on how it
was collected. The competence of the police will be called into question
and they will need to demonstrate the competence of those who collected
the evidence. One of the biggest advances in recent years is the way DNA
is processed. These days 2,000 samples can be processed at a time and
this has allowed DNA evidence formally available for serious crimes,
murders and sex crimes, to be extended into what we might call volume
crime, burglaries and car crime. Subsequently people investigating
volume crime suddenly had a new tool and that bought with it
requirements to develop their skills to be able to use it properly. That
is another example of the work we do…that is identifying the skills
required. It is an ongoing programme constantly changing. We can
actually lay down those competences in the standards so that there is no
argument about what competence really looks like.
SM Can it be likened then
to engineering, first the specification, then the drawing finally the
article. Is that a fair analogy?
DW Yes but I would like to
extend it a bit, having built your engineering model it has to be
kept-up to date otherwise it won’t sell. Likewise with our work, having
given someone a set of skills we need to keep them up to date to match
the fast changing nature of the work in the justice sector. The other
difference is machines don’t need values and ethics whereas the justice
system and other areas, such as health, do.
SM I guess you’re coming on
to the problems associated with multiculturalism in the justice system.
DW All police officers were
sent on a Community Race Relations (CRR) course but it proved not to be
effective as was evidenced particularly well in the Panorama programme.
Basically the CRR course was a training solution applied to a problem
that couldn’t be solved that way. I don’t think it’s possible to convert
a racist that way, nor do I believe a racist can be selected out during
the probation process. The answer is to identify the core values of the
Service. The police can only do their job because they have the
permission of the public….
SM …..we could argue
specifics within that statement. Sounds like an act of faith and out of
line with the robust nature of your previous arguments.
DW We are not a police
state and we run a huge risk if the values of the organisation are at
variance with the values of society.
SM With some exceptions,
drugs and traffic for instance….we agree to differ, let’s continue with
racism.
DW Society does not value
racism, it values diversity. As a whole in this country we do not want
our society to be racist or bigoted. Consequently we must not allow the
police to become either of those things. They must apply their policing
powers equally and fairly without fear or favour. But we have to make it
clear to police officers why they can’t be racist or bigoted. We have to
make sure, as any organisation would, that the individual members hold
the values of that organisation. This is the National Competency
Framework we have developed which goes slightly further than a standard.
We have developed the behavioural competences we expect people to hold.
People are then measured in those areas day-in day-out as they go about
their normal roles. This is not a training solution, this is an every
day supervisory solution. It should make the environment so
uncomfortable for racists and bigots within the justice sector and peer
pressure will keep them out. The ethos is there already but it’s not
clear enough.
SM Being nicked for drunken
driving 30 years ago didn’t carry the shame it does now but it took a
long time for society to change its attitude. A social engineering
solution is called for here perhaps?
DW Yes, that is what we are
aiming for with racism.
SM Within this very fast
changing situation can you foresee, guess even, where it’s all leading?
DW In, say, two years time
I would like to see the various standards bought to bear on the
professionalism of everybody who works in the justice sector. We need
to make sure we capture best practice and then lay it down as a
recognised national occupational standard. Then people can develop their
skill set against those standards, constantly updated, and get
recognition for it. That then will be a real professional service.
SM Thank you for
speaking to the Review. |
