Nothing would surprise me about the Ministry of Justice (should there be an 'In' before 'Justice'?) They tell me they see nothing wrong about the JCIO - the 'arms-length' body of the MoJ that investigates complaints about judges - being exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, the Act designed to ensure transparency and accountability. And they think it's right for the JCIO to share information with the Judicial Office who, they say, is also an 'arms-length' body of the MoJ though their role, of course, is to "protect judges' interests." So no conflict of interest in that "collaboration". And aren't the Judicial office also exempt from the FoI Act? [please correct me if I'm wrong] Hey-ho.
“Self cleaned”!?! My least favourite euphemism of the year (thus far). Does it perhaps come to this: the handful of mega- entities enjoying a quasi- monopoly of capacity to undertake such outsourced activities are perilously near to being the only “show in town”? It is a very small step from there to their becoming an alternative State. Tagging, to employ the straightforward vernacular, should surely more appropriately and safely be effected through the agency of the prison service on the model to which it should ideally be returned as a wholly public service? Instead that essential estate has been offering up juicy morsels of for example prison building and/or management to the private sector, where the companies then far too routinely contrive a second or third rate delivery of those services. They ought to have remained - largely - core functions delivered by knowledgeable, trained specialists in the direct employ of that prison service. Egregious conduct such as that described by the Committee would almost certainly have had anyone in my profession, if similarly exposed ,drummed out of practice.
As to Shabana Mahmood “hope is a song from a weary throat” [Pauli Murray] but it is in my- I hope- non-sententious view an obligation to applaud the sentiments she is reportedly about to give voice to and then, of course, to do our individual and, where possible, collective best to hold her to her words- and indeed her WORD.
Nothing would surprise me about the Ministry of Justice (should there be an 'In' before 'Justice'?) They tell me they see nothing wrong about the JCIO - the 'arms-length' body of the MoJ that investigates complaints about judges - being exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, the Act designed to ensure transparency and accountability. And they think it's right for the JCIO to share information with the Judicial Office who, they say, is also an 'arms-length' body of the MoJ though their role, of course, is to "protect judges' interests." So no conflict of interest in that "collaboration". And aren't the Judicial office also exempt from the FoI Act? [please correct me if I'm wrong] Hey-ho.
“Self cleaned”!?! My least favourite euphemism of the year (thus far). Does it perhaps come to this: the handful of mega- entities enjoying a quasi- monopoly of capacity to undertake such outsourced activities are perilously near to being the only “show in town”? It is a very small step from there to their becoming an alternative State. Tagging, to employ the straightforward vernacular, should surely more appropriately and safely be effected through the agency of the prison service on the model to which it should ideally be returned as a wholly public service? Instead that essential estate has been offering up juicy morsels of for example prison building and/or management to the private sector, where the companies then far too routinely contrive a second or third rate delivery of those services. They ought to have remained - largely - core functions delivered by knowledgeable, trained specialists in the direct employ of that prison service. Egregious conduct such as that described by the Committee would almost certainly have had anyone in my profession, if similarly exposed ,drummed out of practice.
As to Shabana Mahmood “hope is a song from a weary throat” [Pauli Murray] but it is in my- I hope- non-sententious view an obligation to applaud the sentiments she is reportedly about to give voice to and then, of course, to do our individual and, where possible, collective best to hold her to her words- and indeed her WORD.