Other
The prison continued to struggle to deliver the improved outcomes planned for young adults in the last 12 months and in some areas has provided reduced outcomes.
Staffing
The prison is under resourced and fails to be recognised for the very specialist role it carries out with a high-risk population that presents with many issues.
Safety
The Board has consistently been told by both staff and young adults that they consider the prison to be fundamentally unsafe.
Staffing
Many wing-based staff lack confidence, or are too scared, to direct and challenge young adults over poor behaviour, and to build meaningful relationships.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
Reduced availability of staff due to sickness, unauthorised absence, restricted duties, suspension, resulting in wing closures especially at weekends.
Safety
Repeated
Failures to search thoroughly for weapons resulted in increased injuries.
Resettlement/Release
Significant delays in timely production of OASYS reports for recently sentenced young adults
Complaints/Property
Repeated
The paper-based applications (prisoners’ written representations) system is not effective and the promised review to make improvements was not delivered.
Education/Purposeful Activity
Repeated
Not enough purposeful activity places were available, and the curriculum lacked ambition and was impacted by staff absence and unfilled vacancies.
Staffing
Repeated
Relationships between staff and young adults were too inconsistent, with key work sessions held infrequently, if at all, for most young adults, a reflection of the considerable inexperience among the staff group.
Substance Misuse
The prison lacks enhanced gate security to prevent illicit substances from being smuggled into the prison.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
The project to install Kiosks or laptops to improve how basic administration tasks are addressed for all is on hold and it is uncertain when or if it will restart. This is, if correct, a money saving exercise that is counterproductive as it increases costs adversely and reduces staff effectiveness.
Staffing
The HMPPS prison officer appointment process continues to result in some unsuitable appointments.
Safety
Repeated
The quality of searches observed on / off wing and workplaces is often inadequate and perfunctory especially considering the weapons used in assaults have been a serious concern.
Safety
For many months the locked door policy was not applied consistently on some wings resulting in a series of in cell assaults by up to six young adults, some being serious and resulting in hospital attendance.
Safety
The Board retain concerns that for certain young adults the message they receive is that these behaviours are “rewarded” by a transfer out.
Staffing
If absences (sickness or hospital escort duties,) occurred on the same night as a significant event (an in-cell fire for instance) it is a concern that there be sufficient staff to maintain safety needs. It is particularly doubtful that there would be sufficient officers available to open a double cell (three officers are required to be available per young adult) whilst maintaining assessment, care in custody and teamwork document (ACCT), used to support prisoners who are at risk of self-harm and suicide. observations for others.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Repeated
Wing shutdowns, especially during weekends, have resulted in young adults being locked in their cell for up to 23 hours each day.
Food/Catering
In the reporting period wing officers, concerned for the welfare of the young adults, have urged Board members to raise and report the poor quality of the food. The standard has deteriorated even since the last reporting period. The kitchen was said to be clawing back a budget overspend, although it is unclear how it had overspent considering the quality of the final product. In this area, the Board agrees with the conclusion of the recipients. The food is often bland, poor quality and repetitive. The young adults feel forced to use their very limited canteen funds to supplement the prison fare. To make matters worse, several of the servery food warmers have been in a state of disrepair throughout the reporting period. So, the repetitive, bland, poor-quality food is often tepid as well.
Food/Catering
Several servery food warmers have been in a state of disrepair throughout the reporting period.
Estate/Conditions
In CSU cells, the toilet pans are filthy with ingrained matter and their use in the current condition is inhumane; sinks are little better, with the cost of replacement cited as outside budget.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Lack of any real incentives in a principally punitive regime is particularly unhelpful for young adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Education/Purposeful Activity
Opportunities for those on long/life sentences are minimal and this has been a great concern to the Board over the reporting period, both for education and vocational training.
Healthcare
Repeated
The Board is not confident that the out-of-hours GP service will carry out night visits. This is still a concern.
Healthcare
Repeated
Clinic capacity has increased, but more initial appointments has led to a greater backlog of treatment required.
Mental Health
There is a great demand for mental health support/intervention at the prison. At the time of writing (June/July 2025),120 young adults are enrolled for services provided under the inclusion team (see below) in addition to those supported under the offender personality disorder pathway (DEE service, PIPE, ESS, NRTS – see 6.4). Despite this, the Board has been made aware of other cases where young adults struggling with their mental health needs have been unable to access timely support.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
The regime curtailments common over the reporting period have disproportionately impacted neurodivergent men.
Healthcare
Failure to identify neurodivergent conditions earlier through effective screening, as highlighted by the case of young adult B, contributed to continued self-medicating and lack of rehabilitation.
Source wording under review
Education/Purposeful Activity
Library has an extremely limited budget for new books (£1,000 for the year, or £1.60 per prison place) and is one of the first facilities to close when staff shortages occur.
Resettlement/Release
Whilst there has been greater visibility on wing of offender management unit (OMU) staff this year, the reality is that where offender managers have a case load of up to 80 high risk and very high-risk young adults, they cannot provide a reasonable support service to positively address outcomes for all those they supervise. This is a significant weakness in terms of positive outcomes for young adults. With an excess workload there is a consequent delay in writing sentence plans which young adults are keen to see and understand to support them in progressing their sentence. There were at least 60 overdue sentence plans in April 2025.
Complaints/Property
“A consistent issue our researchers found was that prisons are insufficiently motivated to improve property practices. This strongly suggests the need for HMPPS to make operational changes (driven and monitored by key performance indicators and audits) to help motivate prisons to address property handling, the PPO would suggest that establishments should consider whether having a designated property officer would help them with property complaints handling. The Policy Framework mandates that the cell clearance certificate (with the property card) must be stored in the young adult’s core record. Our investigators often find staff have failed to do this.”