Walter MacGowan

Walter MacGowan was a prison governor and executive of a detention centre company.

1992 Strangeways to Group 4

1992, July. Governor//Prison Service///HMP Strangeways

“Walter MacGowan, governor of Strangeways prison in Manchester, has resigned after six weeks. He becomes the fourth governor in two years to leave the jail. He is thought to be taking up a post involving privatising parts of the prison service.”1

“A former governor of Strangeways prison in Manchester, which the government plans to privatise, has joined the private sector as director of projects with Group 4, the organisation that has the contract to run the Wolds prison in Humberside. Walter MacGowan joined Group 4 two weeks ago and is involved in projects related to the privatisation of prisons and prisoner escort services.”2

1992, August- Director of Projects//Group 4

1993 Wolds prison

1993, April. Director//Group 4///HMP Wolds

Times, “Group 4 moves prison chief” 29 April 1993

       “THE head of Britain's first privately managed remand jail has been moved to a new post in the wake of conflicting reports on its achievements. Stephen Twinn, director of Wolds prison on Humberside, has been put in charge of communications at Group 4's prison and court services, with immediate effect.
       
       Mr Twinn is replaced by Walter MacGowan, a former governor of two remand prisons in the public sector. The company denied last night that the move was linked to a highly critical report by the Prison Reform Trust, which said that life at Wolds was boring and aimless. The appointments came amid further embarrassment for Group 4, which has been seeking to recover face after a series of escapes from prisoners in its care that has discomfited ministers and made the company the target of comedians and cartoonists.
       

1995, June. Director/Group 4//HMP Wolds (remand)

“ 'Only those who can't get bail are on remand, and they are among the most unsettled and difficult prisoners to deal with,' says Walter MacGowan, a former state prison governor who is now director of prison operations at Group 4, the private security company.

 How much has prison management changed under privatisation? From visits to two private prisons - Blakenhurst near Redditch run by UKDS, and the Wolds on Humberside run by Group 4 - a subtle picture emerges. While change is undeniable, it appears to have as much to do with the new 'contract culture' which has accompanied privatisation - and is extending to the state sector - as with the introduction of private management per se.
       
       Apart from company logos on signboards and uniforms, the immediately striking change is the absence of a governor. In private prisons the functions of the traditional governor are shared between a director and a controller.
       
       The director, employed by the contractor, is responsible for managing the prison staff and services; the controller, appointed by the Prison Service on behalf of the Home Office, is responsible for monitoring performance of the private contract and for exercising disciplinary powers.
       
       The underlying principle is that penalties or force should only be inflicted on prisoners by a senior, accredited Prison Service representative. This makes the controller far more than a typical contract compliance officer. In order to exercise disciplinary powers, controllers must be of governor rank, and they are present full-time on the prison premises. ' Adjudicating' punishments and requests often takes a large slice of their mornings. They need to be on hand thereafter to provide any necessary authorisations.
       
       Derek Lewis, director-general of the Prison Service, defends the twin-headed regime as inevitable, otherwise private companies would have a say in determining the length and nature of sentences. He also believes it has advantages as a means of spreading best practice across the prison service.
       
       Not all directors are convinced. Bernard Higgins, director of Blakenhurst and previously a senior Prison Service officer, says: 'By managing adjudication you get to know a lot about your prison. I miss all that here.' He stresses his cordial relations with his controller, but any friction between the two might impose severe strains on prison management.
       
       Private prisons are staffed mainly with recruits from outside the Prison Service. Of Blakenhurst's 320 staff, only eight - including Higgins - were previously with the Prison Service; at the Wolds the figure was seven out of 190. Higgins concedes that a few more experienced middle managers would have been 'useful', but both he and MacGowan claim that the ability to mould custody officers from scratch is a net gain.
       
       The private operators in turn contract for many internal services. At Blakenhurst, UKDS contracts with Mowlem Training for the provision of education and work-related services, and with Worcester Royal Infirmary - an NHS trust - for the medical service.
       
       Almost all the custody officers at Blakenhurst and the Wolds were recruited locally. For private operators, staff flexibility and commitment is critical to the cost savings enabling them to undercut the Prison Service.
       
       Higgins and MacGowan claim that they fulfil their contracts - including allowing prisoners out of cells for the unusually long period of 13 or 14 hours a day - with about four-fifths of the staff employed by equivalent Prison Service establishments.
       
       UKDS pays its custody officers about 7 per cent less than Prison Service staff; Group 4 pays closer to Prison Service levels. The Prison Officers' Association, the public sector union, opposes privatisation and has not sought to organise in private prisons. No unions are present at Blakenhurst, which has a staff association. Group 4 recognises GMB, the general workers' union, and about two-thirds of staff at the Wolds are GMB members.
       
       With the growth in privatisation, an international business in prison management may not be far off. One of the three companies engaged in the UKDS consortium is Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in the US.
       
       Higgins has visited one of CCA's prisons in southern Louisiana. ' I learnt a different style of handling prisoners than we have here, giving much more emphasis to 'normalisation'. For instance, the inmates go to bed at 10.30pm or 11pm, far later than in the UK.'
       
       In the UK there has yet to be a comprehensive study of the impact of privatisation. But Nicholas Hopkins, a director of UKDS, has no doubt about the main lesson: 'The government always expects more of the private sector than of itself - and we can't afford to fail.'”3

1993, August. Director//Group4///HMP Wolds (remand prison)4 HMIP: “drug use was unacceptably high” “criticises weaknesses in the contract between the Home Office and Group 4 and the lack of financial checks which made it ``impossible" to determine whether the jail offered value for money.” “high incidence of assault”

His report found that in the 12 months to March 31 there had been 29 recorded assaults by inmates on staff, 21 attacks on other inmates, two incidents of food refusal, three rooftop incidents and nine concerted acts of indiscipline. Drugs had been found on 46 occasions and some prisoners said drugs, including heroin and cocaine, were easier to obtain at The Wolds than at other prisons. The report estimated that it cost Pounds 312 a week to keep a prisoner, excluding the cost of gas, electricity and water.

       Walter MacGowan, director of The Wolds, yesterday defended the prison's regime and denied that inmates lived a ``pampered" existence. He admitted that small amounts of heroin and cocaine had been found but said staff had at first been naive in dealing with sophisticated criminals. ``I don't believe now that they are hoodwinked by anybody."
       
       Mary Bentall, chairman of the prison's board of visitors, said the only way to encourage more prisoners to work would be to pay them more. Inmates are paid Pounds 1 per day for work inside the jail.

“Walter MacGowan, director of the Wolds, says that it would make little difference if there were more staff in each unit: two officers could be overpowered as easily as one. 'If you introduce more than one member of staff, you don't necessarily introduce supervision. What you do find is that staff start talking to each other rather than to the prisoners.' Like the inmates, he was adamant that there were no more drugs in the Wolds than in other jails, pointing out the difficulties of eliminating them altogether. For instance, drugs had recently been found in a baby's nappy. However, with better checks on visitors there were fewer drugs coming into the prison than when Judge Stephen Tumim, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, visited it in May, he said.”5

1996 Buckley Hall prison

1996, April. Director of operations//Group 4///HMP Buckley Hall

A furious Betty Boothroyd carpeted the Home Secretary after the boss of a private firm was "smuggled" into the Commons to help out his hapless ministers.

       The Speaker told Michael Howard to make sure the flagrant breach of protocol never happens again.
       
       Group 4 chief Walter MacGowan sat in a specially-reserved box of seats next to the Government front bench.
       
       Only the Speaker can give permission for people to sit there. Mr MacGowan, director of operations at Buckley Hall prison in Rochdale, which is run by Group 4, was let in for an emergency debate.
       
       But his presence sparked protests from MP Liz Lynne, who had called the debate to discuss the privately-run jail's poor record.

       Liberal Democrat Ms Lynne said: "You can't have private companies briefing ministers on the floor of the House. "6

2001 Altcourse prison

2001, October. Director//Group 4///HMP Altcourse

“ One way of looking at the issue is to narrow it down to a single sector. The prisons service, for example, has had a private element since management of the Wolds prison, in Yorkshire, was handed over to Group 4 in 1992.

       Two further prisons have since been placed under private management and eight have been built under design, construct, manage and finance (DCMF) contracts under which companies deliver and manage new prisons.
       
       Much of the criticism of private prisons has focused on contract terms drawn up when companies demanded a substantial risk premium. There has also been criticism of refinancing deals.
       
       Yet little attention has been paid to the operational perform-ance of private prisons, or to their impact on the prison service as a whole.
       
       Altcourse, a "core local" prison in Fazakerley, Liverpool, was built by Group 4 in 1997 to house up to 615 inmates sentenced in an area stretching from Manchester to North Wales.
       
       The site is dominated by flowers; tended by the prisoners, they grow almost everywhere. Strict security is combined with an appearance more akin to a technical college than a prison. All staff wear name badges and prisoners choose to be referred to by their first names or as "Mr X". The prison's modern design and facilities allow an extensive system of privileges for good behaviour.
       
       Altcourse provides more "purposeful" activity - positively occupied time outside cells - than any other local prison. But it is not a hotbed of bleeding heart liberals. Walter MacGowan, the prison's director, says there is no-one in his jail who does not deserve to be there. But prisoners do seem to appreciate the regime. " They treat you a lot better here than in the state prisons," says one armed robber.
       
       Sir David Ramsbotham, the recently retired chief inspector of prisons, said in 1999 that Altcourse was the best local prison he had inspected. For the first time, said Sir David, he left a prison feeling optimistic.
       
       But does this demonstrate that private sector provision is inherently better than the public sector model?
       
       Holme House prison in Stockton-on-Tees is also a local prison, handling just under 1,000 inmates. Built in 1992, to a 1980s design, it is one of 126 prisons in England and Wales still within the state system.
       
       There are few flowers at Holme House. Prisoners are not asked how they would like to be addressed, space and facilities are limited and prisoners spend less time on purposeful activity.
       
       But Holme House has the lowest running costs of any prison and the lowest incidence of assaults. It makes strenuous efforts to encourage education and runs a number of ground-breaking schemes, including a highly praised wing for reformed drug addict prisoners and the prison service's first scheme giving toddlers educational time with their fathers.
       
       Richard Crouch, the governor, admits that there are problems. " We are very conscious that in many ways (prisons such as Altcourse are) an example that we need to follow," he says.
       
       But the two prison directors show a surprising degree of agreement about the differences in performance between the prisons. Both say that much of Altcourse's success flows from its highly efficient, state-of-the-art design and its largely inexperienced workforce.
       
       "We deliberately avoided people with experience of prison work because we didn't want to bring the problems of the state system into our prison," says Mr MacGowan. Like other private prisons, Altcourse employs fewer prison officers per prisoner than state prisons and pays them less - explaining, in part, the opposition to such prisons from prison unions. Holme House, by contrast, has a relatively old-fashioned infrastructure and its workforce has proved less open to innovation. Name badges, for example, are worn only by managers.
       
       "A lot of established prisons have staff who were selected at a time when it was considered quite desirable to shout at prisoners. The majority of staff already treat prisoners and each other with courtesy but there are some who don't," says Mr Crouch.
       
       Martin Narey, the prison service director, is one of many managers who opposed privatisation. He says: "I was one of those who thought there might be something immoral in getting profit out of prisons. I don't believe that now.
       
       "Prisons like Altcourse are patently very good indeed. It costs a lot of money and the contract at Altcourse is constructed in a way that I would not (agree to) now - but nevertheless it and the other private prisons are running very successfully." One key contribution of the private sector, has been the ability to operate in new ways, which has set operational benchmarks for the rest of the service. " It has allowed me to introduce a competitive element into the prison service which we otherwise could not have had," says Mr Narey.
       
       The results, he says, have been surprising. The private sector achieved a "massive step forward" in the flexible use of staff but the companies have been caught - perhaps even overtaken - by the state sector.
       
       "They have become, in running prisons, a bit complacent. They have not been as imaginative as this service has had to become in terms of utilising staff - and, of course, they have to take a profit out of this.
       
       "It may be that one or two of them are looking backwards to the days of very much higher profit margins," says Mr Narey.
       
       Two prisons run by the private sector have recently been transferred back to the state sector after competitions between private and in-house teams. This suggests that the private sector's cost advantages in running existing prisons are being whittled away. Contract terms for managing existing prisons have also been tightened, reducing the potential for easy savings.
       
       Perhaps as a result, the private sector appears less interested in taking over existing prisons. There were no bidders for a contract to run Brixton prison earlier this year and Group 4 managers say that they are unlikely to be interested in such contracts in future.
       
       Nevertheless, says Mr Narey, the private sector retains substantial advantages in designing, financing and building new prisons, suggesting that there will be a continuing market for the private sector to cope with expansion of the system and the replacement of older prisons. Sotto voce, prison service officials are talking of possible joint bids in future, under which new prisons would be designed, financed and built by private companies, with management provided by the state sector.
       
       Private companies, says Mr Narey, remain enthusiastic about new prison contracts and there has been substantial competition for the next two. The winners will be disclosed shortly.
       
       In the longer term, private bidders say that a mixed system will work only if the government removes uncertainty about its acceptability - in part by persuading its own supporters that the use of private capital makes sense.
       
       "The private sector can't be seen just as a sort of rescue mission coming in every time there is a problem in the system," says Amanda McIntyre, head of the modernising government group at the Confederation of British Industry. " This has to be more than a hobby or a sort of sideline for Group 4 and the other companies or they won't continue to innovate."7

       “LIVERPOOL's second prison,HMP Altcourse opened in Fazakerley five years ago.
       
       The first privately built jail in Britain,it was funded under the Government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and is run by Group 4 Securitas.
       
       Speaking to the Daily Post last night,Altcourse's director Walter MacGowan said private sector companies can improve the running of British jails.
       
       He said: ``It is like having a blank sheet. You can make your prison design fit the managerial structures and operational options that you have.
       
       ``We operate to a contract. It is clearly specified what is expected and we are subjected to quite a few performance measures to make sure we deliver.
       
       Mr MacGowan believes not every private jail has to be built from scratch and that a private company could run HMP Liverpool at its present site.
       
       Prison Reform Trust figures show Altcourse as the seventh most over- crowded prison in the country - it is housing 392 more prisoners than it was designed for.
       
       Mr MacGowan said: ``Yes, we are an over-crowded prison at Altcourse but the prisoners do not suffer because of it. They are still unlocked for 13 hours a day and receive the full list of activities that they are entitled to.
       
       He said he thought that Liverpool Prison's governor John Smith would keep the jail in state hands,although he hinted Group 4 may bid if the Government did decide to privatise.”8

2002, June. Director//Group 4///HMP Altcourse (Cat A) 2003, June.

NAO: “Out of the 12 private prisons in the UK, Altcourse was ranked joint top with Parc in South Wales.”9