CAT/OP/GBR/RONPM/1 State involvement could be detrimental to the credibility of the whole mechanism and undermine public confidence. 53. Furthermore, the Subcommittee also wishes to bring attention to the question of secondments within the members of the mechanism. The Subcommittee takes note of the mechanism’s guidance entitled “Ensuring the independence of NPM personnel: guidance for members of the UK National Preventive Mechanism”, which sets out the intention of members to work progressively towards a reduction in reliance on seconded staff for national preventive mechanism work. The guidance addresses a 2013 recommendation of the Committee against Torture, which called on the United Kingdom to end the practice of seconding individuals working in places of deprivation of liberty to national preventive mechanism bodies (CAT/C/GBR/CO/5, para. 14). However, the Subcommittee is of the view that more needs to be done by the staff members of the mechanism to ensure that they do not hold or acquire positions that could potentially raise questions of conflict of interest or dual loyalty. 54. The Subcommittee recommends that the national preventive mechanism continue striving to achieve functional independence, raise awareness of the obligation of independence set out in the Optional Protocol and advocate for a robust legislative basis that ensures statutory guarantees of the mechanism’s independence. 55. The Subcommittee urges the national preventive mechanism to continue taking internal measures to ensure that the independence of its personnel is rigorously safeguarded and constantly reinforced, inter alia, by reducing the members’ reliance on staff seconded from places of deprivation of liberty and enhancing the transparency of the selection process of the mechanism’s personnel. C. Human and financial resources 56. The Subcommittee observes that the national preventive mechanism of the United Kingdom, with its 21 members, covers a vast variety of places of deprivation of liberty, and that it can count on the financial and human resources of the member organizations to carry out joint activities. 57. Nevertheless, the Subcommittee was informed that some members of the mechanism faced challenges with the budgets necessary to carry out their national preventive mechanism functions. This is due to a range of factors, including recent budget cuts and budgets for the mechanism’s work within the 21 bodies not being ring-fenced to carry out preventive work and thus being allocated alongside competing priorities. The Subcommittee is concerned at the information contained in the mechanism’s annual report for 2017/18 that several members of the national preventive mechanism reported that they would be required by the Government of the United Kingdom to make cuts to their budgets. 17 58. In addition, and while noting that the staffing for the national preventive mechanism secretariat recently increased from two part-time roles to one part-time Head of Secretariat and one full-time Assistant Coordinator, the Subcommittee believes that resources provided to the secretariat remain insufficient, the more so considering the complex institutional structure of the mechanism. In this respect, the Subcommittee notes that in its annual report for 2017/18, the mechanism stated that the lack of additional resources for its secretariat impeded the realization of the full potential of joined-up work across member organizations, four nations and the different detention settings. 59. The Subcommittee considers that budget cuts to members of the national preventive mechanism may jeopardize their preventive work and, as a result, weaken their execution of Optional Protocol-mandated functions. The Subcommittee also believes that the insufficiency of the resources available for the mechanism’s secretariat to coordinate the work of a highly complex multi-body mechanism and ensure their activities are focused on prevention represents a serious constraint. 17 Ninth Annual Report, p. 38. 11