Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 15
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)
Following Carillion’s collapse in January 2018, the Ministry established Gov Facility Services Limited (GFSL), a not-for-profit government company, to assume responsibility for its work.29 The Ministry told us that its contract with Carillion was “a mess” and badly managed.30 It explained that it had known that its contract with Carillion was going “badly wrong” and it had looked at whether it could exit. It explained that it had been locked into 24 C&AG’s report, para 2, 2.2–2.3 25 Q 63 26 Committee of Public Accounts, Transforming Rehabilitation: A progress review, Ninety-Fourth Report of Session 2017–19, HC 1747, 3 May 2019 27 Qq 53, 63, 65 28 Qq 63, 65 29 C&AG’s report, para 2.3 30 Qq 63, 77 Improving the prison estate 13 the contract and it would have been very expensive to exit and bring the services in-house. The Ministry told us that it now had a much stronger commercial function, with skilled and capable staff, and that the Crown commercial function was also stronger, so it was confident it was now much better at outsourcing.31
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".