Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 27
15th Report - Prison estate capacity
Published 14 Mar 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Prison estate capacity All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
MoJ and HMPPS told us that the impact of the prison capacity crisis on probation is “significant” and “rising” with pressures likely to increase further if Ministers make decisions to decrease the prison population.88 In September 2024, HMPPS had 5,413 full time equivalent probation officers in post against a target of 7,115, giving a staffing level of 76%.89 It estimates it will need to supervise around 20% more prison leavers by 2028 compared with December 2023.90 HMPPS stressed that it is not just the Probation Service that is facing increased pressures from rising demand as other services that people need to access such as healthcare are also affected.91 It has since announced, in February 2025, that probation officers will focus more time on high risk offenders. The probation service has stated it will free up probation officer time to do so by intervening earlier with low risk offenders to understand the support they require and referring them to appropriate services.92
From: Public Accounts Committee, 15th Report - Prison estate capacity (HC 366), 14 March 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 16 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with most of the Committee's recommendations on prison capacity, disagrees with two, and reports several as implemented in April 2025.
- On lessons learned, HMPPS is "committed to reviewing" its Lessons Learned Strategy and Log on a minimum bi-annual basis, with the next review point in October 2025.
- It disagrees with the recommendation for a business case on the maintenance backlog, stating that future investment decisions and business cases "will depend on the outcome of the ongoing Spending Review round".
- It disagrees with the recommendation on evaluating the impact of capacity pressures on risk assessments for new prisoners, stating "it is not possible to evaluate the impact" but that HMPPS will continue to monitor their completeness.
- It agrees to update the Committee within two months of the Sentencing Review's next phase on the forecast prison place shortage, the maintenance backlog and fire safety.