Collins Judith: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Collins Judith: Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8127. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I move  
That the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This bill puts in place the Government’s policy to allow competitive tendering for contract management of prisons on a case by case basis. The Government wants New Zealand to have a world-class corrections system. We believe that allowing for contract management of prisons will create much-needed opportunities for the entire system to benefit from outside-sector initiative and expertise. We want a contract manager to support and enhance the Department of Corrections’ overall performance in providing for safer communities and reducing reoffending. Contract management will allow learning to be gained and shared throughout the prison system so that all prisons become more effective and efficient as a result. We will ensure that real gains are made in providing opportunities to improve outcomes for Maori who encounter the prison system. 
The previous experience that New Zealand had with contracting out prison management at the Auckland Central Remand Prison earlier this decade was generally positive. In particular the Department of Corrections was able to retain many of the innovations introduced by the contract manager. This bill strikes a good balance between a flexible contracting framework that will encourage innovation and the protections needed to ensure public accountability. While providing for a number of different safeguards the bill also gives scope to contracting parties to negotiate the specific terms and conditions of their contracts with relative flexibility. This is important because the management of each of New Zealand’s prisons will differ depending on the unique characteristics of the prisoners at that prison its geographical locality and the interventions to reduce reoffending operating within that prison. Very few of our prisons are exactly the same and the bill provides room for contractors and the chief executive of the department to agree on how the needs of any one or more of our prisons can best be met. 
Much of the debate on this bill has focused on the safeguards needed to ensure that the contract manager is held accountable. It is worth canvassing the most significant of those again. Because the changes reflected in the bill will sit under the umbrella of the Corrections Act 2004 they must be carried out in a way that is consistent with the principles of that Act. Those principles guide the operation of all of the corrections system including contract-managed prisons. The principles include the maintenance of public safety as the paramount consideration and also involve the fair treatment of prisoners their rehabilitation and their reintegration. As with public prisons contract prisons will have to comply with all relevant New Zealand legislation. This includes contractual obligations to comply with the Corrections Act and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act as well as all relevant international obligations and standards. Another key feature of the Corrections Act is the accountability that it sheets home to the chief executive of the Department of Corrections. Prisoners remain in the legal custody of the chief executive at all times. That will not change when a prisoner is held in a prison managed under contract. The performance management regime is set out in the bill. The contract must specify objectives and performance standards for the management of the prison and for the care of the prisoners in that prison. The bill states explicitly that they may not be any lower than the objectives or standards already required of prisons managed by the department. 
One of the primary features of the bill is the way in which it supports the chief executive’s accountability by establishing the role of prison monitors. That is one of the areas that received the most scrutiny when the bill was at the Law and Order Committee and the monitors regime now in the bill is comprehensive. The bill establishes three different types of prison monitor: primary monitors who are located at the prison and monitor its compliance with the terms of its management contract and with the law on a day-to-day basis; those who assist the primary monitors to undertake their role as and when required which means that there will always be sufficient staff resource available to properly oversee the activities of contractors; and specialist monitors with particular expertise in different areas who are appointed from time to time to investigate certain matters if and when they come to light. Examples of the sorts of monitors who might be appointed in this context include the department’s anti-corruption team; its national intelligence unit; specialist health care staff who could be appointed to review health services that might be run by the contract prison; or experts in the provision of services for Maori who could review the suitability of the contractor’s Maori-focused initiatives. 
All of these different types of monitors have significant powers of access to staff prisoners prison records and all parts of the prison itself at any time of the day or night. They are all appointed by and report directly to the chief executive effectively acting as his or her eyes and ears in the prison at all times. In addition contractors will be required to provide reports on all serious incidents within the prison involving escapes escape attempts or prisoner deaths to provide regular reports on the use of disciplinary powers within the prison and the outcome of all disciplinary proceedings taken against prisoners and/or staff and to provide reports providing the details and results of all random drug testing that has been carried out within the prison. 
During the select committee deliberations on the bill and subsequently during the bill’s second reading debate a number of concerns were raised about the issues of public accountability and parliamentary scrutiny. I would like to point out that prisons managed under contract will be subject to the terms of the Official Information Act 1982 in exactly the same way as the department currently is. Contract prisons will also be subject to the Ombudsmen Act in exactly the same way as prisons managed by the department. That means that prisoners will continue to have the right to complain to the Ombudsman about any aspect of their management or treatment and the Ombudsman will continue to have the power to conduct independent investigations into the management and treatment of prisoners where it is appropriate to do so. Furthermore the Auditor-General is able at any time to investigate the way in which the department is managing any and all of its prison management contracts and for that purpose has access to all relevant documentation held by the contracted prison managers. The bill also requires every prison management contract or variation to it to be tabled in Parliament within 12 sitting days which will ensure that all the detail of that contract or any variation of that contract is publicly available. 
The bill protects the interests of staff working for a contract manager. The bill requires contract prison managers to comply with the requirements of those parts of the State Sector Act that invoke the requirement to be a good employer. Under the provisions of the bill it will be a contractual requirement for each contract prison manager to appoint and train sufficient suitable staff to enable the contractor to carry out its statutory and contractual obligations. This is a very important qualifier. Not only must sufficient staff be appointed to enable the contractor to carry out its various obligations properly but also they must also be suitable staff. They must also be appropriately trained on an ongoing basis. The contractor must regularly report on appointments and training so that the prison monitor and chief executive can monitor their performance. 
The bill also makes a specific point of protecting the interests of staff who are members of the Government Superannuation Fund. It ensures that existing staff who transfer their employment to contract prison managers are still deemed to be in Government employment for the purposes of their Government superannuation fund entitlements. 
The treatment of prisoners is also well covered. The chief executive of the department will remain responsible for all prisoners in New Zealand and accountable for what happens to them. That includes prisoners held in prisons managed under contract. Contract prison managers must comply with the same obligations and standards as public prison managers. If they do not they will be in breach of their contract. Prisoners will also have the right of redress directly against the chief executive who remains answerable for what happens to them while they are in the custody of the private provider. The continuing role of the Office of the Ombudsmen also provides further protection for prisoners. 
The bill has been further enhanced during the select committee’s consideration by the committee’s recognition of the importance of providing prisoners with employment and skills development. Employment and skills development are essential activities that help prisoners with their eventual reintegration back into the community and the committee agreed that those things should be recognised in their own right. The bill now requires contractors to provide specific reports on the provision of employment and skills development to prisoners alongside the pre-existing requirement to report on rehabilitative and reintegration programmes. 
Finally the bill makes an important provision for the department’s ongoing relationships with other State agencies to continue unaffected by the fact that some of its prisons will be managed by private sector providers in the future. A number of other Government agencies such as the New Zealand Police the Ministry of Social Development and the Department of Labour rely on information about offenders provided by the Department of Corrections in order to perform their own statutory functions and duties. The bill ensures that that information will continue to flow as it needs to between staff at prisons managed under contract to the Department of Corrections and relevant Government agencies. 
Opening up prison management to tender will enable the Government to reap the benefits of innovation in the prison system as a whole. In keeping with the principles of the Corrections Act this bill will improve public safety and contribute to the maintenance of a just society by contributing to the safe secure humane and effective containment of prisoners. This bill will provide an effective statutory framework for the regulation and control of prisons managed under contract in New Zealand. I am committed to its successful implementation. I now commend this bill to the House for its third reading.