A Fresh Start: Managing the Prison Service

Abstract

On 13 May 1986, the Home Secretary Mr Douglas Hurd announced the publication of the Report of the joint study by Prison Department and PA Management Consultants on the complementing and shift systems worked by prison officers (Prison Service, 1986). In a written answer the Home Secretary claimed that the report presented ‘a telling indictment of the present shift and complementing systems in the Prison Service and the working practices which surround them’. The Report, he went on to say, made ‘recommendations for new systems which would release large amounts of now unproductive capacity which ought to be used for other purposes’. The recommendations represented a ‘major programme of relbrm’ for which he sct a target date fir implementation, after appropriate discussions, of April 1987. Thus was ushered In the package which has come to be called ‘Fresh Start’. It represented the government’s attempt to bring the prison system into line with its general pursuit of ‘economy, efficiency and effectiveness’ in the public services.