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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the ratio of prison officers to inmates in prison in England and Wales was, by prison establishment, in each of the last five years.

Andrew Selous

Staffing levels are being reviewed prison by prison as part of a ‘benchmarking approach’. Benchmarking has been agreed with the unions and the NAO has commented that the wider strategy for the prison estate is the most coherent and comprehensive for many years. It delivers efficiencies while ensuring that public sector prisons operate safely, decently and securely. Benchmarking optimises the skills of staff by introducing new ways of working and puts all prison officers in prisoner facing roles.

The information requested has been placed in the library and extends the table provided to the honourable member for Tooting on 4 Mar 2014, Official Report, 805W. The tables include both public and private sector establishments. Figures are not however comparable across public and private sector establishments. There is no comparison within Private Sector Prisons for Prison Officer Specialists. Functions carried out by badged officers vary, particularly across private prisons, relating to whether functions are civilianised, contracted out, or performed by badged officers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the ratio of prison officers to inmates in prisons in England and Wales was, by category of prison, in each of the last five years.

Andrew Selous

Staffing levels are being reviewed prison by prison as part of a ‘benchmarking approach’. Benchmarking has been agreed with the unions and the NAO has commented that the wider strategy for the prison estate is the most coherent and comprehensive for many years. It delivers efficiencies while ensuring that public sector prisons operate safely, decently and securely. Benchmarking optimises the skills of staff by introducing new ways of working and puts all prison officers in prisoner facing roles.

The information requested has been placed in the library and extends the table provided to the honourable member for Tooting on 4 Mar 2014, Official Report, 805W. The tables include both public and private sector establishments. Figures are not however comparable across public and private sector establishments. There is no comparison within Private Sector Prisons for Prison Officer Specialists. Functions carried out by badged officers vary, particularly across private prisons, relating to whether functions are civilianised, contracted out, or performed by badged officers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average cost per (a) prison place and (b) prisoner in each category of prison was in the latest period for which figures are available.

Jeremy Wright

The Department routinely publishes average costs per prisoner and prison place, based on actual net resource expenditure for each private and public sector prison and in summary form for the whole of the prison estate in England and Wales on an annual basis after the end of each financial year. This includes a breakdown of these costs by prison category and individual prison within each category, and separately by prisoner gender.

The most recently published figures are for financial year 2012-13 which give an average annual Overall cost per place of £36,808 and average annual Overall cost per prisoner of £34,766. An average annual cost per male prisoner of £34,306 and £44,746 per female prisoner, based on Overall resource costs, is also published.

The information for financial year 2012-13 is available in the Cost per Place and Prisoner and Supplementary Information files on the Department’s website at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prison-and-probation-trusts-performance-statistics-201213

Figures for 2013-14 will be published alongside the Management Information Addendums to the NOMS Annual Report and Accounts in October 2014.

Continuing to reduce prison unit costs is one of the key targets for the Department. Between 2009/10 and 2012/13 prison unit costs (based on Overall prison costs) have reduced in real terms by 16% per place and 13% per prisoner.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people are currently employed in prisons to calculate the release date of prisoners.

Jeremy Wright

The number of staff employed in prisons specifically for the purpose of calculating release dates for prisoners is not held on central systems. To obtain the information would involve collecting data from every establishment, which would entail disproportionate cost.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the names are of all prisoners who have absconded from prison and currently not been returned; and if he will specify in each such case (a) the offence each absconder originally committed and (b) the length of custodial sentence they were serving when they absconded.

Simon Hughes

I apologise for the delay in replying. The table below provides details of index offence and length of sentence of those absconders who are unlawfully at large having absconded between April 2004 and March 2014 (the most recent period that statistics are available). Information prior to April 2004 could only be collated by performing manual checks across different databases and could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.

In order to disclose the names of absconders who are unlawfully at large, it is necessary to make appropriate checks to ensure that disclosure will not jeopardise ongoing Police operations to recapture the offender, will not place any one else in danger and to ensure that any victim has been informed of both the abscond and release of the name. These checks are still on-going and I will write shortly as soon as the information has been prepared.

The number of absconds has reduced by 80% over the last 10 years.

Table1: Index offence and sentence length of absconders unlawfully at large from April 2004 to March 2014, as at 30 September 2014

Note: Table shows absconds of prisoners and excludes absconds of immigration detainees from NOMS operated establishments and those operated as Immigration Removal Centres by NOMS under contract to the Home Office.

These figures have been drawn from live administrative data systems which may be amended at any time. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.