Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 9
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 ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Lack of investment has also resulted in severe maintenance backlogs within the prison estate. As at April 2019, HMPPS had around 63,200 outstanding maintenance jobs. HMPPS also estimated that it would cost £916 million to address its backlog of major capital works. It forecasts that it will need to spend £194 million each year over the next 25 years for maintenance costs. We asked it why, despite this, it had underspent its budget for capital maintenance by £24 million. HMPPS told us that its maintenance programmes relied on certainty of funding across several years in order to go ahead, and that the rising prison population meant that the programmes were more complex to schedule. It told us that it was working hard to put any underspends into prison maintenance and that the £156 million additional funding secured from government would help bring more cells back into use. It assured us that the funding available for this year would stabilise the prison estate so that it would not continue to lose 500 places per year.18 We similarly asked the Ministry what its plans were to tackle the £900 million maintenance backlog that had built up across the estate. The Ministry accepted that major investment in maintenance within the prison estate was needed to improve conditions, and told us that it was starting work on this.19
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".