Corrections boss in minister's good books

Corrections Minister Judith Collins has finally expressed confidence in department head Barry Matthews, three months after saying he would need to earn her confidence after a report identified serious parole service failures.

In response to a question from Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove at a law and order select committee meeting yesterday, Ms Collins said Mr Matthews had done "a very good job" improving the department and she now had confidence in him.

She later said there had been "astounding progress" in parole and many positive changes in the department.

"Corrections has entered a new phase where they want to front up if anything goes wrong ... They are not hiding from bad-news stories, they are letting people know. It actually gives me a lot more confidence."

An Auditor-General's report in February found parole service procedures, including special provisions introduced after parolee Graeme Burton murdered Karl Kuchenbecker in the Hutt Valley in January 2007, weren't being followed in many cases.

Ms Collins said compliance in dealing with high-risk offenders had increased from 58 per cent two years ago to 77-81 per cent now. That improvement had already been made when Ms Collins refused to express confidence in Mr Matthews.

Asked what had changed, Ms Collins said improvements had continued. "They've been undertaking a very good process of looking at all their procedures, how they can improve them, how they can streamline them, but actually they are really taking to this change very well."

A State Services Commission report released in March said Mr Matthews was accountable for the department's errors but sacking him was not justified.

The department had been improving and tightening its parole management procedures under the pressure of a growing number of offenders being given community-based sentences, and there were long-running institutional problems throughout the department that would take time to solve, the report said.

Ms Collins also told the committee the cost of converting shipping containers into cells would vary depending on which prison they were added on to and the infrastructure needed to incorporate them into jails.

Estimates of up to $380,000 per bed had been given for the shipping container plan, but Ms Collins said the containers could be set up for between $53,000 and $63,000 each.

She said that figure was far cheaper than building prisons to the standard of the new Spring Hill Correction Facility near Meremere, south of Auckland, which would work out at $643,000 a bed.

- NZPA