Oakwood

Can the Minister ask the Chief Coroner to issue guidance about the importance of notifying the IMB of inquests concerning prisoners (para 4.2) as referred to in the IMB reference book guidance in relation to deaths in custody?

In response to impending inquests, there is no statutory requirement or expectation that requires coroners to routinely notify Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs), or any bodies/individuals who have not been identified as interested persons of the arrangements for a specific inquest. Where this has occurred in local areas in the past, this has been a matter of local practice and is not an issue which the Chief Coroner would expect to issue national guidance. Notice of inquest hearings are published as per Chief Coroner Guidance No. 25 – Coroners and the media | Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Given the strain that delays can put on family and staff involved, I hope that the inquests are concluded as soon as possible. Going forward, the Head of Safety at HMP Oakwood will update the IMB accordingly of any upcoming inquests.

The Board is concerned that after three years this framework has not yet been published (see section 5.8).

I acknowledge your Board’s long-standing concern about prisoners’ property. I am pleased to inform you that the new Prisoners’ Property Policy Framework was published on 1 August 2022 (implementation date 5 September 2022 and replaces Prison Service Instruction 12/2011). As the Board is aware, the Framework is the result of extensive consultation, including with the IMB. It has been designed with procedural justice at its core and aims to ensure consistency and fairness and enhance prisoners’ satisfaction with processes and outcomes. Given the nature of property, and the movement of prisoners between establishments, the Framework looks to provide greater direction and standardisation on a national basis. It strengthens processes in relation to the main problem areas identified by IMBs and staff including the handling of valuable property, managing cell clearances, volumetric control compliance and forwarding excess property following a prisoner’s transfer. Locally at HMP Oakwood, cell clearances are now captured on body worn video cameras and complaints are monitored weekly.

The Board is concerned that the change in arrangements for resettlement has created a service that is not of a good quality for prisoners in some areas, in particular the outsourcing of accommodation support.

The embedded Pre-Release teams provide immediate resettlement needs and pre-release support for all people in prison including the unsentenced and people out of area. The minimum will be to assess under the Basic Custody Screening Tool 2, undertake specialist immediate needs and support services. The Pre-Release teams liaise with the Community Offender Manager or Short Sentence Function as allocated and support pre-release planning activity throughout the sentence, including progressing referrals that have been made to Commissioned Rehabilitative Service (CRS) suppliers and providing a point of contact for CRS suppliers seeking to engage with the individual. The Probation Contract Management Team (for the West Midlands region) is monitoring the CRS supplier’s performance and through formal Governance procedures is managing identified service delivery concerns, such as accommodation.

The Board is concerned about the delays in transferring prisoners to category D open accommodation.

HMPPS recognises the specific concerns with regard to open prisons. The availability of category D spaces has been affected by the requirement to close a number accommodation blocks in the open estate over the course of 2021 which no longer meet the statutory fire safety standards. This has been managed through replacing some of these places, particularly in the South, with existing temporary accommodation which was on some sites as part of Covid-19 contingency measures and in other sites, with new temporary accommodation. £3.8 billion is being invested over the next three years to deliver 20,000 additional, modern prison places including 2,000 temporary prison places across England and Wales by the mid-2020s. This portfolio of work will deliver 660 additional places through expansion of the category D estate at a number of sites across the country. Many prison sites have a higher number of category D men than are able to be moved, all must have a completed and signed off Offender Assessment System (OASys) report, completed EQUIP (the system that brings together the offender management processes used by prison and probation) and where needed an offender manager handover prior to transfer. In the North of the country there is a limit on the number of high-risk men that can be sent to sites due to a shortage of probation staff. Regarding the waiting list, HMP Oakwood has had the most category D moves transferred out in recent months. However, there are some men not ready to move owing to the reasons outlined above.

The Board is concerned about the time it can take for transfers to mental health establishments where the prisoner is deemed to have a severe mental health need. Despite the constraints of the pandemic the Board considers it was problematical during the reporting period, which meant prisoners stayed in the care and separation unit (CSU) longer than was desirable.

NHS England Health and Justice (West Midlands) continues to maintain oversight of long waits for a secure mental health bed and escalates delays to both regional secure bed commissioners and nationally as this is a widespread issue. Reduced bed capacity and staffing issues within a secure setting were observed during the pandemic which affected bed availability and transfer times. Escalation processes are in place and regular multi-agency calls are held to try and expedite transfers. There is also a national data collection exercise underway to determine the scale of demand and waiting times for all patients and a national portal for data collection has been set up to facilitate this. Once this data collection exercise is complete further actions can be agreed going forward.

The Board is concerned that the education service from Novus is not viewed positively by prisoners and the small survey undertaken (see appendix A) demonstrates that communication and access to courses is not as it should be.

We acknowledge that the Board will be undertaking further work in relation to the education provided by Novus. In response to last year’s Ofsted inspection Novus has developed a Quality Improvement Plan. This plan is rigorously monitored as part of the governance arrangements at HMP Oakwood, and progress so far has been positive. Novus has successfully appointed staff into a number a of vacancies which will expand the curriculum offer available for prisoners. Following a recent survey, 97% of responses indicated that prisoners were satisfied with the quality of learning received. Over 1000 education courses have been completed since April 2022 and with an average success rate of over 90%.

The Board continues to be concerned about prisoners in the servery not wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and clothing. Notwithstanding that Aramark provided continuity of a balanced menu and two cooked meals a day, the Board is still concerned about the quality, quantity and variety of the food provided and the ensuing waste that results, and that the food is not always tested for serving at the correct temperature. There is also the problem of the time it can take for equipment to be repaired.

The Board would like to suggest the introduction of a simplified guidance leaflet based on the HMPPS document for prisoners wishing to make a complaint. It would be helpful if this could include information on the request system that the prison currently uses, which is not always understood by prisoners transferring to Oakwood. The Board feels that the prison needs to operate a system that is transparent to prisoners which, at the present time, we feel is not fully understood, particularly in relation to requests/concerns.

A further concern for the Board is the fact that the letter sent to explain how a request will be dealt with is long and not always clear for prisoners who cannot read easily or whose first language is not English. These multi-functional response letters are not dated and do not have any reference numbers assigned for easy identification in the future. The Board asks that this be reviewed (see para 5.7).

During the reporting year the Board has been concerned that the healthcare complaint boxes were not emptied on a regular basis and their location is not easily accessible to all prisoners at all times. The Board asks the Director to review this with the head of healthcare (see para 6.1).

The Board requests that it is invited to the equality action group meetings (see para 5.4).

Discrimination incident reporting form (DIRF) scrutiny meetings should take place with HMPs Brinsford and Featherstone, but these have not taken place during the reporting year due to Covid-19 restrictions. The Board understands that these meetings are yet to restart and the Board would suggest that arrangements are made for them to start as soon as possible in order to bring some external scrutiny to the process. The Board also requests that it is made aware of when the meetings take place in order that a member can attend and observe the process.

The independent adjudicator (IA) ceased sitting shortly after the start of the lockdown period and has yet to return to the prison; hearings were held remotely. The Courts Service made a decision to continue to use remote systems, as it is more efficient and makes it easier for solicitors to join the meeting. It would be helpful if the Board could join some of the remote IA adjudications and an agreement and system of notification needs to be put in place.

The Board is concerned about the number and experience of new staff on the house blocks. From observing some of the case notes of key worker sessions, the quality of the reporting varies. The Board suggests that senior managers look at putting further training in place.

The Board asks that the offender management unit (OMU) looks and reviews its communication with prisoners, using all the systems available to help to manage the prisoners’ expectations.

The Board asks that the Director reviews communication in relation to access to education and courses available. The Board also asks that consideration is given for prisoners who share a cell to be given access to a space to undertake coursework.