Pam Cox

The Employment Rights Bill, once in force, will provide powers to make regulations to introduce provisions for new protections for transferring workers in relevant outsourcing contracts. The provisions will apply to contracting authorities as defined in the Procurement Act 2023, which includes NHS bodies, subject to exceptions that will be set out in regulations. The regulations will be developed in due course and will not apply retrospectively. The Procurement Act 2023 does not apply to the procurement of health care services, which are regulated by DHSC’s Provider Selection Regime.

The Department is not involved in the approval of the procurement of services by National Health Service trusts. Cabinet Office Commercial Spend Controls require that organisations in scope must provide a pipeline of all future commercial activity that is £20 million or more excluding VAT over the contract life before they publish a procurement or enter into a contract. The Cabinet Office reviews this pipeline and will determine whether activity requires full Cabinet Office review at outline business case and contract award stages.

The Cabinet Office Commercial Spend Controls have operated across Government for some time, but NHS trusts received a healthcare exemption until 2022. This exemption was removed in October 2022, and in agreement with the Cabinet Office, the controls have been rolled out to all NHS trusts over a two-year programme, phased by region. Currently the controls operate across all NHS trusts in six of the seven regions and were rolled out to all NHS trusts in the East of England region, which includes the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, in February 2024. Procurements that are live or in development at the point of rollout are deemed out of scope.

Following established procurement guidance, the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust has confirmed that a 10% Social Value criteria, covering social value, enhanced sustainability and environmental outcomes, was included in the specification for the market testing exercise for potential external suppliers to deliver ‘Soft’ Facilities Management (FM) services across its sites.

Pursuant to the Government’s public interest test, National Health Service trusts are not obliged to accept any bids submitted unless they clearly demonstrate value for money and deliver against the aims and objectives of the business cases. Following consideration of a final Full Business Case, the trust announced on 9 December 2024 that the Board has decided to award a contract to an external supplier for the future delivery of ‘Soft’ FM services across all its sites. The Government expects the trust to share its assessment of how the contract meets the test with local stakeholders.

The Government expects the trust to ensure that any such outsourced services are delivered in a way that improves quality, ensures greater stability and longer-term investment in the workforce; and delivers better value for money as part of the broader commitments on procurement, as set out in the ‘Make Work Pay’ programme.

Prison Employment Leads (PELs) and ID and Banking Administrators (IDBAs) were introduced to 93 prisons across the estate in 2022 and have been effective in supporting prisoners to prepare for their reintegration into the community since then. Whilst these roles are supported nationally, they are managed and recruited to locally, so numbers of vacancies are not held centrally.

According to the Open University, as of 18 December 2025, there are 1,486 students who are currently in custody enrolled on Open University higher education programmes for the 2025/26 academic year, and a further 413 on licence in the community, totalling 1,899.

Additionally, some prisoners are taking level 4 courses, with 1,524 prisoners currently studying a course funded by the Prisoners’ Education Trust.

We are unable to provide compliance rates by year for those released from custody and subject to alcohol monitoring. However, our published research for this cohort has shown around four out of five prison leavers with an alcohol monitoring condition added to their licence during 2023 did not violate their order. Of those who did violate their order, most only received a single violation. The Department’s published research can be found here - AML: Process and Interim Impact Evaluation.

The compliance rate of alcohol monitoring imposed by the court as part of a Community Order or Suspended Sentence Order, which imposes a total ban on drinking alcohol for up to 120 days, showed from the introduction of the technology in October 2020 through to 6 June 2025, the devices did not register a tamper or alcohol alert for 97.3% of the days worn. Anyone who does break the rules, risks being returned to custody.

HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has funded Incentivised Substance Free Living Units in 85 prisons, and six currently have abstinence-based Drug Recovery Wings. To support delivery of HMPPS’ Drug and Alcohol Strategy, 54 prisons have a dedicated Drug Strategy Lead. All remaining prisons, including Young Offender Institutions, have a designated point of contact for Drug and Alcohol Strategy work.

In addition, HMPPS has recruited 17 Group Drug and Alcohol Leads providing regional leadership, assurance, and co-ordination of drug and alcohol work for all the establishments in their Prison Group. They align activity at establishment level with national drug and alcohol strategy and policies which aim to restrict supply, reduce demand and support recovery. They also support local and regional partnerships with healthcare providers to support a range of issues including continuity of care on release.

A breakdown of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) by offence group is published in the Annual prison population statistics and the most recent publication can be found here: prison-population-2025.ods. Please see Table_1_A_26, which shows the breakdown as of 30 June 2025.

As these statistics are published annually, we are not able to provide a breakdown as of September.

In the last year, we removed over 2,700 FNOs under the Early Removal Scheme, that is more than the number removed in the previous year, and a 74 percent increase compared to the same period in 2023. It will free up much-needed space in our prisons.