Mental Health
Repeated
There remains a problem in relocating prisoners with mental health problems to more suitable mental health facilities. All transfers to a secure mental health facility from HMP Brinsford continued to exceed the 28-day stipulated time frame.
Complaints/Property
Repeated
The management of prisoner property, particularly on transfer between establishments, continues to cause many problems. A national policy and procedure has been in place for some time, but there is little or no improvement.
Estate/Conditions
Repeated
The ‘new’ heating system is not up to standard.
Education/Purposeful Activity
The education contract is still not fit for purpose. It has always proved very difficult to hold the provider to account and to ensure that the prison gets good education provision. Not enough is being done to motivate or encourage prisoners to attend regularly or consistently.
Estate/Conditions
Repeated
The overall condition of Brinsford is still very outdated and in a poor state of repair. Previous improvements and decoration were short-term solutions and completed to a poor standard. Brinsford still needs a great deal of investment to return it to an acceptable standard.
Healthcare
The showers in the healthcare centre are not fit for purpose.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Activity places are limited and not ‘meaningful’. Brinsford has been a resettlement prison for more than three years, but purposeful activity has not increased and the activities have not improved.
Safety
There are still too many transfers between establishments. Bringing in prisoners from other establishments too regularly makes the gang problem more difficult to manage and the churn of prisoners destabilises the safety of the prison.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
When a prisoner needs to be moved urgently, it seems to be very difficult to find a place elsewhere.
Resettlement/Release
Repeated
Too frequently, prisoners are moved to HMP Brinsford when in the middle of a course at their previous prison, which is not on offer in Brinsford. Similarly, transfers further from family lead to denying prisoners valuable family support through regular social visits.
Estate/Conditions
Following the problems encountered in relation to the building of two new residential units, the prison grounds have been left with temporary car park, temporary boarding and holes in the ground.
Safety
Despite an increase in violence in the prison and the high incidence of illicit items entering the prison.
Safety
Gang culture remains a cause of friction between prisoners and often leads to premeditated violence. It can also result in prisoners being afraid of being on wings and mixing with other prisoners.
Safety
There remains a minority of prisoners who self-harm, and they often need specialist support.
Safety
The number of self-isolators is higher than in previous reporting years. Prisoners tell us that they self-isolate due to the nature of their offences and because of debt.
Safety
The Board is particularly concerned about violence towards staff. In the reporting year, there were 96 assaults on staff, with six recorded as serious.
Safety
There were 56 in-cell fires over the reporting year, which seems very high and potentially dangerous for the whole prison.
Safety
Officers have not been professional in their dealings with prisoners on occasions.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
The Board is of the view that prisoners need to be occupied, which is not always evident. Idleness and frustration can, and often do, lead to violence. Prisoners are testing established limits, and the lack of appropriate intervention by officers contributes to increased non-compliance. The Board has observed prisoners not wearing the appropriate protective clothing at the servery, as well as vaping, swearing and eating food, all whilst supervising officers ignore this behaviour.
Complaints/Property
Prisoners’ property remains a problem area: all too frequently, property goes missing, especially on prisoner transfer.
Staffing
Key work over the reporting year has been poor, with an average compliance rate of 8.16% in February, 6.23% in December and 9.22% in January.
Safety
Prisoners remain restrained longer than necessary because officers do not check for compliance.
Estate/Conditions
The Board is seriously concerned about the failure to ensure a basic standard of accommodation for prisoners.
Resettlement/Release
The rehabilitative work and preparations for release are deficient and, therefore, not fit for purpose. We have previously raised this issue with the Governor, but there is little evidence that anything has changed.
Education/Purposeful Activity
The education provided does not meet the needs of the prison population most of the time. We have raised our concerns about the poor education standards and low-level engagement of the prisoners with the Governor throughout the reporting year.
Education/Purposeful Activity
Novus, the contracted education provider, has failed to ensure that all lessons are delivered, especially when vocational course teachers have been absent.
Education/Purposeful Activity
We do not believe that prisoners are motivated to attend or that enough has been done to encourage better attendance in education.
Safety
Naloxone is a drug that can be given quickly to treat an opiate overdose. The target set by the drug and alcohol group (DAG) is for 30% of band 2 to band 5 operational grades to be trained in administering nasal Naloxone. This is the minimum percentage required for an establishment to have sufficient coverage of trained staff on site at any one time. At the time of writing the report, in July 2025, the prison has 267 operational members of staff between the band 2 and band 5 grades. Therefore, 81 staff members need to be trained to achieve the 30% minimum target; they currently only have 66. However, only 22 of these have signed the training checklist. Collecting the remaining 44 signatures is a priority in July as, without the signatures, they technically only have 22 trained staff members, which puts them significantly below target. With only 22 signed checklists, Brinsford sits at only 8%. Staff seem reluctant to sign the training register.
Safety
Officers show poor control over incidents by, for example, not clearing the area of other prisoners.
Safety
Body worn video camera use has increased throughout the year. However, there are times when they are not switched on. On average, they are switched on 55-60% of the time. The Board believes this should be greater.
Safety
Despite investments in CCTV, there are still some ‘blind spots’ and cameras that are too far away from the incident.
Safety
During the reporting year, the use of drones bringing in illicit paraphernalia increased, with prisoners removing windows from their frames to be able to reach packages.
Substance Misuse
There remains a large ingress of drugs, mobile phones and USBs.
Estate/Conditions
Cell toilets and sinks are in poor condition, throughout the prison but particularly in the CSU. This is exacerbated by poor cleaning regimes.
Estate/Conditions
The cells in the CSU are in particularly poor condition, especially the toilets and sinks but also the beds and the floors.
Estate/Conditions
Shower facilities on some wings are of a very poor standard and refurbishment work has not been of a satisfactory standard. In particular, ventilation is poor, leading to a buildup of mould.
Estate/Conditions
Faulty or damaged in-cell phones are also very slow to be dealt with because (BT) will only attend the site when there is a minimum of five repairs to be actioned. Consequently, some prisoners wait a disproportionate length of time for a repair.
Estate/Conditions
There have been issues with rodent infestations across the year.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Prisoners have lost faith in the internal laundry service. Issues early in the reporting year resulted in lost or stolen items and, consequently, prisoners are reluctant to send items to the laundry, preferring to wash and dry them in cells.
Food/Catering
Food service quality can be variable and portions insufficient. Food service has, on occasion, been observed to be poorly supervised by officers, which leads to discrepancies in portion size and items being held back.
Segregation
There were three instances where a prisoner’s stay in the CSU exceeded 42 days (63 days; 56 days; and 47 days ongoing, at end of reporting year), the time limit allowed without external authorisation.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Access to radios is occasionally impacted by low stocks, as the wind-up and solar-charged models in use are not robust and are easily damaged. Replacement stock is costly, and orders often delayed.
Equality/Diversity
The major problem for neurodiversity support is the lack of funding and purchasing; £1500 per annum is insufficient to purchase ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) coaching courses, training and resources.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Some enhanced prisoners have complained that they are unable to book the additional social visits they are entitled to due to lack of capacity in the visiting hall. This frustration is compounded when there is non-attendance by visitors who fail to cancel their booking, leaving spaces unused.