Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 5
5
Deferred
Publish comprehensive quarterly data on prison staff vacancies, retirements, and skilled worker visas.
Conclusion
HMPPS must be transparent on its workforce data. Data must be captured and published on the vacancy rate for each prison staff role, how many of those roles have staff that are eligible to retire in the next five years, 81 and how many staff are on skilled worker visas. Going forward, this data should be published as part of the quarterly workforce statistics. (Recommendation, Paragraph 35)
Government Response Summary
The government accepts the recommendation to publish a comprehensive workforce plan, stating the format and timing will be determined later, but does not address the specific request to publish granular workforce data on vacancy rates, retirement eligibility, or skilled worker visas.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
17. The Government accepts the recommendation to publish a comprehensive workforce plan—and this will build on the existing workforce planning in place. However, the format and timing for this publication will be determined in the coming months to ensure that resource is not diverted from existing activity to stabilise the workforce and address current operational pressures. 18. We recognise that sufficient, skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure and rehabilitative prison regimes to ensure maximum effort to foster improved outcomes in prisons and welcome scrutiny from key stakeholders and other reviews in informing this. We also recognise opportunities to learn from the process used for the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. We agree that long-term workforce planning is important to ensure the sustainability and resilience of the prison system, and that a strategic approach over the longer term is desirable. In the short term, substantive recruitment efforts will continue at all sites where vacancies exist or are projected, with targeted interventions applied to those prisons with the most need. We are working cross-departmentally to embed good practice on workforce planning across government and are engaging closely with colleagues in the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure alignment with wider domestic workforce strategies.