Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 6
Fifteenth Report - Improving the prison estate
Published 11 Sep 2020
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Improving the prison estate All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Ministry is still reeling from the long-term consequences of its unrealistic 2015 Spending Review settlement, and bears the financial and human cost of sustained underinvestment. The Ministry admits that its 2015 Spending Review settlement was over-optimistic and fundamentally unbalanced. It over-estimated how much income it would receive and overestimated the level of savings it could make in areas such as Legal Aid. This has created an insecure financial footing for the Department over the past five years, resulting in it repeatedly going cap- in-hand to HM Treasury to ask for additional funds or having to use funds from elsewhere. Prisoners and prison staff have been forced to bear the human cost of the maintenance backlogs, lack of capacity and poor-quality services that have been created as a result. Prisoner assaults on staff have increased by 100% between 2015– 2019, with one assault now taking place every hour. There were also over 50,000 incidents of self-harm in 2018; the Ministry is right to be worried by these numbers. Despite this position, the Ministry asserts it is confident that it has the necessary support from HM Treasury to deliver a safer and more sustainable prison estate. Recommendation: The Ministry should write to the Committee within three months setting out how it has incorporated lessons from the 2015 Spending Review in its preparations for the 2020 Spending Review. This should include demonstrating that it has robust contingency plans should it fail to secure the funding commitments it hopes for. Improving the prison estate 9 1 Maintaining the prison estate
From: Public Accounts Committee, Fifteenth Report - Improving the prison estate (HC 244), 11 September 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 November 2020 (deadline 11 November 2020).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the six recommendations, with target dates between December 2020 and April 2021.
- On a long-term prison estate strategy, the department will write to the Committee in January 2021, then "proposes to consult" in early 2021 before publishing a comprehensive strategy in summer 2021.
- On women's prisons, the department "accepts this recommendation" and will write in January 2021; the summer 2021 estate strategy "will include how it plans to improve conditions in the women's estate".
- On capacity, it will publish prison population projections "by the end of 2020" and, "By April 2021", provide an update on progress, including plans for expected use of temporary accommodation.
- On reducing reoffending, it has "committed to publishing an update on this work in due course" and to write to the Committee "before the end of 2020".