Recommendation 1
To consider ways to incentivise people to apply to work in prisons to alleviate the current shortage of staff, not only at HMP Wealstun but across the prison estate.
Source · IMB Annual Report
Wealstun
AI-generated report summary HMP Wealstun, a Category C training prison, experienced significant challenges during 2021-22, primarily due to severe staffing shortages that led to frequent regime curtailments and long periods of cell confinement. While healthcare provision was generally well-managed and positive work was noted in areas like substance misuse recovery and equality initiatives, major concerns persist regarding the inhumane treatment of IPP prisoners, the use of double cells, and the deteriorating conditions of older wings. The Board has made recommendations at national and local levels to address staffing, infrastructure, and resettlement pathways to ensure a humane and progressive environment.
Year: 2022
Published: 12 Oct 2022
Type: Prison · Cat Category C adult training and resettlement prison
Population: 800
Recommendations: 12
Key concerns
Positive findings
Safety statistics
| Indicator | This year | Previous |
|---|---|---|
| Deaths in custody | 1 | — |
Positive findings
AI-generated summaryHealthcare managed well with normal access to most services, playing a key role in the Covid-19 vaccination programme. The body scanner process is more robust, reducing illicit item entry, and intelligence-led searches have been successful. The small works programme operates smoothly, and new commercial laundry equipment is fully operational. The kitchen team is applauded for the good standard and variety of food, catering well for diverse dietary needs, with few related applications to the Board. The segregation unit is well-maintained with good staff-prisoner relationships, and the IDEAL equality programme is well-embedded and impressively led. Chaplaincy provides consistent support, and the complaints process is stable and professionally managed. The Incentivised Substance Free Living (ISFL) unit is firmly established and successful, and a university research project on problem-solving has won awards. A popular music project received funding for the next year.
Key concerns
The impact of the shortage of staff, especially at Band 3 level, cannot be underestimated and whilst the prison moved to Stage 1 in March 2022, there continue to be restricted regimes on a regular basis which is unacceptable.
The shortage of officers has meant that the number of key worker sessions was extremely low throughout the year.
The inhumane treatment of prisoners serving IPP sentences and the lack of provision for their progression and resettlement.
Source wording under review
Population pressures during the reporting year also led to a requirement to utilise the 24 double cells located across the prison. Although the prison management does all that it can to avoid doubling up prisoners who are unhappy about sharing a cell, there are occasions where it may be unavoidable. The Board believes that the operational capacity calculation should exclude any requirement to house two prisoners in one cell as this is inconsistent with the obligation to provide high standards of decency for prisoners (particularly in respect of toilet facilities).
5 Conditions in the older A and B wings are of increasing concern to the Board. As the Board noted in 2020-21, it is increasingly apparent that this accommodation, built in the 1960s, needs significant remedial action or reconstruction/replacement.
In the last annual report, the Board drew attention to the fact that the then daily food allowance of £2.02 was an extremely small amount to provide an adequate diet for adult men and HMPPS was asked to consider an appropriate increase. The response indicated that establishment Governors have the responsibility for setting the daily food allowance from their overall budget. Although the budget has now been increased to £2.15, this needs to be seen in the context of food price inflation over the reporting year. It remains a very low sum from which to provide three meals a day for adult men and it remains the Board’s opinion that food budgets should be set at a national level and regularly benchmarked to ensure that they remain adequate.
The issue of insufficient category D prison places within the prison estate remains a concern to the Board as recategorised prisoners are having to wait a considerable time before a transfer place is found.
To ensure that prisoners allocated to Wealstun are not on short sentences or IPP/lifers as there is little opportunity for any progression or resettlement. (Paragraphs 7.3.3 and 7.5.1 refer)
Low prisoner pay, exacerbated by increased canteen costs, making basic items unaffordable for many and potentially leading to debt.
Source wording under review
Inconsistent and sporadic notification to the IMB of prisoners being placed in segregation.
The Board is concerned about the significant amount of self-harm amongst a small number of prisoners and the fact that the level of self-harm is high against comparator prisons. It is difficult to know whether this is because of the nature of the current population or the fact that, due to a shortage of staff, the unpredictability of the regime is aggravating the problem.
Some prisoners are not attending appointments because they conflict with time out of cell for other activities, which might be understandable, but renewed focus needs to be given to this issue to avoid wasted healthcare appointments.
However, the Board remains concerned that prisoners can still be held on the unit for a long time. Whilst it is understood that it is not easy for the prison to transfer prisoners out, especially when a prisoner has mental health problems due to a shortage of secure mental health beds nationally, some of the prisoners were held until they were released or just relocated back to a wing. The Board will continue to monitor this aspect of segregation.
6 However, there is some indication at the moment that some staff are not sufficiently challenging bad behaviour by prisoners on the wings and are not using the incentives scheme as a positive step for individual prisoners. Although officers on residential wings should be supported and coached by wing CMs, the Board had initial concerns that the levels of enhanced, standard and basic across the 10 wings were not consistent.
Concerns regarding the availability of nicotine patches on canteen and potential for misuse.
Source wording under review
Recommendations
Recommendation 2
To end the inhumane treatment of prisoners serving IPP sentences across the prison estate by releasing all remaining IPP prisoners.
Recommendation 3
To consider what assistance can be provided to increase the officer staffing in the short term so that prisoners are not regularly locked up at weekends.
Recommendation 4
To ensure that prisoners are not located in double cells as this is inconsistent with the obligation to provide high standards of decency for prisoners (particularly in respect of toilet facilities).
Recommendation 5
To consider a complete refurbishment or replacement of the older wings (A and B wings) as it is increasingly apparent that this accommodation, built in the 1960s, needs significant remedial action for a number of reasons and is not a humane environment for prisoners to live in.
Recommendation 6
The Board are aware that prison Governors have the responsibility for setting the daily food allowance from their overall budget. Although increased to £2.15 during the review period, it is a very low sum from which to provide three meals a day for adult men and it remains the Board’s opinion that food budgets should be set at a national level and regularly benchmarked to ensure that they remain adequate.
Government response
The Board asked HMPPS to consider increasing the daily food allowance but this budget is devolved to Governors. Although the allowance has been increased to £2.15 it is still considered insufficient, and recent food price increases have eliminated any intended increase in purchasing power.
Recommendation 7
To provide more category D open prison places, so that transfers are not delayed once a prisoner is recategorised (repeat area from 2019/2020 report).
Government response
The issue of insufficient category D prison places within the prison estate remains a concern to the Board as recategorised prisoners are having to wait a considerable time before a transfer place is found.
Recommendation 8
To ensure that prisoners allocated to Wealstun are not on short sentences or IPP/lifers as there is little opportunity for any progression or resettlement.
Recommendation 9
To ensure that key worker sessions are prioritised when staff are available.
Government response
Unfortunately, the staffing issues since lockdown restrictions were lifted has meant that key worker sessions are unacceptably low. This is a repeated issue from our 2019/2020 report and is now urgently in need of being addressed.
Recommendation 10
To consider increasing the rate of pay in line with inflation to enable prisoners to be able to buy items from the canteen.
Recommendation 11
To ensure that a forum for category D prisoners is set up to discuss their issues.
Recommendation 12
To ensure that the ‘best practice ideals’ are adopted for IPP prisoners including the reinstatement of the IPP/lifer forum and communication.
Government response
There remains a need for the monthly forum with the offender management unit (OMU) for IPP and life-sentenced prisoners to be reinstated.
Applications to the IMB
| Category | Current | Previous |
|---|---|---|
| Accommodation (including transfers) | 45 | 38 |
| Adjudications | 2 | 2 |
| Canteen | 5 | 13 |
| Chaplaincy | 0 | 0 |
| Discipline/ Incentives and Earned Privileges | 21 | 20 |
| Drugs/Alcohol | 2 | 1 |
| Education/Programmes | 1 | 0 |
| Equality and Diversity | 0 | 0 |
| Food/Kitchen | 3 | 2 |
| General | 67 | 70 |
| Healthcare | 50 | 42 |
| Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP) | 0 | 0 |
| Legal | 7 | 10 |
| Mail/Parcels | 2 | 5 |
| Offender Management | 18 | 10 |
| Other Establishments | 17 | 10 |
| Pay | 14 | 3 |
| Property | 15 | 24 |
| Resettlement | 0 | 0 |
| Security | 2 | 4 |
| Segregation | 8 | 2 |
| Staff Conduct | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 281 | 248 |
| Visits | 0 | 0 |
| Work | 1 | 1 |
Related inspections & investigations
Steven Johnstone · Self-inflicted
Lewis Johnson · State Custody related deaths | Suicide (from 2015)
Other reports for Wealstun
Population 908
· Concerns
Population 908
· Self-harm 83
· Concerns
Population 850
· Concerns
Population 809
· Concerns
Population 795
· Concerns