Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Fifteenth Report - Improving the prison estate
Public Accounts Committee
HC 244
Published 11 September 2020
Recommendations
4
We are not convinced that the Ministry’s plans to create more capacity will allow it...
Recommendation
We are not convinced that the Ministry’s plans to create more capacity will allow it to match the expected increase in the prison population whilst keeping prisoners safe under its care. Rising demand for prison places, places being taken out …
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HM Treasury
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5
The Ministry’s efforts to reduce the £18.1 billion cost of reoffending are being put at...
Recommendation
The Ministry’s efforts to reduce the £18.1 billion cost of reoffending are being put at risk by the absence of a cross-government strategy. Reoffending has a substantial cost to the economy, in addition to its considerable impact on the emotional …
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HM Treasury
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Conclusions (34)
2
Conclusion
We are disappointed that the Ministry places inadequate importance on the living conditions of female prisoners. Twelve of the 117 prisons in England & Wales hold female offenders, none of which are in Wales. Despite women making up 5% of the prison population, the Ministry was unable to answer basic …
3
Conclusion
In 2015, the Ministry failed to protect taxpayers’ interests through its naïve approach to the outsourcing of facilities management services. The Ministry admits that its approach prioritised delivering at speed and achieving predicted £79 million in cost savings at the expense of the quality of the service provided. It outsourced …
6
Conclusion
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 …
1
Conclusion
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison & Probation Service on improving the prison estate.1
7
Conclusion
Deteriorating conditions within the prison estate have been a concern for many years. HM Inspectorate of Prisons (the Inspectorate) has consistently reported that many prisoners endure unsafe, poor and overcrowded living conditions. Between 2015–16 and 2019–20, the Inspectorate rated more than 40% of prisons it inspected as ‘poor’ or ‘not …
8
Conclusion
Poor conditions and crowding within the prison estate are in large part the result of historical under-investment in maintenance. HMPPS regularly has to take prison cells out of permanent use because of the state of disrepair. Between 2009–10 and 2019–20, HMPPS took 1,730 prison cells permanently out of use for …
9
Conclusion
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 …
10
Conclusion
Research commissioned by HMPPS found that the prison environment, including the condition of accommodation, played a role in how prisoners behave.20 Between 2015 and 2018, among adult prisoners, key indicators of poor safety in prisons reached all- time highs. This included a 110% increase in prisoner assaults on staff; a …
11
Conclusion
We asked HMPPS why it tolerated such unacceptable levels of prisoner assaults on staff and what it was doing to reduce levels of assaults on staff and self-inflicted deaths. HMPPS asserted that it was very concerned by the number of assaults on staff and was working to reduce this through …
12
Conclusion
Against a backdrop of worsening living conditions for prisoners, HMPPS changed the way in which it maintains prisons and launched a programme to improve the condition and suitability of prison accommodation. In 2015 it contracted Amey and Carillion to provide facilities management across the prison estate. HMPPS’ decision to outsource …
13
Conclusion
We last examined the Ministry’s progress in outsourcing its probation services in May 2019. We concluded that in its haste to rush through its reforms, the Ministry of Justice had not only failed to deliver its ‘rehabilitation revolution’ but left probation services underfunded and fragile. We warned that if it …
14
Conclusion
We asked the Ministry why it kept making the same mistakes when it came to contracting out services and how it would avoid these in future. The Ministry told us that it would no longer let contracts using the approach that it took in 2015. It explained that the main …
15
Conclusion
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 …
16
Conclusion
One of the consequences of the Ministry not understanding its assets prior to letting the contracts was that demand for reactive maintenance work as a result of poor-quality assets or vandalism cost the taxpayer almost £143 million more than expected between 2015–16 and the first half of 2019–20.32 We asked …
17
Conclusion
We asked the Ministry what percentage of those in prison were women and how many prisons in England and Wales held female offenders. The Ministry accepted that these were numbers that it could reasonably be expected to know, but it was not able to provide them when we asked. Of …
18
Conclusion
As a result of our questioning, we were concerned that the female prison estate was a Cinderella service within the prison system. HMPPS removed plans to build new places for female prisoners from the Prison Estate Transformation Programme, as its Female Offender Strategy, launched in June 2018, superseded the programme’s …
19
Conclusion
One of the largest women’s prisons, HMP Holloway in London, was closed in 2016. HMPPS sold the prison in March 2019 and generated £81.5 million from the proceeds.41 We were concerned that such a large amount of money had come out of the female prison estate but appeared to have …
20
Conclusion
We acknowledged that the female prison estate was a small part of the overall prison estate, but asked whether the Ministry thought it was nonetheless important to ensure that some of its reinvestment benefitted women prisoners to avoid them becoming more marginalised. The Ministry committed to ensuring that “the right …
21
Conclusion
In its written evidence, De Montfort University told us that ‘softer’ services such as contact with family, education, work based training, peer support and therapy were of huge importance in the rehabilitation of prisoners. It also told us that therapeutic community- based interventions had a greater success rate for female …
22
Conclusion
We also received written evidence from the Prison Reform Trust, which told us that women continue to serve their sentences largely in prisons designed for men and in locations far from home.48 We were therefore concerned that there were no female prisons in Wales. HMPPS recognised that enabling offenders to …
23
Conclusion
Rising demand for prison places, places being taken out of use and delays in building new prisons have put significant pressure on the capacity of the prison estate. At December 2019, the prison population had reached 98% of the usable capacity of the estate. 60% of adult prisons are crowded, …
24
Conclusion
We asked HMPPS how it was managing crowding in prisons given the extent of the issue. HMPPS told us that its reconfiguration programme across the prison estate would help ensure that people were in the right environment for their sentence, as well as help ensure that it had the space …
25
Conclusion
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, HMPPS expected demand for prison places to rise because of the government’s August 2019 announcement to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers. The NAO reported that HMPPS could need new prisons to be ready from late 2022 to avoid demand outstripping supply.55 We asked whether the …
26
Conclusion
By 19 June 2020, some 500 prisoners and 10 children in custody had tested positive for COVID-19. A further 992 staff within HMPPS had tested positive for the virus. Up to 26 June 2020, 44 people categorised as ‘HMPPS service users’ had died where COVID-19 was the suspected cause. Of …
27
Conclusion
When infections take hold in prisons they can be very serious, so we were relieved to hear that the scale of the pandemic in prisons had not been as bad as was predicted at the outset. The Ministry and HMPPS nonetheless needed to make changes to the prison estate to …
28
Conclusion
As part of our inquiry, we received written evidence from the Prison Reform Trust, Professor Nicola Padfield the University of Cambridge, and from Professor Loraine Gelsthorpe at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge. They told us that shortcomings in the prison estate, particularly the extent of crowding …
29
Conclusion
Both the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge and the Prison Reform Trust told us that while the worst-case scenario for deaths from the pandemic had been avoided, the cost to the mental health of prisoners was certain to be very high..65 We asked how HMPPS was addressing …
30
Conclusion
The prison population fell during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of the cancellation of jury trials and fewer cases coming through from the courts.67 In March 2020, almost half of all courts were closed and jury trials were paused to minimise social interaction between court users.68 By June 2020, …
31
Conclusion
The Ministry and HMPPS told us that the fall in cases coming through from the courts, and the subsequent lower demand for prison places, had given it the headroom it needed to manage the prison estate during the pandemic. They explained that at the start of the pandemic they had …
32
Conclusion
In its written evidence to us, The Prison Reform Trust asserted that there was nothing in the government’s planning, short or long term, which would better prepare the prison service for a future outbreak of COVID-19 or a similar pandemic. It told us that, in the immediate future, the prison …
33
Conclusion
Almost half of those who spend time in prison will go on to reoffend within a year of their release. Reoffending costs society and the economy £18.1 billion each year. Over half of this (£10 billion) is the direct costs to individuals and services due to a crime taking place.75 …
34
Conclusion
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 …
35
Conclusion
The way offenders were treated on their release from prison has a significant impact on how they re-integrate into society.80 We received written evidence from Middlesex University, which told us that poor or inadequate resettlement pathways had resulted in lack of adequate housing options for prisoners on their release.81 On …
36
Conclusion
In April 2020, the Chief Inspector of Prisons similarly found that, within local prisons, resettlement assessments and planning for release had been limited as a result of COVID-19. It found that good efforts had been made to address accommodation needs at several prisons and few prisoners were released homeless. However, …