Recommendation 15

We have previously reported that the Ministry and HMPPS’ management of the prison estate has resulted in a staggering backlog of maintenance work.21 The backlog in maintenance is now estimated at £1 billion. The recent spending review included £315 million in 2020–21 to address this, significantly below what is required to maintain the prison estate. We raised the risk that, without enough funding to meet resource pressures, the Ministry and HMPPS could again end up redirecting capital funding to gaps in the budget. The Ministry told us it was confident that HM Treasury understood the value for money implications of insufficiently funding the maintenance backlog and that they were in discussions to secure future funding to meet the challenge.22 Continued strain on frontline staff