“You’ve opened doors I thought I’d never open into rooms I never thought I’d see.” Offender, HMP SHREWSBURY
INTRODUCTION
The Writers in Prison Network is unique. No other organisation, either in the UK or internationally, does what we do. The range of art forms that we deliver within the criminal justice system, the training and support that we give both to our writers in residence and the prisons within which they work is unparalleled.
It is a highly specialised skill for not only do we deliver the arts to participants who in the majority of cases have never been involved in creative activities we are also doing it in a very challenging and monolithic environment. WIPN has developed these essential skills over more than 130 residencies with its hands-on approach, ability to communicate with prison staff from a base of sound knowledge, and the experience to be able to prepare, train and support our writers in residence, most of whom have never worked in prisons before.
So what is it that the Writers in Prison Network (WIPN) does that makes us think that we can help deliver ACE’s five goals, provide effective governance, leadership and management, as well as promise financial stability?
The Writers in Prison Network was appointed by the Arts Council in April 1998 to administer the Writers in Residence in Prison Scheme. The Scheme was set up in 1992 by the Arts Council of England and the Home Office. Since that time more than 130 residencies have been placed in a wide variety of establishments throughout the country.
Although the prisons’ needs, facilities and aims have varied greatly the Scheme has the flexibility to successfully address those differences. The Scheme employs writers who are experienced or established in particular literary fields; many have been creative writing tutors, or have worked in publishing, the theatre, television, radio or journalism. They are skilled communicators and facilitators with a genuine interest in working with the prison population.
The writers are there to enrich the whole prison, available to work with both staff and offenders. Our writers work closely with the education department, library, health care and other partners within the prison. They have created a legacy of magazines, anthologies, audio, video and live drama productions and other projects which have helped project a positive image for the prison. They have also brought into the prison writers and poets, theatre groups and musicians for staged events, readings and workshops.
The Scheme is currently funded by Arts Council England, the National Offender Management Service and individual establishments.
WIPN was a Lord Longford Prize Winner in 2004.
“A writer in residence can make such a difference in enriching the prison regime, reaching the parts not always touched by traditional education and, at the same time, improving the quality of work life among staff, who also may discover hidden talents.”
Peter Bennett, Governor
HMP GRENDON/SPRING HILL
In addition to the residencies, WIPN has for several years run Special Projects. These are one-off projects – everything from induction videos to setting up magazines, drama productions and creating anthologies – organised with individual prisons or probation services. For these we draw on the vast wealth of experience within the Network, which not only current writers in residence but also many ex-writers in residence whose expertise, and the ability to deliver in a prison setting, is invaluable.
A number of our special projects have drawn funding from many other sources including charitable foundations, private individuals and other grant-funding bodies. The success of these funding applications has been due, in no small measure, to the impressive track record and reputation of ACE’s Writers in Residence in Prison Scheme. Many of the Special Projects and the skills to deliver them originated with the Scheme’s residencies.
“Writers in Prison Network was identified as a particularly important model of good practice because of the methods it uses to work with all offenders.”
Penny Eames, INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER
Cultural Provision for Black, Ethnic and Minority Offenders in Criminal Justice settings in England and Wales (2008)
In appointing professional writers to the Scheme we nurture talent and while prisons and offenders reap the rewards of their skills the writers themselves gain at least two years’ regular income, not only enabling them to develop their own work alongside the residency, but also to benefit from learning a wide range of new skills, enriching their own writing and giving them invaluable, additional assets to take back to the arts job market. Most of them choose to stay connected to the Network after their initial contract expires, and it is from this pool that we draw our artists both for special projects and to train each successive year’s intake of news writers in residence.
“I would like to put on record how much I gained from the experience [as a WIR]. The experience enhanced my own writing and helped me learn a lot about myself. I was faced with several challenges. I had to learn how to organise groups when access to the members of the groups was not always easy. I had to find a way to communicate to members of staff and officers what I was trying to achieve. Often I had to deal with women who were not always in the mood for what I was trying to do and I had to learn how to spend time listening without feeling guilty about which boxes that I was ticking.
“I know I was successful because I’ve been told so. However, that isn’t the whole story. I also know that I wouldn’t have advanced my own self-esteem and capabilities so much without this opportunity to work in the prison environment.”
Joy Winkler
Writer in Residence, HMP STYAL (2001–08)
What this document seeks to do is to lay out before you the considerable achievements of WIPN since it took over stewardship of the Scheme, give a taste of its pioneering and innovative initiatives, show how what we deliver meets ACE’s aspirations for its stated goals, demonstrate how our budgets for the coming period reflect both a realistic projection and represent excellent value for money.
In so doing we will introduce you to the voices of governors and prison staff, offenders and writers in residence who will speak of their own experience of the Writers in Residence in Prison Scheme.
And Now For Something Completely Different…
WIPN has a reputation for creating great new ideas and has pioneered a host of exciting projects over the last 13 years. Many of these special projects began life within the ACE-funded residencies and a wide range of them are still delivered as part of our standard residency provision. The residencies have provided the fertile ground in which these ideas can be nurtured over an extended period of time.
✑ ORAL STORYTELLING WIPN was not the first to deliver Storybook Dad but we picked the idea up in the late 1990s and delivered the first storyteller in residence at HMP Wayland. Subsequently we have made it (and Storybook Mum, of course) an integral part of many of our residencies. At HMP Channings Wood we trained a young woman, Sharon Berry, to work alongside our writer in residence. When Sharon moved on to HMP Dartmoor and began a Storybook Dad project we provided on-site support. Sharon then went on to create a sound editing facility at the prison, with funding from the Lankelly Trust, to help other prisons edit their material onto CDs and to train prison staff from other establishments in sound editing skills.
Maintaining family connections whilst in prison is widely recognised as one of the essential elements in reducing reoffending. It has also been identified as one of the key factors in preventing the next generation entering the cycle of crime and imprisonment. Storybook Dad/Mum is an invaluable factor in contributing to this as it helps maintain a dialogue between offender and child. One offender’s young daughter reported how she was able to take the CD (and accompanying book we had produced) into school on World Book Day and proudly announce that here was a book that her dad had written.
For many offenders whose literacy skills are poor keeping up a regular correspondence is not an option. Storybook Dad/Mum provides an excellent way to overcome this obstacle. Whether the story is already published or it’s an original story that the writer in residence works on with the offender to create this can still be recorded in the offender’s own voice with help; even if the offender cannot read confidently our writer in residence assists them by saying lines which are then repeated for the recording, the writer’s line being edited out later.
Storybook Dad/Mum has many variations. WIPN has worked closely with the Reading Agency’s Big Book Share which uses published works for the recordings. We have also helped set up projects like HMP Wymott’s Men Behaving Dadly which combined oral storytelling with story writing and desktop publishing, craft, music, nutrition, cookery and parenting skills.
For foreign nationals in prison storytelling can be a lifeline. Tapping into their own culture’s oral tradition to retell myths, legends and folktales is not only a way of enabling their voice to be heard it also contributes to the celebration of the diversity within the prison population.
In 2004 WIPN’s pioneering work with Storybook Dad/Mum was the subject of a Radio 4 documentary, The Goodnight Tales. In 2006 WIPN set up a Koestler Award for storytelling.
“It makes you understand about life, what’s around you. You know more.”
Offender, HMP Long Lartin
✑ VIDEO Prisons are naturally wary of cameras (at least if they’re not run by the Security Department). An inadvertent shot of keys made public registers as a ‘key compromise’ and can cost a prison upwards of £150,000 to change every single lock in the prison. WIPN have pioneered video production in the prison and probation system, making dozens of video dramas and documentaries.
The secret, of course, is to start slowly and from a long way off and make sure that Security are involved from the very start (don’t frighten the horses) and feel satisfied that you know exactly what you’re doing within the prison environment. WIPN has built a body of expertise over the years that produces the goods to a high standard, provides a minimum of disruption to the regime and is extremely cost-effective. The same care and attention is essential in our DVD work with the Probation Services.
We work with staff and offenders on all aspects of the production from initial idea through storylining, scripting, storyboarding, filming and editing. At all stages we involve offenders practically, gaining new skills in every aspect of film-making.
“I must say how impressed we have been with you and the Writers in Prison Network. From start to finish you have the utmost professionalism, and have delivered exactly what you promised to the highest possible standard. We are very impressed by your versatile range of skills, deep personal commitment, and by a final product that has inspired and uplifted people and been a great credit to both our organisations.”
Jeremy Corbett
Assistant Chief Probation Officer
Head of Interventions
DYFED-POWYS PROBATION TRUST
The DVDs produced (everything from 2 minute short dramas to animations to 30 minute documentaries) have been filmed in all categories of prison and on location with probation. Many have been Induction videos, aimed to explain to newcomers to a particular prison what the establishment has to offer; this is a particularly important area of our work as, with over 60% of offenders below Level 1 literacy, video is a far more effective way of delivering information than the printed word.
Our video work has also led us to help prisons at HMP Leicester, HMP Swaleside, HMP Frankland, HMP Garth and HMP Castington amongst others to set up media centres. These have been used to create facilities for offenders to learn skills in video, audio and DTP.
We have also been a major influence on the Koestler Awards as our residencies began sending in videos as entries to their annual competition. Initially they had to be judged as scripts as there was no category allocated to actual finished products; WIPN’s output changed this and there is now a video & film award. Over the years WIPN has won a considerable number of them.
“My experience began with a month-long Arts Festival co-ordinated by the Network and resulting in a play, a book of prisoners’ poetry and a DVD to be used on the induction wing. Following the success of this project we went on to appoint a Writer in Residence who ran a whole range of inspiring and relevant projects including creating a prison magazine and setting up a wing-based rap group.
Without the support of the Writers in Prison Network there would have been very little enrichment activity included as part of our programme of education.”
Jackie Clifford
Head of Learning & Skills, HMP HIGHPOINT (2003-06)
✑ RADIO Allied to our video work have been our initiatives in radio. Naturally radio provides considerably less security implications than video and is cheaper to set up. As well as working alongside the radio station at HMYOI Feltham, WIPN created the radio station at HMP Channings Wood from scratch.
At HMYOI Onley our writers in residence secured additional funding to work with young offenders to write six radio plays which were then recorded with professional actors under the direction of BBC producer, Clare Groves. At HMP Rye Hill, with our writer in residence working alongside an ex-BBC producer, we produced the world’s first prison radio soap in 26 episodes.
✑ READING GROUPS & STORIES CONNECT Creative reading is a relatively new art form but one which WIPN has eagerly adopted as part of its residencies. Prison librarians are amongst our best allies and reading groups as well as guest readings by writers are a popular partnership with them. In addition, working in partnership with English Pen, WIPN has been able to bring some top authors into prisons; the relationship has been particularly fruitful in the last 18 months as one of our ex-writers in residence went on to work for English Pen.
We have also run a number of ‘Film of the Book’ groups which sought to explore the similarities and contrasts between text and film and to expand participants’ enjoyment of the written word and encourage them to read more.
“While the Library and the Education department have their own vital roles to play in promoting literacy, providing development and enrichment activities and encouraging pro-social behaviour, the role of the writer in residence is an essential and unique one that could not be replaced by either of these services.”
Jenn Ashworth
Library Manager, HMP GARTH
In 1997 WIPN attended a Scheme meeting at the Arts Council in London at which one of the regional officers mentioned an American project called Changing Lives Through Literature. We followed up the lead and when WIPN took over running the Scheme in the following year we promoted the idea to the current crop of writers in residence. After two trials at HMYOI Feltham and HMP Low Newton, the WIPN version really took off at HMP Channings Wood.
The principle idea behind the programme was not a conventional reading group where participants discuss writing style etc. With a careful selection of texts it focused more on story and character, using the writing – story, novel, poem, play, film – as a source for discussion. So, for example, we use a short story about male violence, or a novel whose central theme is drug addiction, or a poem about domestic abuse as the raw issues for a group to explore. Unusually also, the group always includes either a uniformed officer, probation officer or similar to take part alongside offenders.
The original programme was born in Massachusetts, the brainchild of a judge and Professor Bob Waxler of the University of Boston. In the States, participants have come before the judge and are offered a choice between a three month custodial sentence or the Changing Lives Through Literature course. They must attend every week, read the texts, contribute to the discussion and keep a journal throughout – if not they go back to the judge and complete their sentence in prison. The programme was subsequently expanded to include female offenders under Professor Jean Trounstine.
WIPN made contact with the professors and met up with them when they visited the UK to discuss how we might adapt the programme to a UK version. As the Home Office were at that time not keen to pursue the alternative to custody route, we adapted our version to take place, at first, within prison.
With funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, with whom WIPN have had a long and fruitful relationship, we progressed to running our programme, now renamed Stories Connect: Changing Life Through Stories, in five other prisons, chosen to represent the full range of the prison estate. Building on this success we then acquired a further block of funding to pilot it in places such as hostels and halfway houses; beyond this (and as I write currently coming to the close of its three year run) we developed a version of the programme to run with the Probation Services in South West England, based in Exeter and linking in with the University.
A first handbook, STORIES CONNECT, appeared in 2007 and its sequel will be published by Bar None Books, WIPN’s own publishing imprint, in 2011.
✑ READERS IN PRISON Naturally all of our writers in residence are also keen readers and maintain strong relationships with the prison librarians. This is naturally important as our writers in residence will frequently ‘prescribe’ a writer whose form, style or subject matter could aid an offender-writer’s own work.
One particularly successful project, Inside Books, was undertaken in 2000-01 in conjunction with reading development agency Opening the Book. The remit was to match up four readers in residence with four of our writers in residence to work alongside each other. WIPN provided pre-prison training for the readers and organised the logistics. This was the first ever large-scale prison reading project and made even more exciting by the fact that we had linked with publisher Hodder & Stoughton who offered a selection from their entire fiction range. The groups selected the ten titles they wanted and Hodder & Stoughton supplied sufficient copies for each group to read. In addition, the publisher printed a limited edition anthology of the first chapter of each book plus a list another 90 titles that the groups recommended. At the ed of the project, Opening the Book in conjunction with WIPN published a handbook for how to set up and run reading groups in prison.
“The new books I introduced were fought over and the enthusiasm spread even beyond the group. One member became an unofficial librarian, lending books to other men on the wing and taking responsibility for their return. None went missing.”
Ann Cleeve, Reader in Residence, HMP PRESTON
“[Bill Broady/The Swimmer] reminisced about Bradford, showing them his new collection of short stories In This Block There Lives A Slag, and told them they could write books like that too. He told them how, he answered their questions, he made them laugh, he was one of them, patient and kind, and, for a while, we were just writers sitting there in a circle, men of the world, untouchable by the handcuffs and bars.”
Iain MacDonald, Writer in Residence, HMP PRESTON
✑ NUJ PATHWAYS TO JOURNALISM – if there’s one word more likely to frighten a prison Security Department than ‘camera’ it’s ‘journalist’. Yet the Howard League for Prison Reform states that “a prison with a magazine is a healthy prison”. Communication is not a prison’s forte, indeed the word ‘communication’ tends to be synonymous with ‘black hole’ or ‘Chinese whisper’. The information currency in prisons is rumour.
A prison magazine offers the perfect opportunity for issues to be aired and debated, for regime information to be communicated to both offenders and staff, for creative writing to be given a showcase and a whole host of other benefits that prison-wide publication lends itself to.
WIPN has been behind the launch of numerous prison magazines. One of the key issues with any magazine is ensuring longevity. Many magazines, whether in prison or not, have launched successfully but when the engine who drives it moves on the magazine dies. WIPN has devised a successful infrastructure which gives a prison magazine the chance of becoming self-sustaining.
Based on a shared editor post of ideally 2-3 editors (often these can be made full-time jobs based in a print shop if the prison has one), supported by a satellite editorial team of 7-8, the magazine team meets regularly and while not providing all the written material themselves is responsible for commissioning, collecting, editing and subsequently carrying out the design & layout of the magazine, organising the printing, collating and finally distributing each issue.
We came across an NUJ course at HMP Wandsworth* which was at a comparatively early stage of development and poorly funded. It had been started by a writer and the NUJ’s General Secretary. The writer’s considerable input to the developing the programme was woefully under-remunerated by the education provider and little known beyond the confines of the one, specific prison. WIPN absorbed the project into the Scheme and appointed the writer as our writer in residence.
Over the last decade we have piloted the course in a large number of prisons and developed a full-scale, Open College Network course; Entry level, three levels above this, featuring both journalism and design and graphics, and finally two diploma levels accredited by the NUJ itself. Finally the course was launched with a fanfare in Westminster with accompanying support literature, the first versions of the workbooks including a supplement of essays by leading journalists (‘The Professionals’) and a documentary DVD made by WIPN at HMP Ford, the NUJ Pathways passed from pilot stage to fully functioning national programme. As I write the course is about to launch a major marketing campaign (Spring 2011), supported by Adam Christie of the NUJ Executive, aimed at making the NUJ Pathways fully self-sufficient.
Without the Writers in Residence in Prison Scheme and the WIPN this innovative and unique course would not be available to prisons. Countless WIPN-inspired magazines have won Koestler Awards over the years.
[* WIPN has always made a point of supporting isolated artistic projects in prisons from HMP Kingston to HMP Parc to current solo creative writing initiatives at HMP Holloway and HMP Forest Bank, lending them any support and guidance that we could.]
“Teaching and guidance in the arts promotes and guides independent learning, creative problem solving and effective communication. It fosters awareness of others through group learning. With the guidance of a gifted writer a group can turn time served into time changed and transformed.”
Christine Fisher, Ex-Offenders Learning & Skills Unit
Ex-Head of Learning & Skills, HMP WHATTON
✑ COOLBOOKS and LIFELINES: LIFE STORIES Autobiographical writing is in itself nothing new, of course. However, it provides a key element in our work in residencies. Autobiography is an unconscious desire to gain insight in order to influence the future; insight is the door to change. Perhaps nowhere in society is it more important for people to reinterpret their past, understand their present and imagine their (different) future.
WIRs work on autobiography with offenders all the time. Often this is a prelude to moving on to exploring other more imaginative worlds beyond crime and imprisonment, it opens up a window on a much wider world.
Many offenders feel inspired after working with a WIR to go beyond the initial exercise and begin to write their whole life story. We have tapped into this interest in autobiography through projects such as Life Story in 50 Words, and mapping life stories. Lots of life stories appear in print in our magazines and anthologies.
In publishing terms two of our more ambitious projects grew out of life writing but also addressed the appalling lack of available appropriate reading material we had noticed in prisons for offenders who were learner readers. CoolBooks (funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation) used four prisons (male, female, young offenders and adults) to write and critique short pieces of life writing. Eight were chosen by offenders to go forward to publication, illustrated by a professional artist who worked alongside the writers. This, and the accompanying resource book The CoolBooks File were distributed to every prison, partially financed by the Prison Education Service. The resultant material had street-cred with offenders; they recognised the material as true stories about people just like them.
The later Lifelines series was funded by the Indigo Trust. Inspired by CoolBooks it resulted in 11 illustrated books and CDs (with the stories read by professional actors), plus two anthologies of the ‘best of the rest’ and included some deeply moving stories. We gathered the material, over 300 submissions, from offenders within our residencies.
“This sense of achievement can encourage offenders to change direction on release and seek further education, steering away from crime.”
Jill Lewis, Head of Offender Management
HMP BEDFORD (2003-2008)
✑ NOT SHUT UP magazine was started by our ex-WIR at HMP Brixton. This London-based magazine drew material from the seven London prisons, including those which had our residencies in. Workshops at the others were delivered many of our ex-WIRs. We have continued to support NSU throughout its life and are delighted that it is now a national magazine. Our residencies throughout the country contribute material to every issue.
✑ ACTION FOR PRISONERS’ FAMILIES provided an interesting partnership with a project called A Prisoner in the Family. We linked up our residencies to produce material on the theme by both offenders and family members. The material produced was selected from by author Jacqueline Wilson, the book desktop published by WIPN and launched at the Hay on Wye Festival.
✑ Another unique opportunity was presented to us by HMYOI PORTLAND. Having been approached by them to do the design and layout of an anthology We Black Men of England, the prison subsequently approached us to run a project which linked the young offenders with students at nearby BRYANSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL. The project explored institutional life from the two different perspectives through shared workshops and resulted in the anthology Inside Out.
“I have had my eyes opened from the blinkered prism that I once viewed my prison life through. When I am writing I am free from my surroundings and can literally fly over the walls with my new found creativity, capturing these thoughts on paper are a sense of achievement in its own right.”
Offender, HMP GARTH
✑ STRING OF PEARLS n initiative by our ex-WIR at HMP Channings Wood, which was run with prisoners’ families in the community in the South West of England, enabling the partners and children to share stories and solutions to problems.
✑ was an unusual project which began life at HMYOI Rochester. In a previous life our WIR had worked at the BBC Script Department and she would have been gobsmacked to be told that within 18 months of starting her residency she was to be the producer of three rap CDs. This trilogy mixed rap and narrative and explored life in prison, life just prior to release and then – thanks to joint funding between the prison and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation – life on the streets of South London post-release. Since these CDs were produced only one of the seven lads have reoffended and found themselves back behind bars.
✑ VOCAL FORCE is an organisation based in Newcastle whose work revolves around singing, specifically in teaching people to sing. In two projects at HMP Foston Hall and HMP Full Sutton (current) they have been working alongside our WIRs to teach offenders to sing as groups and subsequently to sing with their children. We also organised one of Vocal Force’s artists to run a workshop for all our WIRs at one of our conferences.
✑ The ARVON FOUNDATION is also one of our more recent collaborations. With money donated by playwright Willy Russell we organised a residential creative writing workshop for ex-offenders at the Lumb Bank Centre in 2009. So far as we know this is the first time this had ever been done. Satisfaction rate at the end of the week was over 80% (one of the highest scores Lumb Bank has ever recorded). We ran a second, highly successful course in Feb/March 2011.
“At first I was very apprehensive about going on the Arvon course, because I didn’t know what to expect. Then house and surroundings were fantastic, a real inspirational place, [The tutors] were so down-to-earth and approachable. They got me writing things that were completely out of my comfort zone and the feedabck they gave me was really helpful.”
Arvon course participant
Ex-heroin addict
✑ NEW LEAF BOOKS was formed by two workers from Gatehouse Books with whom we’d worked on CoolBooks. [One of their co-workers had left Gatehouse, applied to be a WIR and subsequently worked with us at HMP Preston, Manchester and currently at Everthorpe, having also been the lead artist on the Lifelines project.] They wanted to set up their own publishing company for adult literacy books and came to WIPN for help in getting started and surviving the notroiusly dangerous first two years. We offered help, including handing over the distribution role for Bar None Books (our publishing arm). They still handle all online sales of our books at www.newleafbooks.org.uk/prisonwriting.html
✑ THE MELTING POT is one of the most exciting new projects we’ve helped set up in recent years. Building on the foundations of our very successful residency at HMP Frankland, Melting Pot is funded by the Sir James Knott Trust and Northern Rock Foundation. A ground-breaking project it is working on the Westgate Unit for offenders with Dangerous and Serious Personality Disorders (DSPD). With our ex-WIR as lead artist, supported by two co-workers, this 3 year project is working closely with unifrom and clinical staff, using the arts as an intervention in a highly specialised environment which has never been tried anywhere in the world before.
The list is endless, but the key fact remains that without the Writers in Residence in Prison Scheme and the work of WIPN and its WIRs none of these projects may ever have come to life. We hope to be able to keep coming up with innovative, pioneering projects with a whole range of eager partners, engaging as wide as possible a spectrum of offenders long into the future.
“The fact is creative activities and the arts can transform the attitudes and lives of those in prison [and] just might reach a part of their characters which stark punitive attitudes can never penetrate. Allowing troubled people to feel some self-worth through creative expression is more likely to foster self-respect and engender empathy with others than what prison life offers generally.”
Erwin James
Ex-offender, now a professional writer
[Our WIR worked with Erwin at HMP Nottingham and helped him to get started when he first began his column for The Guardian. He also appeared in our 1999 video documentary, Free With Words… “in the group I was a writer, a writer.”]
And Finally…
✑ WIPN constantly monitors and evaluates its residencies, but it also reviews its own practices on an ongoing basis. Through feedback questionnaires – especially related to our Induction Week and its resource handbook (both revised annually), through the three conferences through a year and the four steering groups per prison, as well as the 24/7 phone and e-mail helpline, we aim to keep in a constant dialogue with our WIRs, the prison and the offenders with whom we’re working.
We’re currently undertaking a year-long Evaluation of WIPN and its delivery of the Scheme with the Community Justice Department of Sheffield Hallam University. Our brief for them is to cover all aspects of our in order to produce a comprehensive report which will be published in late 2011 and subsequently disseminated through our website and elsewhere. We’re keen to know what we are doing right, what can we do better and share good practice.
Our board are an immensely useful overseer of WIPN. With their range of skills and experience they are able to act as a wise and supportive counsel, holding up our strategies, our finances and staff to scrutiny to ensure that we always do what we say on the tin. We regulalry invite board members into prison or to conferences so that they keep in touch with the day-to-day realities of the Scheme. The directors also deliver workshops within the residencies for exactly the same reason; WIPN is a hands-on agency, not a bureaucracy running an arts project.
For all matters financial we have an outstanding office manager, fully trained in Sage software, whose managements accounts and budgets form the basis of our day-to-day financial management and are a regular feature of all our board meetings. Financial statements are submitted on time to Companies House without fail and we always work within our budget, with regular assessments of our financial health. We already have in place sufficient funds (in the bank or promised from ACE, NOMS, the individual prisons and other sources) to ensure that we can honour all our contracts up to September 2012 – six months after the current ACE funding expires. We are spending public money and we are extremely careful to look after it; how we spend it is clear and transparent to all our funders’ view on request.
We already have in place budgets in keeping the planned year-on-year 10% cuts over the period 2011-15. We plan to emerge smaller but with all our core activities protected and have been ever mindful of ensuring that the qualities that make us what we are will not be compromised. We have also begun to develop contingency plans for ways to sustain WIPN through other means should any funding input fail to materialise, including considering applying for charitable status at our next board meeting in February. Whatever happens we intend to be here in 10 years time still delivering the quality of serrvice we always have; working in prisons makes you resilient if nothing else, plus of course the passionate belief in what we do.
Let me end with the text of an e-mail that we received less than 24 hours ago:
“I would also like to take this opportunity to say how impressed I have been with Anne-Marie's work over the last couple of years. I can confidently say that she has made a real positive difference to the lives of many offenders. She has motivated some of the most difficult prisoners to join her in projects and then to go on to enjoy other learning experiences in other departments around the prison. She recently received a recognition award for her hard work and commitment from the Governing Governor and indeed the Koestler award for the prison magazine that her employees publish under her management. Anne-Marie has been an asset to Lancaster castle and its vision to rehabilitate people.”
Adam Connolley
Head of Reducing Reoffending
HMP LANCASTER CASTLE
That’s why WIPN does what it does.
