Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle licence plate cloning.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department for Transport understands how distressing this criminal activity can be for innocent motorists. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is currently working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and other government departments to improve the identification and enforcement of number plate crime.

The law requires that anyone who supplies number plates for road use in the UK must be registered with the DVLA. It is a legal requirement for suppliers to carry out checks to ensure that number plates are only sold to those who can prove they are entitled to the registration number. Number plate suppliers must also keep records of the plates they have supplied.

The DVLA assist the police and Trading Standards in their enforcement against number plate suppliers who trade illegally. When notified, the DVLA will investigate and pass on intelligence to the police who are responsible for investigating this criminal matter.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions the Gold Command suite was opened for a prison incident in each year since 1 January 2010; and for which (a) prisons and (b) incidents it was opened.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

HMPPS has adopted the Gold, Silver, Bronze command system to manage incidents across all establishments. Some incidents will trigger the automatic opening of the Gold Command suite. The Gold Commander is the strategic lead for the management of the incident. Gold determines strategic objectives, sets tactical parameters, and approves the Silver Commander’s tactical plans. Incidents involving Gold Command suite opening have declined significantly since their peak in 2015.

The attached tables provide the information requested.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether all prisoners released under the end of custody supervised license are required to wear an electronic tag.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

All prisoners released under the End of Custody Supervised Licence are subject to a set of standard licence conditions as identified by Probation in their release management plan such as non-contact requirements, exclusion zones or GPS tagging.

These are not requirements in every case as conditions are set for individual prisoners to create the best chance of reducing reoffending and protecting the public.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2024 to Question 15927 on Prisons: Civil Disorder, whether there is a minimum staffing requirement for Tornado teams.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Operation Tornado is a national mutual aid plan by which prisons support one another in the event of a serious incident or occurrence requiring a reinforcement of staff. Operation Tornado is employed by HMPPS for three main reasons:

• In response to a serious incident requiring a reinforcement of staff.
• In response to other events or crisis requiring additional staff, who may not necessarily need to be Tornado trained.
• To aid the transfer of prisoners in the event of a serious incident or the threat of one (with the GOLD commander’s agreement).

There is no minimum staffing requirement for Tornado teams. HMPPS monitors the number of staff available for deployment and offer training spaces to ensure resilience to respond to serious incidents.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of including distance learning undertaken by prisoners as purposeful activity.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

All prisons have systems in place for the day-to-day management of regime delivery. Each prison has a regime management plan that clearly sets out the full range of prisoner activities and services delivered within the prison, morning and afternoon, from Monday to Friday.

All types of education, including distance learning, are factored into a prison’s regime management plan as part of the purposeful activity that prisoners undertake.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what discussions his Department had with (a) probation officers, (b) senior probation officers and (c) trade union officials representing probation officers before announcing the extension of the end of custody supervised license scheme.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The End of Custody Supervised License (ECSL) Scheme is a targeted measure that will operate in certain areas for a limited period of time where we are moving a prisoner’s release date earlier. We are committed to continue working with the police, prisons, and probation leaders to make further adjustments as required.

Prior to the announcement in Parliament of the extension of ECSL on 11 March, Senior Regional Prison and Probation leaders and Trade Unions were advised of the decision to extend ECSL, to prepare to implement the ECSL changes effectively.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many weapon finds there were in prisons in England and Wales in each year sine 2018.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The number of incidents of weapon finds in prisons in England and Wales is published in the HMPPS Annual Digest through the Finds Incidents Data Tool.

The figures include incidents occurring within escort areas. These figures represent the number of incidents where weapons were found - multiple weapons can be found and recorded as one incident.

Weapons drive violence, undermine safety and security and have no place in our prisons.

Our £100 million Security Investment Programme, aimed at reducing crime in prisons, including reducing the smuggling of illicit items such as weapons, was completed in March 2022. This investment delivered 75 additional X-ray body scanners resulting in full coverage across the closed adult male estate. As of October 2023, we have recorded 46,925 positive indications, helping to tackle the smuggling of weapons and other illicit items into prisons. The investment also funded Enhanced Gate Security at 42 high-risk sites, enhancing our routine searching of staff and visitors. 84 X-ray baggage scanners have also been installed at 49 sites to further strengthen our ability to detect the smuggling of illicit items including weapons.

In January this year, we introduced Restricted Fly Zones around prisons to disrupt illegal drone use. This strengthens our ability to intercept illicit items, such as weapons, being smuggled via drones, and enables the police to fine or prosecute those seeking to undermine prison security.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people in prison are accommodated (a) alone in a cell intended to accommodate one person, (b) alone in a cell intended to accommodate two persons, (c) in a cell or dormitory intended to accommodate more than one person and (d) with another person in a cell intended for one person as of 26 February 2024.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The requested information has been provided in table form below. Please note that the sum of these populations does not match the recorded total population on the day. This is because some of the prisoners in (b) are also counted in (c). A prisoner could be the sole occupant in cell for 2 people and would be included in (b) and the same prisoner in the same cell would also be included in (c).

The determination of the maximum crowded capacity of a particular establishment is a matter of operational judgement, considering risks to safety and stability. In times of severe population pressure, establishments will be expected to hold as many prisoners as they can safely accommodate, but it is equally clear that that number should be determined by the operational managers responsible for managing the prison, not by a central process or by wider supply and demand issues.

We are delivering 20,000 additional modern uncrowded prison places, the largest prison build programme since the Victorian era, ensuring the right conditions are in place to rehabilitate prisoners, helping to cut crime and protect the public. We have already delivered c.5,900 places including through our two new 1,700-place prisons, HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way and we are on track to have delivered around 10,000 places in total by the end of 2025.

We are also investing in our prisons to make them safer for both prisoners and staff by taking a preventative approach to safety, making key changes to the physical environment and testing new technology. We will continue to invest in critical prison maintenance and renewal to ensure that we keep as much capacity as possible in use and fit for purpose.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his oral statement of 12 March 2024 on Update on foreign national offenders, prisons and probation, in what roles the 400 additional caseworkers were previously working.

Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)

The additional caseworkers referenced in the oral statement of Secretary of State for Justice on 12 March 2024 are Home Office staff.

The 400 additional caseworkers are external recruits and were not transferred from other roles.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many vacancies in the probation service there were in each region on 1 January 2024.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The workforce position, at 31 December 2023, was 20,806 full-time equivalent (FTE) Staff in Post working in Probation Service grades (including those working in Approved Premises). This is an increase of 1,856 FTE (9.8%) since 31 December 2022.

Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service and we have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to deliver more robust supervision, recruit more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.

We have recruited a record 4,039 trainee Probation Officers between 2020/21 and 2022/23 and we expect these intakes to qualify by the end of 2024 and begin to take on Probation Officer caseloads.

Trainee Probation Officers are onboarded twice annually (including this March which will not be counted in the figures below), and this can lead to fluctuations in staffing levels across the year.

We will continue to run centralised recruitment campaigns in priority regions to help bolster the number of applications.

Table One: Vacancies across Probation Service Regions, December 2023, all Probation Service grades.

Notes

1. Data shows average resource across the month, adjusted for joiners and leavers within the month. Data shown as of December 2023, aligning with the most recent HMPPS Workforce Quarterly publication. More recent data cannot be provided due to potentially pre-empting future statistical publications.
2. Vacancies have been calculated as Required Staffing (FTE) minus Staff in Post (FTE).
3. Where the number of Staff in Post (FTE) in a region exceeds Required Staffing (FTE), the number of vacancies has been shown as 0 FTE. Summing the figures in the table will not give the overall number of vacancies across the Probation Service due the surpluses in some regions that haven’t been shown in the table.
4. Vacancies have been netted off between grades and business units. As a result, the overall vacancy figures presented mask the presence of vacancies at both grade and business unit level.
5. Data have been taken from the Workforce Planning Tool and are subject to inaccuracy as a result of the manual nature with which returns are completed. This approach differs from the published statistics, which uses data from the Single Operating Platform (our departmental HR system).
6. Staff in Post (FTE) has not been adjusted for long-term absences (e.g. Trainee Probation Officer training time). In addition, we have not factored in loans / temporary cover / agency and sessional. The actual resourced position will therefore differ as a result of these.
7. Trainee Probation Officers are included in the data. Trainees spend a proportion of their time training and the remainder of their time carrying out work at a Band 3 PSO level. Both training time and time spent delivering caseload are included in the Staff in Post (FTE) calculations, which means that number of vacancies is lower than the actual gap between Required Staffing and frontline delivery.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many barricade or prevention of access incidents took place in prisons in England and Wales in each year since 2018.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

A barricade or prevention of access is an incident where one or more prisoners deny access to all or part of a prison, by use of any physical barrier, to those lawfully empowered to have such access.

An incident at height is any incident that takes place above or below ground level where a person could be injured if they fell from that place. Incidents at height come in many forms, ranging from internal incidents (prisoners on the fall arrest netting or climbing over bars) to an external incident (prisoners on the roof).

The information requested can be found in the HMPPS Annual Digest - Protesting Behaviour data tool: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64c1438a90b545000d3e83c4/7.__Protesting_behaviour_data_tool.xlsx.

These figures have been drawn from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing returns but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to the last case, the figures may not be accurate to that level.

The national staffing position in prisons is improving, with a substantial increase of over 1,634 Full-Time Equivalent Band 3-5 prison officers in the 12 months ending 31 December 2023.

We are committed to making prisons a safe place to work and providing prison officers with the right support, training and tools to empower them to do their jobs. We are providing targeted support to prisons to operate the Challenge, Support and Intervention Plan (CSIP) which provides a framework for managing violence that is centred around the individual needs of prisoners, helping them to move away from violent behaviours.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many incidents at height occurred in a prison in England and Wales in each year since 2018.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

A barricade or prevention of access is an incident where one or more prisoners deny access to all or part of a prison, by use of any physical barrier, to those lawfully empowered to have such access.

An incident at height is any incident that takes place above or below ground level where a person could be injured if they fell from that place. Incidents at height come in many forms, ranging from internal incidents (prisoners on the fall arrest netting or climbing over bars) to an external incident (prisoners on the roof).

The information requested can be found in the HMPPS Annual Digest - Protesting Behaviour data tool: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64c1438a90b545000d3e83c4/7.__Protesting_behaviour_data_tool.xlsx.

These figures have been drawn from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing returns but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to the last case, the figures may not be accurate to that level.

The national staffing position in prisons is improving, with a substantial increase of over 1,634 Full-Time Equivalent Band 3-5 prison officers in the 12 months ending 31 December 2023.

We are committed to making prisons a safe place to work and providing prison officers with the right support, training and tools to empower them to do their jobs. We are providing targeted support to prisons to operate the Challenge, Support and Intervention Plan (CSIP) which provides a framework for managing violence that is centred around the individual needs of prisoners, helping them to move away from violent behaviours.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many individuals will be released under the end of custody supervised license scheme in 2024.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

While ECSL is in operation, it will continue to free up spaces as more prisoners reach the point in their sentence when they become eligible for release, but only where that continues to be necessary to remain within maximum capacity levels.

An analysis of its use will be based on one year’s worth of data and published on an annual basis in line with other statistics.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether female prisoners will be eligible for release 60 days early under the End of Custody Supervised Licence.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

As we announced in October, ECSL operates across the prison estate in the specific prisons where it is absolutely necessary, including the women’s estate.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the positive test rate was of random mandatory drug tests in each prison in England and Wales in 2023.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Figures for random Mandatory Drug Testing (rMDT) for 2023 cannot be released at this time, as rMDT data for April 2023 - March 2024 is subject to future publication in the 2023-24 HMPPS Annual Digest, to be published in July 2024.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the positive rate for random mandatory drug tests carried out at HMP Wandsworth was in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The latest period for which random mandatory drug tests (rMDT) data is available is the year April 2022 to March 2023 (2022-2023). 18% of random mandatory drug tests (rMDT) in Wandsworth were positive for either traditional or psychoactive drugs throughout 2022-23.

We are doing more to tackle the supply of drugs in prisons. Our £100m Security Investment Programme completed in March 2022 and delivered 75 additional X-ray body scanners, supplying full coverage across the closed male estate. We have also installed 84 X-ray baggage scanners at 49 sites, drug detection machines and metal detection archways. Furthermore, we are taking steps to support individuals with substance misuse issues in prison. We have dramatically increased the number of incentivised substance-free living units, where prisoners commit to living drug-free with incentives and regular testing. Over 70 prisons now have an ISFL, up from 25 in summer 2022.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prisoners were sharing a one-person cell with another person on (a) 1 March 2021, (b) 1 March 2022 and (c) 1 March 2023.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Crowding levels are published annually in the HMPPS Prison Digest. Figures for the last three years for the number of prisoners sharing a one-person cell with another person for that year can be found in the documents here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmpps-annual-digest-april-2020-to-march-2021.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmpps-annual-digest-april-2021-to-march-2022.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmpps-annual-digest-april-2022-to-march-2023.

The accompanying annex to the latest publication, titled ‘Chapter 2 Tables – Prison Crowding’ provides the percentage of prisoners sharing a one-person cell with another person for each year since 1996.

The determination of the maximum crowded capacity of a particular establishment is a matter of operational judgement, considering risks to safety and stability.

By the end of this SR period, we will have invested nearly £4 billion towards the delivery of 20,000 modern and uncrowded prison places, the biggest prison build programme since the Victorian era, ensuring the right conditions are in place to rehabilitate prisoners, helping to cut crime, and protect the public. We have delivered c.5,900 of these and by the end of 2025, we will have delivered over 10,000 in total.

These places are being delivered through the construction of six new prisons, as well as the expansion and refurbishment of the existing estate and temporary accommodation.  We are also continuing to invest in prison maintenance so that existing places remain in use and are safe.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an estimate of the number of proposed new prison places that will be rapid deployment cells.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We are delivering 20,000 prison places, the largest prison build programme since the Victorian era. As part of this, and alongside further opportunities to optimise capacity in the estate, the estimated number of proposed new prison places that will be Rapid Deployment Cells is c.1,800. Delivery of the first c.1000 began last year, with c.630 already delivered across 12 sites.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which prisons have used prison officers on detached duty in 2023; and how many (a) officers were deployed to each prison and (b) times those officers were deployed.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

During 2023, 21 prisons received Band 3 officers on National Detached Duty. The table attached shows the average number of detached duty staff deployed at each site in each month.

It is not possible, without incurring disproportionate cost, to provide the remaining information requested, as this would require a detailed examination of individual records.

We are doing more than ever to attract and retain the best staff, including boosting salaries and launching our first-ever nationwide advertising campaign. These efforts are working - we have over 4,800 FTE additional officers between March 2017 and December 2023, and retention rates for prison staff are improving.

We have committed to recruiting up to 5,000 additional prison officers across public and private prisons by the mid-2020s.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish the (a) locations and (b) number of places per location of all planned prison places.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

To date, we have delivered c.5,900 places. This includes our two new prisons HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way. By the end of 2025, we are on track to have delivered around 10,000 places in total. This will include our third new prison, HMP Millsike, delivering c.1,500 places, new houseblocks at HMPs Stocken and Rye Hill, as well as hundreds more Rapid Deployment Cells.

Under current plans, we are scheduled to deliver at the following sites from 21 March 2024:

• * This site is subject to an ongoing planning appeal.

• ** Delivery at these sites is subject to planning permission.

• *** A wing-by-wing refurbishment is ongoing, with some places already delivered.

• Any additional sites not listed here are commercially sensitive and information released about these would prejudice the department’s negotiating position and ability to achieve value for money in these developments.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps HM Prison and Probation Service take to ensure prisoners released on end of custody supervised licence can continue to access drug addiction treatment programs when they are released from prison.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We know that supporting offenders to engage in drug and alcohol treatment is vital to reduce reoffending and we are working with health partners on a range of interventions to strengthen continuity of care for prison leavers. We have recruited over 50 Health and Justice Co-ordinators nationwide to improve links between prison and community treatment services, procured 650 laptops to enable prisoners to speak to community treatment providers before release and we are rolling out the Probation Notification Actioning Project (PNAP) which will make probation aware of prison leavers who have been referred to community treatment so probation can support continued engagement.

The lower-level offenders released on ECSL will have a release plan put together by probation, and where appropriate this release plan will include access to drug and alcohol treatment. It remains at the discretion of the prison service to block or delay the ECSL release of any prisoners where doing so would result in losing access to essential services such as drug and alcohol treatment.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of new probation officers left the service within a year of joining in each year since 2014.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

A considerable majority of Probation Officers first join the Probation Service as Trainee Probation Officers. During their time as a trainee, they will spend around 15-21 months training before potentially taking up a post as a Band 4 Probation Officer. As a result of this trainee pipeline, there will only be new Probation Officers with less than one year in the Probation Service if they joined the service as a qualified Probation Officer and then left within 12 months.

Retention of Probation staff is a priority for the service. A national standardised approach to exit interviews has been implemented to better understand the key drivers of attrition and feedback from these interviews helps shape and determine retention interventions at a local and national level.

The Probation Service is in its second year of a multi-year pay deal for staff. Salary values of all pay bands will increase each year, targeted at key operational grades to improve a challenging recruitment and retention position. The pay increases differ for each job role, but to provide an example Probation Officers will see their starting salary rise from £30,208 in 2021/22 to £35,130 by 2024/25.

The table below shows only those Probation Officers who joined the service as qualified Probation Officers and so will not include any Probation Officers who joined as trainees (who will all have been in the service for longer than a year by the time they qualify as a Probation Officer). The Probation Service unified in June 2021, bringing together the National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies. As a result, figures pre- and post-June 2021 are not comparable because of the change in the workforce makeup.

Table 1 - Number of Band 4 Probation Officer joiners to HMPPS and those who left HMPPS within 1 year: 2022-2023

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he as made of the cost to individuals of replacing blue badges lost due to theft.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department sets the legislation that governs the Blue Badge scheme and provides guidance for local authorities who are solely responsible for administering the scheme.

Current legislation provides local authorities with the means to tackle abuse of the Blue Badge scheme locally, such as the power to retain and cancel badges found to be stolen.

Data on the number of Blue Badges stolen in the last 12 months are not currently available. The latest published statistics show that in the year ending 31^st March 2023, 1700 Blue Badges were reported stolen in England. The figures reflect cases that have been recorded in the Blue Badge Digital Service database. It is possible that not all instances of loss or theft will be reported and recorded, and therefore will not be included in these figures.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has had recent discussions with the Home Office on the theft of blue badges.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department sets the legislation that governs the Blue Badge scheme and provides guidance for local authorities who are solely responsible for administering the scheme.

Current legislation provides local authorities with the means to tackle abuse of the Blue Badge scheme locally, such as the power to retain and cancel badges found to be stolen.

Data on the number of Blue Badges stolen in the last 12 months are not currently available. The latest published statistics show that in the year ending 31^st March 2023, 1700 Blue Badges were reported stolen in England. The figures reflect cases that have been recorded in the Blue Badge Digital Service database. It is possible that not all instances of loss or theft will be reported and recorded, and therefore will not be included in these figures.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of blue badge thefts in the last 12 months.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department sets the legislation that governs the Blue Badge scheme and provides guidance for local authorities who are solely responsible for administering the scheme.

Current legislation provides local authorities with the means to tackle abuse of the Blue Badge scheme locally, such as the power to retain and cancel badges found to be stolen.

Data on the number of Blue Badges stolen in the last 12 months are not currently available. The latest published statistics show that in the year ending 31^st March 2023, 1700 Blue Badges were reported stolen in England. The figures reflect cases that have been recorded in the Blue Badge Digital Service database. It is possible that not all instances of loss or theft will be reported and recorded, and therefore will not be included in these figures.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has made an assessment of the adequacy of the treatment of (a) Romani, (b) Roma and (c) Irish Traveller people in the prison estate.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) pursues an evidence-based approach to improving treatment and outcomes for prisoners, people on probation and children in our care from Romani, Roma, and Traveller Communities.

The HMPPS Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Strategy, first produced in May 2023, was drawn up, and continues to be developed, in consultation with Third Sector partners. It is informed by a range of internal and external reports and data. The strategy is implemented via a comprehensive action plan, which targets key areas for development, including data improvement, family interactions and health inequalities.

Some specific examples of activity include the further expansion of Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) Forums in prisons. Forums are being regularly held in several establishments across the prison estate, providing a supportive platform for communications and helping to respond to local needs. Staff awareness continues to be improved, with Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller specific information embedded into various guides across the organisation, improving the capability of staff to respond to individuals’ needs.