All change at HMPPS

Phil Copple is gone

Phil Copple, the Director General Operations of HMPPS is leaving the organisation. Civil servants were told this afternoon that he will be replaced at the end of the month by James McEwan, COO at the Ministry of Justice who also joint-leads the government finance function. I understand that this change has been at the instigation of Jo Farrar, who is seeking to professionalise the prison and probation service, and trying to create an organisation in which people are accountable for failures. Copple doesn’t appear to be taking a role elsewhere in the civil service, so this seems to be the end of his 35 year career, having joined the prison service in 1990.