Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many detector dogs has the Border Force had for each year since 2015.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We take the security of Border Force detector dogs very seriously.
It is a long-standing policy that we do not comment on security arrangements.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many assaults by staff on inmates were recorded in each Young Offender Institution in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Collating the information that is held would require a search of individual records. This could not be done without incurring disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people released under investigation in each year since 2017 went on to commit another offence.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office has collected and published information on the number of people released under investigation since April 2020. The most recent data, up to March 2022, is available here:
The Home Office does not centrally collect data on how many people released under investigation went on to commit another offence.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders by the type of index sentence, were convicted of a serious further offence of murder in each year between 2010 and 2015.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The table below sets out the total number of convictions, where an offender subject to probation supervision was charged with a serious further offence (SFO), which resulted subsequently in a conviction for murder, for all cases notified to what is now HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2015.
Index Sentence | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 |
Community Supervision | 33 | 45 | 32 | 27 | 23 | 23 |
Determinate Prison Sentence | 16 | 26 | 19 | 23 | 23 | 17 |
Life Licence | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
IPP | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Total | 50 | 73 | 51 | 53 | 48 | 43 |
1. Time period for conviction data relates to the date of SFO notification to HMPPS not the date of conviction.
2. Index sentence refers to the sentencing disposal imposed by the court which led to probation services supervision of the offender.
3. The data only includes convictions for serious further offences of murder that have been notified to the national SFO Team, HMPPS.
4. Conviction data also includes cases where the offender committed suicide or died prior to the trial, where the judicial process concluded that they were responsible.
5. The data for January 2010 to December 2015 has been updated and may differ to any original publication due to data cleansing, re-categorising and re-grouping.
6. Data Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Serious further offences are incredibly rare, with fewer than 0.5% of offenders supervised by the Probation Service going on to commit serious further offences but each one is investigated fully so we can take action where necessary. We have also injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year into the Probation Service to deliver tougher supervision, reduce caseloads and recruit thousands more staff to keep the public safer.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) prison wardens, (b) probation officers and (c) prison governors were dismissed for (i) sexual harassment, (ii) sexual assault and (iii) rape in the last five years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The number of staff who are subject to Conduct and Discipline are generally low as a proportion of all staff. The number of band 3-5 prison officers and probation officers who were subject to a Conduct and Discipline (C&D) charge of 'sexual harassment/assault' and were recommended for dismissal from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2023 are given in Table 1 below.
There were no Band 10/11 prison governors who were recommended for dismissal for the charge of 'sexual harassment/assault' in the last five years.
'Rape' is not a central charge listed under conduct & discipline. This would be classed under criminal conviction and an investigation would be carried out by the appropriate authorities accordingly.
There is no place for any form of unacceptable behaviour in HMPPS. Such behaviour is contrary to its core values and will not be tolerated. All allegations of unacceptable behaviour are taken seriously, investigated and, where appropriate, disciplinary action will be taken. HMPPS launched its Tackling Unacceptable Behaviours Unit (TUBU) in 2020, and this has been followed by an increase in reported cases. The aim of TUBU is to help improve the working environment by providing additional support, insight and expertise to staff raising concerns. The TUBU provides additional support to managers investigating these concerns and ensures that investigations are carried out fairly and consistently and any unacceptable behaviour is challenged and dealt with appropriately.
Table 1 - Headcount of band 3-5 prison officers1 and probation officers who were subject to a Conduct and Discpline2 charge of 'sexual harassment/assault'4 and were recommended for dismissal, from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2023 (p) by year5 and selected grades6
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| Headcount |
Grade | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | Total |
Band 3-5 prison officers | 4 | 3 | 10 | 10 | 21 | 48 |
Probation officers | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ~ | ~ |
Notes to table
1. Band 3-5 Officers includes Band 3-4 / Prison Officers (incl specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officers, and Band 5 / Custodial Managers.
2. Conduct and Discipline cases are defined as where a penalty has been imposed on a member of HMPPS staff for a reason of conduct.
3. A dismissal case is defined as where at least one of the charges relating to an individual is recommended for dismissal. Information on the outcomes of any appeal is not included. Also not included are any staff who resign prior to the Conduct and Discipline case.
4. The Conduct and Discipline data does not disaggregate further than this so cannot split out harassment and assault.
5. Year relates to 12 months to 31 March.
6. If an individual had multiple charges they will be counted once in each year.
~ Denotes suppressed values of 2 or fewer or other values which would allow values of 2 or fewer to be derived by subtraction. Low numbers are suppressed to prevent disclosure in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 2018.
(p) Provisional data. There may be minor changes to figures from December 2017 onwards in future due to additional data being recorded on the systems subsequent to extraction.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many violent attacks by inmates on inmates were recorded in Young Offender Institutions in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on assaults by children and young people in the secure estate, by sector, are published quarterly on GOV.UK. The latest publication with data from April 2014 is available at tables 1.2.1 and 1.2.2: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-the-children-and-young-people-secure-estate-update-to-june-2023.
Data prior to April 2014 are available at table 8.14: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/youth-justice-statistics.
The way assaults are counted changed in April 2018 for Young Offender Institutions. Information before and after this date should not be compared.
Safeguarding data for internal management information purposes has been collected centrally since November 2019. The categories to be reported include sexual abuse.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department collects data on sexual assaults by staff on inmates in Young Offender Institutions.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on assaults by children and young people in the secure estate, by sector, are published quarterly on GOV.UK. The latest publication with data from April 2014 is available at tables 1.2.1 and 1.2.2: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-the-children-and-young-people-secure-estate-update-to-june-2023.
Data prior to April 2014 are available at table 8.14: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/youth-justice-statistics.
The way assaults are counted changed in April 2018 for Young Offender Institutions. Information before and after this date should not be compared.
Safeguarding data for internal management information purposes has been collected centrally since November 2019. The categories to be reported include sexual abuse.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department collects data on the number of prison staff dismissed for entering into (a) romantic and (b) sexual relationships with prisoners.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data is collected on all conduct and discipline cases for MoJ employees, including those working in Prisons, and is captured once a dismissal has been submitted. Prison staff who have been dismissed for entering a sexual relationship fall under the sub-category ‘Sexual Relationship with Prisoner or Ex-Prisoner'.
'Romantic relationship’ is not a term used in the standard categorisation, therefore we do not have data that captures this. This would fall under the charge of ‘Inappropriate Relationship with a Prisoner/Ex-Prisoner’.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the proven re-offending was rate in each year since 2015 for people convicted of cruelty to children or young persons.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This Government is committed to tackling the causes of reoffending to keep our communities safe. Between 2010/11 and 2020/21, the overall proven reoffending rate has decreased from 31.6% to 24.4%.
Proven reoffending data, by index offence of “cruelty to or neglect of children” (annual average, England and Wales) [2015/16 to 2020/21]
| Apr 2015 - Mar 2016 | Apr 2016 - Mar 2017 | Apr 2017 - Mar 2018 | Apr 2018 - Mar 2019 | Apr 2019 - Mar 2020 | Apr 2020 - Mar 2021 |
Proportion of offenders who reoffend (%) | 7.3 | 9.2 | 7.5 | 6.3 | 6.3 | 5.6 |
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which prisons have been re-locked since 2015; how much was spent on each re-locking process; and for what reason each prison required re-locking.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The table below shows which prisons have been re-locked since 2015, the amount spent on each re-locking occurrence and the reason(s) the re-locking was required. Re-locking is rare and all incidents are fully investigated to ensure the safety and security of our prisons.
Establishment | Cost | Reason |
Portland | £117,211.50 | Full set of keys missing and unaccounted for. |
Northumberland | £422,477.46 | Several key/lock incidents reported within a short period of time. |
Birmingham | £438,525.29 | Gate to a yard was found open and re-lock undertaken. |
Wandsworth | £441,649.00 | key compromise, which necessitated changing all the prison locks. |
Erlestoke | £21,304.70 | Compromise to lever mechanism locks for offices and storerooms. |
Wandsworth | £324,486.39 | Full set of keys taken by a member of staff. Full re-lock undertaken. |
Full Sutton | £2,821.40 | Member of staff left the establishment with keys to an inner perimeter inaccessible to prisoners. Partial re-lock was undertaken. |
Doncaster | £313,139.66 | Full set of keys were taken by prisoner during an incident with a member of staff. |
Swaleside | £28,650.00 | Service cupboard keys for cell electrics and plumbing on wings went missing. Decision made to re-lock service cupboards only. |