Standardisation across Prison Establishments

CI Projects were asked to carry out a review of “what good looks like” across the prison estate. It was identified that some prisons had implemented very robust and effective processes or tools to help them carry out their roles. However on other sites it was clear that the service was not efficient or effective and that these sites could learn from the best practices established elsewhere.

We carried out multiple site visits across the UK and undertook a time-in-motion study on 3 key roles; the Site Manager, Site Supervisor and Administration Officer to identify what they do on a day-to-day basis. From this we were able to standardise the monthly, weekly and daily activities of the role to clearly communicate their responsibilities. We identified a number of best practices and built this into the company’s processes and procedures. For example it was identified that printing work requests on different coloured paper based on the priority of work enabled engineers to better prioritise their workload using visual cues – a Lean Kanban method. Similarly, at one prison they had implemented a tool to monitor which jobs were due to be completed each day to avoid failing the Service Level Agreements – this was shown to increase performance significantly.
From the learnings taken from numerous prisons, the roles and responsibilities were defined and communicated to standardise the requirements of each role. This information was transferred into a booklet which also contained process improvements and top tips to enable teams to understand and adapt their ways of working. Finally, a report was developed to enable managers to discuss progress and risks with their direct reports.

The benefits include;
– Consistent communication regarding roles and responsibilities to provide support for prison teams and enable them to take accountability.
– Reporting to empower managers to hold their direct reports to account and actively encourage discussions regarding achievements and risks.
– Improved performance on site through implementation of best practice, new tools and processes to enable front line teams to carry out their roles more effectively.