Oral evidence: Pre-appointment scrutiny of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and HM Chief Inspector of Probation, HC 624Tuesday 24 November 2015
Oral evidence, 24 November 2015.
Witness
Glenys Stacey, Ministry of Justice’s preferred candidate for the post of HM Chief Inspector of Probation, gave evidence.
Chair
Ms Stacey, you have obviously been sitting in, listening and seeing what goes on. I will ask the same thing: why this job, and why you?
Glenys Stacey
I have been doing an independent regulator job for almost five years. My term of office is coming to an end. I went to Ofqual, which was then a fledgling thing, to establish it as an independent regulator and to build its competence and capacity. I believe that I have achieved that. It is now time for someone else to take up the challenge for the next five years. Having declared my intention to stand down—I did so in July—I was beginning to think about what to do next. I was fortunate enough to be approached about a number of things, none of which seemed to me particularly exciting. When this came along, it really did excite me. The reasons are that I think in many—
Chair
Can I just interrupt you? Who approached you about this one?
Glenys Stacey
I was approached in two ways. I had a telephone call from Michael Gove, who phoned to say that he was sorry to hear that I was standing down from my current job—
Chair
You had known him before, hadn’t you?
Glenys Stacey
I did not know him until I became the independent regulator for qualifications. That is when I first met Michael Gove.
Chair
But thereafter you had worked with him professionally.
Glenys Stacey
I have had the relationship that you would expect between an independent regulator and a Secretary of State. I have enjoyed that relationship with him and with the current Secretary of State.
Chair
He rings up and says, “I am sorry that you are finishing this one. Do you want to apply for this next one?”
Glenys Stacey
It was not quite that conversation, Chair.
Chair
What was it, then?
Glenys Stacey
The conversation was that he was very sorry to hear that I was stepping down. I do not wish to be immodest here, but he was very complimentary about the job that I had done. He mentioned that he had a number of opportunities coming up. This was one of them.
Chair
This was one of a raft, was it; that he put on offer to you?
Glenys Stacey
No. He didn’t offer me any job, Chair; he didn’t offer me any job.
Chair
You see, we are concerned about genuine independence here.
Glenys Stacey
No, I believe not. Could I finish answering your first question?
Chair
Yes—go ahead.
Glenys Stacey
He simply told me that the matter was in the hands of recruitment consultants GatenbySanderson. As it happened, I had an appointment to see GatenbySanderson in any event, for completely different reasons. The matter went from there and I decided to apply. Of course, I have gone through all of the proper process. As far as independence is concerned, I believe that there is no occasion when I have been anything other than an independent regulator. I believe that I have a strong reputation and an authentic, strong track record for that. Indeed, that has involved difficult conversations with Ministers, including the provision of advice that was most unwelcome.
Chair
What was your particular interest in the criminal justice system and probation?
Glenys Stacey
You will have seen from my CV that over the years I have held a number of jobs in the criminal justice system. It has been a recurring theme. First, I have been chief executive of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. I have been the justices’ chief executive for Greater Manchester magistrates’ courts. Indeed, I am a solicitor as well, married to an ex-chief Crown prosecutor. I have family members in the system. It is in my blood.
Chair
It was a logical thing to do. I understand that.
Glenys Stacey
It is not only that. One of the many things I have been exposed to in my current job is the precious nature of youth and what can go wrong, as well as what can go right, in young people. I have become very aware of the nature of life chances. That makes me particularly interested in that area of work.
Chair
Tell me a bit more about it. What do you think we miss out around the nature of life chances? As the chief inspector, where can you or can you not make a difference?
Glenys Stacey
If I look at my current job, I am leading the reform of qualifications. They will be better qualifications and will be more demanding. Not every young child will find themselves able to achieve the equivalent of five A* to C grades—those magic grades that lead to improved life chances—but it does not mean that they are failures. However, it can mean that their life chances are diverted. They are labelled and perceived as failures. They may make poor life choices or have fewer life opportunities from that. That is not in any way an irremediable situation for them—not at all.
Chair
Going back to your own past experience, which you disclosed very properly, do you think that there are any ongoing potential conflicts?
Glenys Stacey
I have been racking my brains about that, as you would imagine. There are several things to mention. One of our daughters, Charlotte, is a former YOT worker. For reasons that escape me, she has now decided to be a food engineer, so for the moment she is off the conflict register. I have a lovely sister-in-law, Diane Nelms, who is currently a volunteer with Basic Caring Communities, which is operated by Pact, a charity that supports offenders on release. I have already mentioned my husband, a lovely man and a former chief Crown prosecutor and CPS director of central casework. I do not think that that is a potential current or future conflict. Personally, I know of none.
Chair
That is fair enough. We just have to go through these questions. You have talked about your work at Ofqual. Mr Chalk, do you want to come in?
Alex Chalk
I want to ask a few questions about how your previous experience might be of assistance—or, indeed, not be of assistance. You mentioned that you are married to a former CCP. That is fine, but it does not impact directly on probation, does it?
Glenys Stacey
Not as far as I can see.
Alex Chalk
So that does not really help. You were previously chief executive of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. That is reviewing and investigating suspected miscarriages of justice, isn’t it?
Glenys Stacey
It is.
Alex Chalk
So it is not really related to probation, is it?
Glenys Stacey
No.
Alex Chalk
Equally, you were CEO of the Greater Manchester magistrates’ court committee. That is about delivering summary justice—
Glenys Stacey
It is.
Alex Chalk
In other words, convicting the guilty and acquitting the innocent. It is not really related to probation, is it?
Glenys Stacey
No, but I was a member of the local criminal justice board there. The local chief of probation was a fellow member. We were involved in work together to deliver common objectives—for example, dealing effectively with persistent young offenders and in a sufficiently timely way, but it was not a direct involvement in probation.
Alex Chalk
In fact, your exposure to the world of probation, as distinct from the criminal justice system overall, is pretty narrow. Would you accept that?
Glenys Stacey
That is very fair; yes.
Marie Rimmer
What do you see as the role of the inspectorate in contributing to the probation service and achieving the stated policy objectives, such as reducing reoffending and improving through-the-gate provision? What exactly do you see as through-the-gate provision?
Glenys Stacey
The inspectorate is relatively tiny. It is a rather venerable organisation, is staffed, seemingly, with competent staff and is well respected. In my view, it has a significant role to play. First, it is out there inspecting. It is looking to make judgments about the standards of work and needs to continue to make those good judgments. It needs to do work with others to define those standards, as far as is possible. They are not clearly defined at the moment. There are difficulties with that, but we can do better work to be clearer on what is to be expected as things have been changing. It needs to do good, well-balanced inspections, to come to firm, clear judgments and recommendations, and to make sure that it promulgates those recommendations well and follows them through. To use a well-used expression, it needs to shine a light on good practice, where it sees it. There will be a big debate about what good practice is, but at the moment the inspectorate speaks of enablers and barriers; other inspectorates adopt that terminology as well. It needs to do more work in that area. It aspires to do that, but it is early days for it. It needs to continue to develop its audit approach. It has good aspirations there and is piloting a new approach, but that will need honing, shaping and evaluating to make sure that it does well. It certainly needs to look at its audit programme. As new priorities have come alongside the long-standing priorities of public protection and safeguarding, so the inspectorate must reshape its audit planning and audit programme to reflect those other priorities. There is hard thinking to be done there. Through-the-gate is a big challenge for the inspectorate. We do not have a good record. It is not just probation; the other inspectorates play their part here. We do not have a good record of joint inspections. We do not do enough of them and, seemingly, we are not very good at it. All of your outgoing inspectors are telling you that. There is a job for us to play our part in getting through the gate the other way ourselves, doing really robust and realistic inspections there. We know that the offender management units have had their difficulties. We have a review of that going on. We need to play our full part in making sure that we can get those within prison, rehabilitation and offender management services as good as they can be.
Marie Rimmer
You said that it is not clear at the moment. Could you give a couple of examples of that, please?
Glenys Stacey
What is not clear?
Marie Rimmer
When I asked about the work of the inspectorate contributing to the probation service achieving the objectives, you said that they were not very clear at the moment. Did I hear you correctly?
Glenys Stacey
I did not mean to infer that the objectives were not clear. I do apologise if I have done that. No—what is expected of us is pretty clear.
Marie Rimmer
Okay.
Glenys Stacey
Inspectorates will have their purpose expressed in various ways, but the job of all inspectorates, when you boil it down, it is to set standards and drive improvement. That is what we are about.
Marie Rimmer
What is your assessment of the main messages coming from the inspectorate’s early implementation reports on the new transforming rehabilitation landscape?
Glenys Stacey
First, I very much welcome the reports, particularly the most recent one, which is very clearly expressed and makes five or six recommendations for CRCs and a similar number for the National Offender Management Service. The focus is now very clear in those reports. Having had any number of issues at the beginning, we are seeing some improvement, but there are some seemingly intractable issues, if we are not careful, coming forward. We know that we have some cumbersome systems. There are long-standing issues with those systems. There have been some improvements, but they are still rather clunky and creaky. We can also see that, maybe because they are clunky and creaky, not all staff are using those systems and doing the risk assessments that they should do. We are always reliant on those risk assessments. In a more fragmented delivery landscape, we are increasingly reliant on them. It is clearly a big priority for those delivering probation and for the inspectorate to make sure that those systems are developed as well as possible and that people use them as well as they should.
Chair
Are you happy, as far as you can see, with the relationship between NOMS, the National Probation Service and the new CRCs?
Glenys Stacey
There are some tensions there—in-built and unavoidable tensions. You want those tensions to be what I would call healthy tensions. From what I can see—from the reports that I have read so far—it varies across the country, as you would expect. Things are generally improving, which is a welcome sign. There are ways in which best practice can be shared with others. For example, some of the local management units are managing that relationship extremely well. We need to see more of that.
Chair
In your role as inspector, would you be concerned about the state of morale among probation staff?
Glenys Stacey
Yes.
Chair
When did you last speak to a member of probation staff?
Glenys Stacey
I have not spoken to a member of probation staff in this round of recruitment. Indeed, I cannot remember the last time, but obviously I have spoken to those representing the inspectorate and there are probation staff on loan there. Of course, I have looked very closely at what is in the public domain directly from probation staff and those who represent them. I can see that, in general terms, a good number of staff are feeling underpaid, undervalued and that their jobs and traditional probation values are at risk. I quite see that.
Alberto Costa
Good morning, Ms Stacey. By your own admission, your exposure to the world of probation is very limited. You have just answered the Chair that you cannot remember the last time you spoke to a member of probation staff. Why on earth did the Secretary of State call you for this job?
Glenys Stacey
You would have to ask the Secretary of State why he made that call. I imagine—
Alberto Costa
Is it a case of friends in high places, perhaps?
Glenys Stacey
No. I would not in any way describe my relationship with any Secretary of State as one of friendship.
Alberto Costa
It is not every day that people get calls from Secretaries of State, with all due respect.
Glenys Stacey
I quite accept that, but, as I understand it, Secretaries of State routinely make such calls. I have no doubt that they call more than one person as well, because they will want as good a field as possible for jobs such as this.
Alberto Costa
Do you know whether he called another person in this instance?
Glenys Stacey
I would not know, but it would not surprise me.
Alberto Costa
You do not know.
Glenys Stacey
No, I do not.
Alberto Costa
How can you assure this Committee that you can maintain independence from the Secretary of State, given that he called?
Glenys Stacey
If it is independence from this particular Secretary of State that concerns you, I can give examples of some of the difficult exchanges that I have had with this Secretary of State in the past.
Alberto Costa
Could you?
Glenys Stacey
Yes, I could. I will look to two or three of them. Forgive me—I am just referring to my notes. I do not know whether you will recollect this—perhaps not, as this may not be your area of interest. Two or three years ago, the then Secretary of State, Michael Gove, had determined that he would introduce a new type of qualification to replace GCSEs—something called an EBacc certificate—and invite exam boards to present their proposals to him subject by subject. There would not be a defined curriculum for each of these qualifications. They could be designed in any which way, and the Secretary of State would choose the one that he preferred. That would be the one that would be available for state schools, and no other exam board could provide it. There are some obvious risks and issues with that proposal, but he had made that decision and declared it publicly. I went to see the Secretary of State and advised strongly against that, for some pretty clear reasons. I did not appear to get any traction there. I wrote a formal letter to the Secretary of State setting out the clear risks. That may not seem unusual, but in fact it is pretty unusual for an independent regulator to set out specific concerns and advice about what appears to be at least half-determined.
Alberto Costa
You must have had a good relationship with him if you did that—if you set out your concerns in a letter to Michael Gove.
Glenys Stacey
Would I define that as a good relationship? I was—
Alberto Costa
You have just admitted that it is not usual for a regulator to have done that, so you must have had a relationship to have given you the confidence to write to the then Secretary of State.
Glenys Stacey
Forgive me, but it was not the relationship: it was my statutory role. I am an independent regulator. I have statutory objectives to meet. That is above all what drives the advice I give to a Government, the actions I take and the way I run Ofqual. It serves me well to be able always to be guided absolutely by the role and what is expected of me. Yes, it is uncomfortable to do those things, but it is required and it is done. Still I gained no traction, so I went to see the Chair of the Education Select Committee to express my concerns and the risks that it would involve. Of course, I account to Parliament. It seemed right that, should this go ahead, the Select Committee would wish to have an interest and a view. As it happened, Christmas came along. The Secretary of State came back from a Christmas break and asked me to go and see him. He explained that he had changed his mind, which I was glad to hear. However, it was not long before there was a second difficulty, because he had decided instead to reform all GCSEs and all A-levels. At Ofqual we already had what we called a five-point plan for improving GCSEs, but we were not intending reform on the scale that Government wanted, and certainly not at the pace that Government wanted. I went to see the Secretary of State to advise that, although he had decided that he would reform nine GCSEs—certainly all the traditional subjects—plus a tranche of A-levels, we would not do that. We would reform English, English literature and maths only at GCSE in the first tranche. They were the most deserving, for reasons I need not go into here. I was very aware of the scale and nature of the task and what it would involve. I could not be confident that we and exam boards together could reform nine GCSEs at the same time as A-levels, which at the time were thought to be an easier prospect.
Alberto Costa
Thank you. I think that you have given us enough evidence. Going back to the Chair’s point, you clearly had a working relationship with the then Secretary of State. My final question is, what approach do you intend to take as chief inspector, if successful, to promoting public understanding of or confidence in probation, particularly given that you have now declared in public that the Secretary of State called you to suggest that you apply for this job?
Glenys Stacey
Could I deal first with the working relationship point you make? Just to be clear, I have no personal relationship with the Secretary of State. I have only ever—
Alberto Costa
Nobody has suggested that. We understand clearly what working relationship means.
Glenys Stacey
Thank you. It was just the expression “working”, when actually the relationship is a little more formal than what one would normally describe as a working relationship.
Alberto Costa
Yet it led to a personal call from the Secretary of State.
Glenys Stacey
I am not sure that I will ever know why that call was made, but—
Alberto Costa
You have not asked him.
Glenys Stacey
No. I do not have a personal relationship with him. From what he said, I know that he thinks I have done a good job, and a good job as an independent regulator. I hope that that was why he made the call. You asked what I will do to improve public understanding. Of course, I and others will always wish to do that. NOMS will wish to do that. CRCs will wish to do that. I see already some really good developments on individual CRCs’ websites, explaining the role that they do. I do not know whether you have had a chance to see that, but there are some much better explanations for the public than I saw in the old arrangement. Promoting that across all CRCs would be very good. Of course, in the reports that we do, we always seek to explain the role that we play and the role that probation plays, but it comes across as rather technical. We have a website ourselves, and there is an opportunity there for us to think about explaining the role in ways that are much more accessible than perhaps the rather technical way we tend to do it because normally we are talking to people who understand it better.
Alex Chalk
You accepted very frankly that you have had very limited experience of probation in the past.
Glenys Stacey
Yes.
Alex Chalk
Would you even have considered applying for this role if the Secretary of State had not called you?
Glenys Stacey
Yes, I most certainly would.
Alex Chalk
Had you considered applying before he called you?
Glenys Stacey
I did not know about the role at the time, but I knew about it when I went to see GatenbySanderson. I had already made an appointment to talk to them about general opportunities, and in fact they raised it with me.
Alex Chalk
They raised it with you, but what inquiries had you made off your own bat into the possibility of this role before you received the call from the Secretary of State?
Glenys Stacey
I had not made any inquiries. I did not know of the role. It is fair to say that, having just declared that I was standing down from my current position, I had not made inquiries about any role. Instead, I had been approached about a number of roles by recruitment consultants and others. I was in that early stage. I was very focused on making sure that the announcement I was making about my standing down went well and that arrangements were being formed and in place to find my successor in my current job, so it was very early days. I would certainly have applied for the role—for these reasons. Without wishing to sound immodest, I think it plays to my strengths. I have had five years of regulating, part of which is inspecting. It is different, but there are a lot of similar tools; for example, audit programmes, audits, recommendations, reports, thematic reports, influence, being clear about your objectives and so on. I believe that both my recent experience and the knowledge I bring from being an experienced chief executive, a public sector chief executive and someone with experience of the criminal justice system make me at least a suitable candidate. Secondly, as I explained when the Chair asked, this is just the sort of role that I would dearly wish, because it is demanding, because it plays to my strengths and because it is doing something really valuable for society.
Alex Chalk
Some might say that being Her Majesty’s inspector of prisons fulfils all those things as well. Why probation and not prisons? Did you apply for prisons?
Glenys Stacey
This is probably rather awkward for a woman to say, but I rather felt that probation would take to a woman more kindly.
Mr Hanson
Nick Hardwick’s predecessor was Anne Owers.
Glenys Stacey
That is right. Nevertheless, prison is predominantly a man’s world.
Alex Chalk
You made a decision to go for probation rather than prisons on that basis.
Glenys Stacey
Yes.
Chair
Was that part of your discussion with the Secretary of State?
Glenys Stacey
No.
Alex Chalk
Did he mention the prisons position?
Glenys Stacey
Yes.
Alex Chalk
Did he suggest that you should apply for it?
Glenys Stacey
He did not suggest that I should apply for either of these jobs. He mentioned them and that GatenbySanderson were the consultants.
Alberto Costa
What was the purpose of the call? I am still not clear on this. Come on, be clear. What was the purpose of his call?
Glenys Stacey
First, I do not know. I did not—
Alberto Costa
When he called you, you did not ask him why he was calling you.
Glenys Stacey
No, I did not. I answered the phone. I was not expecting the call.
Alberto Costa
Was this your personal number, or was it the number of the office where you were working?
Glenys Stacey
I think that it was my mobile number. It was certainly of an evening. I had never before had such a call from the Secretary of State. He was expressing his regret that I was standing down. That seemed to me perfectly proper and, indeed, pleasant, in the sense that he was recognising the good work that I had done. He asked me what I was going to do. I said, “I am considering my options.” He mentioned that he had these two positions and that GatenbySanderson were the recruitment consultants. You may speculate as to the reason, of course. It did not seem to me to be at all—
Alberto Costa
I do not think that there is any requirement to speculate here. It is not a credible position for someone of your professional background not to have asked the Secretary of State the purpose of his call—or not at least to infer the reason for his call.
Glenys Stacey
I did not ask him the purpose of the call. I would never dream of asking that of a Secretary of State in a call in my own home of an evening. I understood the purpose of the call to be to express exactly what he expressed—regret at my standing down, confirmation that he regarded me as an excellent independent regulator and, yes, telling me of these opportunities. That was it.
Dr Huq
We will move away from what did or did not happen in this phone call and whether probation is softer than prison.
Glenys Stacey
I wish I had recorded it now.
Dr Huq
I am going to ask something completely different. You mentioned that you are not averse to joint working with other inspectorates.
Glenys Stacey
Not at all.
Dr Huq
With NOMS and whoever. Which other aspects of the inspectorate’s performance need to improve, and how would you go about achieving such improvements—blue-sky thinking?
Glenys Stacey
It is early days for me, isn’t it? If you ask me that in six months’ time, it will probably be a more nuanced answer. Earlier this year, there was a report from the National Audit Office on all the criminal justice inspectorates. It has been very helpful to me and, no doubt, to others applying for these jobs. It points out some areas for improvement and I look forward to talking those through with the inspectorate. The first is in planning its work programme—what it audits, when and with what frequency, and whether audits are light or heavyweight. Because we now have new expectations of probation in terms of through-the-gate services and short-sentence offenders, we need to look at how the planned work programme reflects those priorities. How do we adjust our programme to reflect that? We also know that we do continuing work auditing youth offending teams in an established way. Pressures on youth offending will no doubt increase as budget pressures bite, so we will need to look at whether we are doing sufficient work there. We can work that through relatively easily. More demanding are the changes that are being made now to the way we carry out inspections in the inspectorate. I very much welcome recent developments there. We have had rather a process focus; we are moving towards more of an outcome focus—a blend of the two, actually, which looks to me to make sense. Judging outcomes in any timely way is going to be enormously difficult. Determining whether outcomes are because of good work done in CRCs or good work done by those surrounding CRCs will be another issue. The development of our audit approach has been piloted and there has been a lot of consultation, but once it plays out in earnest we will see whether it is fit or whether it needs adjustments. Being able to evaluate that openly and sensibly will be so important. The inspectorate aspires to use other people’s datasets—Home’s, for example. That makes a lot of sense—doing the data evaluation before you go on an audit and then looking at the data when you come from an audit—but it is inexperienced in that area. Making sure that we do that intelligently will be a significant challenge. All those who comment on inspectorates seem to agree that much rests on the inspectorate’s power of voice. Without other, harder-edged tools—sanctions or the ability to make the rules—much relies on what we say, how we say it and how we follow it through. There is a fair amount of opportunity there for the inspectorate. It has had a rather unfortunate history of leadership in recent years, which has probably made it quite difficult to get the tone consistent and right, so doing more work to make sure that we hold enough influence in what we say will be important. Not just being better at joint inspections but being clear about how we follow up recommendations from all inspections seems to me quite important. It is not apparent publicly how good, bad or indifferent we are at that. I suspect that much of it is hidden from the public domain, but I am curious to know—let’s put it that way—how we approach that. How often do we do repeat inspection? What is our relationship with NOMS, in terms of following through recommendations that are clearly within their domain? That seems to me to be critical.
Dr Huq
What particular areas do you think would lend themselves to joint inspections?
Glenys Stacey
Through the gate and rehabilitation.
Dr Huq
What would your opinion be on mergers between the different inspectorates, or even a single criminal justice inspectorate?
Glenys Stacey
In recent years, I have always been surrounded by discussions about mergers. Where I am at the moment, the discussion on and off the shelf is, should there be one exam board or many? I am used to these debates and interested in them, but, frankly, the inspectorate is small, capable and can do a really good job. That is what I am interested in. If a Government start to discuss again the prospect of merger, of course I will engage in that debate with others. I do not have a predetermined view, but I think that this inspectorate can do a darn good job for £3 million.
Dr Huq
What other priorities, challenges and opportunities do you foresee in the next five years or so?
Glenys Stacey
I think that it is three years. There are plenty that are apparent and that I have already spoken of. The most immediate challenge for anyone lucky enough to get this job is leadership. There has been a patient crew, mostly in Manchester and out on the road. Recent staff survey results suggest that they want to know where they are going, and that is right.
Chair
Do you think that three years are enough to do this job—either of the jobs, actually—with a degree of genuine intent? It seems very short.
Glenys Stacey
It does. Perhaps I speak with some experience here, in that I am just finishing a five-year term as an independent regulator. Admittedly, at the moment I work in a remarkably technical area, but certainly the lead-in time was significant, to get up to speed. It is right to say that with five years you have a greater sense of certainty and independence; you get into the swing of it. If I were deciding the lengths of term, I would make them five years. Having said that, I am old in the tooth and quite happy with three, so it is not a personal issue for me.
Chair
No. It is a structural sort of thing.
Glenys Stacey
If I may say so, shorter terms limit the field. People are not prepared to put their head above the parapet.
Chair
There is also the danger that it is easier to remove those who speak truth unto power inconveniently, isn’t it?
Glenys Stacey
It is.
Chair
Thank you very much.
Glenys Stacey
Thank you very much, Chair.
Chair
Mr Clarke, you kindly stayed after giving your evidence. Can you help me on one further matter? For the sake of clarity, did you have any conversations with the Secretary of State prior to applying?
Peter Clarke
Yes, I did.
Chair
Did he telephone you?
Peter Clarke
Yes, he did.
Chair
Was it on much the same basis as Ms Stacey said?
Peter Clarke
Very similar. He phoned me—I do not recall exactly when; it was clearly after the election—and said that at some time in the forthcoming weeks and months there would be an advertisement placed for this particular role. He did not know whether or not I would be interested. I said that I did not know whether or not I would be interested either, because it would be a big change in my life and for my family. He made the point very clearly that this was a public appointment and, therefore, an open competition.
Chair
Thank you. I just wanted to be very clear from both of you in terms of the process. You have been very helpful about that. I am very grateful to both of you for your time and your evidence. Thank you very much. If everybody could leave us, we will go into private session. Again, I am very grateful to the candidates. Oral evidence: Pre-appointment scrutiny of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and HM Chief Inspector of Probation, HC 624 23