Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 34
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)
In our 2019 review of the Ministry’s progress in transforming rehabilitation, we concluded that the Ministry would not make sustained progress with reducing reoffending until it could provide the support offenders desperately needed on leaving prison, including securing stable accommodation. We recommended that the Ministry, working with the Reducing Reoffending Board should report back to us, setting out a cross-government strategy to reduce reoffending, by the end of June 2019.77 The Government accepted our recommendation in July 2019. In its response to our report, it agreed that an overarching strategy focused on reducing reoffending was required and committed to implementing our recommendation by the summer of 2020.78 Despite this, a cross-government strategy has not yet been published. We therefore asked the Ministry when this was likely to take place. It said that it was “not sure if there is an imminent publication”. It committed to taking advice and coming back to us on this issue.79
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".