Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 1 February 2024 to Question 11801 on Prison Officers: Labour Turnover, how many and what proportion of prison officers recruited at Wandsworth Prison in 2023 had left the prison service on 9 February 2024.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, including leavers, and the latest publication covers data up to 31 December 2023. Figures covering data up to 31 March 2024 are due for publication on 16 May 2024 and therefore this information cannot be released.
In the period from 01 January 2023 to 31 December 2023, there were 113 band 3-5 prison officers who joined HMP Wandsworth. Details of the number and proportion who have left HMPPS as of 31 December 2023 are given in the table below.
Table 1: Status of band 3-5 prison officers (1) who joined (2) HMP Wandsworth between 01 January 2023 and 31 December 2023 - as of 31 December 2023
Remained or left | Headcount | Percentage |
Working in public sector prisons (including YCS) | 106 | 93.8% |
Left HMPPS altogether | 7 | 6.2% |
Total | 113 | 100.0% |
Notes to table 1:
(1) Includes Bands 3-4 / Prison Officer (incl specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officer and Band 5 / Custodial Managers.
(2) New recruits joining HMPPS - does not include internal transfers or conversions.
Across HMPPS, retention continues to be a priority. Exit interviews have been in place since 2021 to determine the reasons for leaving and appropriate action needed. Retention strategies and toolkits based around drivers of attrition, such as leadership and career progression, have been in place since 2021 to determine appropriate national and local interventions.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many meetings he has had with the senior leadership team at HMP Wandsworth since 7 September 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Secretary of State’s most recent meeting with the senior leadership team at HMP Wandsworth was a virtual meeting with the Governor on 6 September.
Ministers and senior government officials continue to work and engage closely with leaders responsible for HMP Wandsworth in a variety of ways beyond in-person meetings and site visits.
The Area Executive Director (AED) for Prisons and Probation in London is significantly active in the response to the escape at HMP Wandsworth. The Prison Group Director for London, along with their own team, frequently visits HMP Wandsworth and reports back the AED. The AED is in close contact with the Director General of Operations and the Chief Executive of HMPPS via formal governance, and with Ministers via the Ministerial Performance meeting.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers were on restricted duties at HMP Wandsworth on the first Monday of each month in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The requested information is shown in the table below.
Number of Prison Officers on restricted duties at HMP Wandsworth, Mar 2023 – Feb 2024
Date | 6 Mar | 3 Apr | 1 May | 5 Jun | 3 Jul | 7 Aug | 4 Sep | 2 Oct | 6 Nov | 4 Dec | 1 Jan | 5 Feb |
Number of Prison Officers on restricted duties | 12 | 11 | 9 | 15 | 8 | 14 | 13 | 21 | 23 | 17 | 12 | 13 |
Restricted duties are where a member of staff is limited from their regular duties (this can be with regards to tasks or time), due to injury, illness or other reason, applied at the discretion of the line manager.
To ensure we support staff welfare, we have in place an Occupational Health and Employee Assistance Programme to improve wellbeing, as well as Care Teams, who are trained to provide support to any member of staff involved in an incident within the prison or when conducting official duties, present in all public sector prisons. Other services available include reflective sessions, access to online wellbeing services, 24-hour counselling, and a trauma-focused peer support system.
Alongside schemes to improve welfare, we continue to take steps to ensure that all prisons are sufficiently resourced through focusing efforts on recruitment, seeking to bolster our applicant pipelines through our use of incentives scheme to target prisons where there is the greatest need.
Despite a challenging labour market, the Ministry of Justice has seen an improving national staffing picture within prisons. The number of frontline (Band 3-5) prison officers increased by 1,634 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) (7.6 per cent) in the year to December 2023, to 23,266 FTE. Over the same period, there was a fall in the resignation rate among Band 3-5 officers of 2.4 percentage points.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers were on active duty at HMP Wandsworth, on the first Monday of each month for the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The table below shows the number of staff on active duty at HMP Wandsworth in the morning (AM), the afternoon (PM) and on evening duty (ED) of the first Monday of each month, from March 2023 until February 2024. An individual member of staff may have completed more than one period of duty during the day.
The data include all Band 3 staff attending who were scheduled to attend, including those undertaking external escort duty. They do not include any staff on training, restricted duties or undertaking bed watch duties. In addition to those for scheduled staff, separate details are provided of Band 3 officers who attended under Payment Plus arrangements.
6 March | 4 April | 1 May | 5 June | 3 July | |||||||||||
On active duty | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED |
Scheduled | 102 | 64 | 13 | 87 | 75 | 21 | 83 | 77 | 21 | 83 | 74 | 25 | 99 | 85 | 29 |
Payment Plus | 5 | 13 | 15 | 13 | 15 | 13 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 13 | 11 | 5 | 10 | 9 |
7 Aug | 4 Sept | 2 Oct | 6 Nov | 4 Dec | |||||||||||
On active duty | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED |
Scheduled | 75 | 73 | 24 | 81 | 86 | 30 | 91 | 87 | 31 | 88 | 83 | 31 | 93 | 92 | 29 |
Payment Plus | 4 | 11 | 15 | 13 | 12 | 9 | 5 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 13 | 9 |
1 Jan | 5 Feb | |||||
On active duty | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED |
Scheduled | 73 | 70 | 22 | 90 | 81 | 22 |
Payment Plus | 0 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 9 | 8 |
Active recruitment has been in progress at HMP Wandsworth, in recognition of the Band 3 prison officer staffing position. A steady increase of new starters has enabled the prison to achieve its target staffing figure of 315 Band 3 prison officers. Some of these new staff are still at training college but will be able to commence full duties within the next six weeks.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the level of use of the new healthcare facility at HMP Wandsworth.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The new healthcare unit is in the process of completion, at which point it will be handed over to the healthcare provider, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust. The new building will be used to accommodate outpatient clinics and healthcare office space. The inpatient unit will remain in the existing healthcare building.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many deaths have been recorded at HMP Wandsworth since 30 June 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Deaths recorded by prison are published as part of our Safety in Custody statistics, updated quarterly, and available in the Deaths Data Tool at the following link: Safety in custody: quarterly update to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Please note that deaths at Wandsworth are currently published from 30 June 2023 – end of December 2023. Figures to the end of March 2024 are not due for publication until April 2024 and cannot be released at this time.
Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody. They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state has less direct responsibility.
In addition to deaths in prison custody which occur in hospitals, hospices or nursing homes, a small proportion will occur while in an ambulance on the way to hospital, while the prisoner is under escort.
Every death in custody is a tragedy and we continue to do all we can to improve the safety of prisoners.
We have implemented a revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) case management approach across the prison estate. Revisions in ACCT v6 include a stronger emphasis on taking a person-centred approach; better multi-disciplinary team working; a consistent quality assurance process and an improved focus on identifying and addressing an individual’s risks, triggers and protective factors.
We are implementing a new safety training package for staff. It brings together related safety topics, including suicide and self-harm prevention and understanding risks, triggers and protective factors.
We fund Samaritans through a grant providing total funding of just under £2 million between 2022 and 2025. This is primarily for the delivery of the Listener scheme (through which selected prisoners are trained to provide support to fellow prisoners in emotional distress).
We have also worked with Samaritans to develop a postvention response to providing support in the period following a self-inflicted death in order to reduce the risk of further deaths. This has been successfully piloted and the renewed grant includes funding for this service to be maintained until March 2025.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many days of time off in lieu are prison officers at Wandsworth Prison owed in total as of 25 January 2024.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Time off in lieu is given in respect of additional duties performed in excess of an officer’s weekly hours, where such duties cannot be covered effectively by other means.
At HMP Wandsworth, as of 25 January 2024, an average of 13.4 hours was owed per Band 3 prison officer.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many new prison officers have been recruited at HMP Wandsworth since 7 September 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, including joiners. The latest publication covers data for up to the period 30 September 2023.
Workforce statistics after 30 September 2023 is unpublished and cannot be released.
In the period from 7 September 2023 to 30 September 2023, there have been a total of three Band 3 Prison Officers recruited to HMP Wandsworth. These are new starters only and do not include transfers from other prisons.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many inmates have been transferred from HMP Wandsworth due to re-categorisation since 7 September 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
HMP Wandsworth’s main function is to hold unsentenced prisoners while their cases progress through the courts. Once prisoners are sentenced, they are categorised and transferred to a prison with an appropriate security category. Prisoner movement records indicate there have been a total of 568 transfers out of Wandsworth since 7 September 2023. The number of these which were solely due to re-categorisation is not centrally collated.
There are complex and wide-ranging issues involved in transferring and locating prisoners, and allocation decisions must reflect both the specific needs and circumstances of the prisoner, including their security assessment, as well as the operating environment and range of services at the receiving prison. How these considerations apply in individual cases is not recorded in centrally collated data.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what was the maximum number of full-time prison officers working at Wandsworth prison in each year since 2010.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information. The latest publication covers data for up to the period 30 June 2023.
Despite a challenging labour market, the 12 months ending 30 June 2023 saw an increase of over 700 Full Time Equivalent Band prison officers. This means we now have 4,000 more prison officers than in March 2017. We are also recruiting 5,000 prison officers across public and private prisons by the mid-2020s. Over the past six years, from March 2017 to March 2023, staffing levels at HMP Wandsworth have increased by 24 per cent, on the basis of Full Time Equivalent (FTE).
We recently increased the pay of the vast majority of frontline officers by 7 per cent. Combined with other pay rises, this means starting pay for prison officers has increased since 2019/20 from £22,293 to £30,902 (on the basis of a 37-hour week at the national rate, with unsocial hours) or £23,529 to £32,851 (on the basis of a 39-hour week at the national rate, with unsocial hours). The latest Prison Service Pay Review Body (PSPRB) report, the recommendations of which were all accepted, can be found here PSPRB Report - 2023.
When a prison has vacancies, staffing levels are routinely supplemented, for instance by using Payment Plus, which is a form of overtime not accounted for in the data provided here. Use of detached duty, a long-standing mechanism to deploy staff from one prison to support another, is also not included in this data.
Table 1 sets out the number of staff at HMP Wandsworth relative to the number of prisoners for the years for which data is available.
Table 1: The average ratio of HMPPS payroll staff to prisoners at HMP Wandsworth for the 12 months to the end of June 2023 and the previous six years is shown in the table below. The prison population data is publicly available back to September 2015 so the earliest 12-month average June figure is for 2017.
12 months to end of June | Average payroll staff (FTE) | Average number of prisoners | Staff/prisoner ratio |
June 2017 | 460 | 1,575 | 0.3 |
June 2018 | 487 | 1,474 | 0.3 |
June 2019 | 606 | 1,443 | 0.4 |
June 2020 | 585 | 1,495 | 0.4 |
June 2021 | 581 | 1,519 | 0.4 |
June 2022 | 588 | 1,384 | 0.4 |
June 2023 | 583 | 1,517 | 0.4 |