KEY POINTS:
Can it get any worse for Corrections? The punch-drunk department stumbles from one embarrassment to the next, this time being flayed alive by the Chief Ombudsman to such a degree he was worried his report would be construed as criticism for criticism's sake.
The word "unsatisfactory" peppers just
about every page of his report on Corrections treatment of prisoners when transporting them from jail to court or from jail to jail. And when things are not unsatisfactory, they tend to be "highly unsatisfactory", "undesirable" or "unacceptable".
If it was not obvious already, John Belgrave's 116-page report confirms the department is - to use National's one-word description - dysfunctional.
It simply has not been performing to the standards expected of a government department. Not that you would know, judging from the silence of the State Services Commission, the supposed state sector watchdog.
Even though the report does not deal in detail with last year's murder of 17-year-old Liam Ashley in the back of a prison van - Mr Belgrave's investigation covered prisoner transport in general - the findings are further embarrassment for Corrections' chief Barry Matthews because some of the managerial failings happened on his watch.
Likewise Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor, who for the umpteenth time has been left high and dry by his department.
Attention will focus on Mr Belgrave's assertion that current practices and conditions in which prisoners are moved around cities and around the country are essentially "inhumane" and may well breach the Bill of Rights. But then some hardliners may say "so what?"
Much more damaging for Corrections' reputation - and Mr O'Connnor's with it - is the report's cataloguing of managerial blunders which meant there were no national standards and consistency in the transport of prisoners.
In particular, the report notes an absence of communication between the department's Wellington head office and front-line staff, adding that is a major ground for criticism of central management. That is bad enough. However, a "saddened" Mr Belgrave observed he made the same point in a report on another aspect of prisoner treatment two years ago.
His report also reveals that Corrections led his office up the garden path, saying it was meeting new standards for heating and ventilating prison vans when, in fact, it was struggling to do so. Given the Chief Ombudsman's standing as an officer of Parliament, that is an astonishing thing for a government department to do and there could be repercussions.
Of significance to the Ashley case, Chubb Security, the company contracted to provide prisoner transport, flagged its concern about the inability of prisoners in the back of vans to communicate with prison officers sitting in the cab up front. That concern went unanswered by the department for more than a year. While Chubb waited for the department to respond, Liam Ashley was killed.
An internal Corrections probe last December blamed a string of errors for the circumstances in which Liam Ashley ended up unconscious in the back of the van.
Having kept their jobs in the wake of that inquiry, both minister and chief executive were always likely to be able to survive Mr Belgrave's report, critical as it is.
Mr O'Connor keeps waving a recently completed internal review of Corrections' head office in the face of those questioning why he has not tendered his resignation.
He says it has established much clearer lines of accountability.
He says it will produce the required "culture change" in Corrections. He says senior managers are now on notice.
He is right. He and Mr Matthews just walked out of the Last Chance Saloon. The excuses have run out. The next time Corrections slips up big-time, one or other will have to be sacrificed.
