Performance and Capacity in a Managerialist Era

Abstract

Probably the essential idea at the heart of the heuristic in the previous chapter is one of equilibrium between aggravating and compensating dynamics, and how these dynamics appear to co-exist as part of chronic capacity stress (CCS). One implication of these countervailing dynamics is that the system appears to incorporate elements of success and failure simultaneously. As we have seen, the prison system has been cast, almost serially, as a failing system, yet at the same time it has shown strong elements of coping. Indeed, as we will see in this chapter, it has not just coped, but in many ways has shown considerable improvements in basic aspects of its work. Another implication of CCS is that systems are also able to incorporate elements of relative under-supply and over-supply simultaneously. There are signs that the prison system has been squeezed and pared down as part of NPM change over the years (i.e. under-supply). Yet at the same time, there are also signs that the same system has been able to sustain quite striking levels of obsolescence and redundancy, both of which imply a kind of relative over-supply of capacity.

I’ve been round lots of prisons, and I’ve never once thought this prison is running at the very edge. You could clearly make them much more efficient.

(Former senior NOMS official)

Historically, we have been given these efficiency savings while we are sat round a table, and actually they’ve been realistic and we’ve been able to deliver. The ones we are asked to do now? There is a general sense that they are not realistic without serious damage to services and establishments.

(Deputy prison governor)