Lord Rogan – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rogan on 2015-02-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether current staffing levels of HM Prison Service meet the standard complement.

Lord Faulks

Staffing levels have been reviewed prison by prison as part of a ‘benchmarking approach’. Benchmark staffing requirements for each establishment have 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 role.

Benchmark staffing levels have been agreed in 85 public sector prisons. Amongst prison officers, the shortfall of staff in post against benchmarks for these establishments at 30 September 2014 was 4%.

Staffing levels have improved, but there remains a geographical variation and detached duty has been used to manage temporary shortages in particular locations. Such measures are always needed in such a large, widely spread organisation.

In addition HM Prison Service Reserve, consisting of former prison officers, has been established to support capacity changes and unplanned shortfalls in officer numbers.

The Prison Service has been returning to large scale recruitment levels as the period of closures and benchmarking has been coming to an end. As well as prison officers, we are also recruiting Operational Support Grades (uniformed staff who undertake a wide range of security based work) and instructors (who manage prisoners in workshop activities and training).