The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many full time equivalent prison officers were employed and how many such staff were off sick at HM Prison Northumberland on Saturday 29 March 2014.
Jeremy Wright
The information requested could not be obtained within the timescale. I will write to the Member in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many acts of prisoner on prisoner violence there have been in HM Prison High Down in each month since September 2013.
Jeremy Wright
The number of assaults on staff and prisoner on prisoner assaults at HMP High Down between September 2013 and December 2013 can be found in Table 1. The monthly figures between September 2013 and December 2013 are broadly in line with the average number of assaults at HMP High Down over the last 5 years. Assault statistics by establishment are published annually in April with the latest statistics published covering up to 2013.
There are many factors that can drive changes in the number of assaults at individual establishments from one month to the next, including changes in admissions rates and composition of the prison population. Short-term monthly figures do not give a good indication of trends, and a view over a long time period should be taken when considering trends.
Table 1: Number of assaults, HMP High Down, September 2013 to December 2013
|
September |
October |
November |
December |
|
|
Assaults on staff |
2 |
3 |
3 |
5 |
|
Prisoner on prisoner assaults (including fights) |
19 |
11 |
12 |
8 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted for sending illicit or unauthorised items through the post to prisoners in establishments in England and Wales in each of the last four years.
Jeremy Wright
Prisons employ a range of measures to detect, disrupt and deter the trafficking of illicit items into prisons. Any contraband detected coming into the prison will be recorded on a central incident reporting system. However, to identify the manner in which the contraband entered the prison and any subsequent referral to the police would require a manual interrogation of incident reports. This could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.
Information on prosecutions and convictions for these offences is not held centrally and could only be obtained by asking each prison to source information locally. This, again, could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-30.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) assaults and (b) serious assaults on staff per 1,000 prisoners there were in each prison in each of the last four years.
Jeremy Wright
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) does not tolerate violence of any kind in prisons and any instance is taken very seriously.
NOMS is committed to exploring options to continue to improve how violence is tackled in prisons to keep both staff and prisoners safe. It is currently reviewing the policy and practice of the management of violence.
Over the last 5 years the rate of assaults has fallen by 13%.
Risk of assault is distributed unevenly around the prison estate. Gender, age and other factors such as the size and composition of the prison population, can affect the number assault incidents that occur in a particular establishment. Therefore, careful interpretation is needed of the incident and rates tables at a prison level.
The number of (a) assaults on staff per 1,000 prisoners in each prison has been placed in the library.
Due to the low number of serious assaults on prison staff at prison level, the information requested on rates (b) cannot be provided in order to protect the confidentiality of those staff involved.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-06-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many probation trust employees who left their jobs received higher than contractual payments since 1 January 2014.
Jeremy Wright
Prior to 1 June, probation staff in England & Wales were employed by the 35 probation trusts. Employment data of the kind requested were held by the individual probations trusts. They were not collected centrally and it would not be possible to obtain the information without incurring disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in which instances Probation Trust staff have been co-located with other public or private organisations in (a) Probation Trust premises and (b) other organisation premises; and what the annual cost to the Probation Trust is of sub-letting space shared with another organisation for the purpose of staff co-location.
Jeremy Wright
This information is not recorded centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-03-27.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the total amount of fines levied on but uncollected from people found guilty of non-payment of (a) a television licence, (b) vehicle excise duty and (c) council tax was on 1 March 2014.
Mr Shailesh Vara
It is not possible to identify from Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals systems the value of fines that remain outstanding for specific offences. This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost as identifying this would require a manual search of all fine accounts.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much the UK Government has agreed to provide the government of Nigeria in financial support as part of the prisoner transfer agreement with the country signed on 9 January 2014; and what the benefits for the UK are of that agreement.
Jeremy Wright
We are currently in discussion about supporting further projects that will assist Nigeria to improve their prisons and build the capacity they need to receive prisoners from the UK under the compulsory prisoner transfer agreement we signed in January this year. To date the cross-Government Migration Fund has funded refurbishment works at Kiri Kiri women’s prison in Lagos, and supported a project aimed at increasing access to justice for remand prisoners to tackle the issue of congestion within the Nigerian prison estate.
The prisoner transfer process is just one mechanism for removing foreign national offenders (FNOs). All FNOs sentenced to custody are referred to the Home Office to be considered for deportation at the earliest possible opportunity. The number of FNOs deported under the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) has increased under this Government with nearly 2,000 FNOs removed in 2013. Under the Tariff Expired Removal Scheme (TERS) which we introduced in May 2012, we have removed 243 FNOs (at April 23rd 2014).
Whereas this Government has begun to reduce the foreign national population in prison since 2010, between 1997 and 2010, the number of foreign nationals in our prisons more than doubled.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners were employed in work in the community on 1 April in each of the last four years.
Jeremy Wright
Work in prisons is a key priority to ensure prisoners are engaged purposefully whilst they are in custody. It also gives them the opportunity to learn skills and a work ethic which can increase their chances of finding employment on release, a key element to reducing reoffending.
The number of prisoners working in industrial activity in public sector prisons increased from around 8,600 in 2010-11 (the first year for which figures are available) to around 9,700 in 2012-13. This delivered an increase in the total hours worked in industrial activities from 10.6 million hours to 13.1 million hours. Private sector prisons have also been supporting this agenda and have reported that they delivered over 1½ million prisoner working hours in commercial and industrial workshops in 2012-13 which provided work for over 1,200 prisoners.
In addition there are substantial numbers of prisoners who work to keep prisons running on tasks such as cooking, serving meals, maintenance and cleaning.
Figures for public sector prisons are published in the NOMS Annual Report Management Information Addendum: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/225225/mi-addendum.pdf
Figures for the number of prisoners working in the community are not held centrally and could only be obtained from local records at disproportionate cost.
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the staff turnover rate has been in (a) the prison estate and (b) HM Prison High Down in each month since September 2013.
Jeremy Wright
The monthly staff turnover rate is calculated as leavers divided by number of staff in post at the beginning of the month. Figures on staff turnover are enclosed in the table below.
Table: Staff turnover rate at (i) High Down and (ii) all prison service establishments in England and Wales, between September and December 2013
|
Prison Service Establishment |
Month |
Leavers |
Staff in Post |
Turnover Rate |
|
High Down |
September 2013 |
40 |
430 |
9.5% |
|
October 2013 |
10 |
430 |
2.1% |
|
|
November 2013 |
~ |
380 |
0.3% |
|
|
December 2013 |
~ |
380 |
0.0% |
|
|
All Prisons |
September 2013 |
1,270 |
43,630 |
2.9% |
|
October 2013 |
440 |
43,500 |
1.0% |
|
|
November 2013 |
320 |
42,320 |
0.8% |
|
|
December 2013 |
330 |
42,560 |
0.8% |
Note:
~ denotes suppressed values of 5 or fewer. Low numbers are suppressed, in conjunction with the rounding policy in line with the department’s policy for presenting staffing statistics.
Staffing numbers, which are derived from a dynamic administrative system, have been rounded to the nearest 10 to reflect the level of uncertainty in the figures.
Staff turnover rates include staff on both fixed-term and permanent contracts.
Information on staff turnover is only available up to December 2013.