Swaleside

I recognise the Board’s concerns about staff inexperience and limited training. HMPPS is actively improving both recruitment processes and training to ensure staff are equipped to meet the complex demands of the prison officer role. Central to this is the Enable Programme, a core element of which is the Foundation Training Reform, a long-term review of the initial training offer for Prison Officers. By investing in staff development and wellbeing, Enable aims to equip staff with the confidence and skills to make a meaningful difference in their roles, enhance operational effectiveness and improve retention by fostering a positive and sustainable working culture.

I recognise the Board’s concerns about staff inexperience and limited training. HMPPS is actively improving both recruitment processes and training to ensure staff are equipped to meet the complex demands of the prison officer role. Central to this is the Enable Programme, a core element of which is the Foundation Training Reform, a long-term review of the initial training offer for Prison Officers. By investing in staff development and wellbeing, Enable aims to equip staff with the confidence and skills to make a meaningful difference in their roles, enhance operational effectiveness and improve retention by fostering a positive and sustainable working culture.

The Board notes the response last year about exit strategies

Additional measures being implemented include, drug detection scanning, perimeter checks and robust counter corruption and covert testing programmes.

notes last year’s response that contractors had entered administration

The Mental Health Bill has now progressed to Report Stage in the House of Commons. The Bill introduces a new statutory time limit of 28-days for the transfer of patients with a mental disorder from prison and other places of detention to hospital. This time limit, together with operational improvements, aim to reduce unnecessary delays and deliver swifter access to treatment. The MoJ are working with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, the Welsh Government, the Home Office, and the Youth Custody Service to create an implementation plan which sets out the operational improvements necessary to fulfil our commitment to commencing these reforms 18-24 month post Royal Assent. The MoJ are also working closely with health and justice partners to support the development of the recently established Mental Health and Justice Strategic Advisory Group. This group will improve oversight of the transfer process by bringing together key partners across operational delivery to scrutinise data and intelligence on transfer timeliness and identify and deliver solutions to address common causes of delays. In addition, the LTHSE specialist service, Pathways to Progression* will improve collaborative working with health settings to better meet the needs of prisoners with complex mental disorder whose needs result in difficulty progressing through their sentence and coping with custody. This includes joint working with health to provide better access to hospital settings for prisoners as well as more meaningful collaborative health-prison pathways for men as they progress through their sentence.

BWVC is governed by a specific Policy Framework which outlines that any extension of BWVC to other roles, including non-operational roles, must be considered by the Governor to be ‘necessary and proportionate.’ In cases where this test is met, the rationale for deployment of BWVC needs to be recorded. The Governor at Swaleside would therefore need to determine a security need to widen the deployment of BWVC beyond operational staff, bearing in mind that BWVCs should not be used as a substitute for appropriate operational presence. The national rollout provided 190 cameras to Swaleside, which is sufficient for all mandated operational staff on shift, with a buffer for other staff. On average, 100 to 120 cameras are drawn daily. Any consideration regarding expansion of use at Swaleside would need to include LTHSE representation given the potential implications for the wider estate.

HMP Swaleside needs more cells to conduct constant supervision when it is required and MoJ are currently developing projects to improve the standard of cells across the site. In the interim, when needed, other prisons in the region are approached to help provide constant supervision cells. When alternative suitable locations are unavailable, added staff are deployed to supervise prisoners in the most suitable available cells within Swaleside.

We agree that there is a high and unacceptable number of remanded adjudications at HMP Swaleside. This results from too many low-level charges being laid because officers are not sufficiently challenging behaviours directly and are laying charges as a first resort without personal challenge or utilisation of the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme or other interventions. The current quantity of charges laid makes it difficult to reschedule hearings. We know that prisoners do not attend due to the belief that charges, once remanded, will not be followed up and have a general lack of regard for the outcomes from adjudications. By reducing the number of charges laid, the available resource can focus on ensuring all adjudications are heard effectively and efficiently. HMP Swaleside will achieve this by upskilling and empowering officers to directly challenge low level behaviours and use alternative disposals, such as IEP and Five-Minute Interventions.