Prisons: Locks and Keys

(asked on 2nd December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the cost of replacing lost prison keys in each year since 2010.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 7th December 2020

Security is paramount within prisons and it is important that the risk of any potential key compromise is addressed as quickly as possible in order to protect the public. When a key/lock incident is reported an immediate investigation is undertaken to assess the risk and unless it is clear that security has not been compromised, locking mechanisms and keys will be replaced and/or other necessary remedial action will be taken.

The cost of a relock will depend upon the size of the prison establishment and on which keys have been lost or compromised. If a complete set of keys are lost, a full relock of the prison will be undertaken, whereas if a single key is lost only a partial relock will be needed, incurring a lower cost.

We hold contingency funding for key/lock incidents and the cost is met from individual Prison Group directorate budgets. The costs of relocks within private sector prisons are met in full by the private contractors at nil cost to the public purse.

The table below reflects the cost of full and partial relocks to the public purse each year since 2010.

Time Frame

Total Cost to the public purse (excluding VAT)

2010 - 2011

£337,552

2011 - 2012

0

2012 - 2013

0

2013 - 2014

£28,812

2014 - 2015

£46,396

2015 - 2016

£117,212

2016 - 2017

0

2017 - 2018

£441,649

2018- 2019

0

2019 - 2020

£344,456

2020- 04 December 2020

£2,821

Notes

1. Figures include re-locks arising from loss of keys and where keys have been forcibly taken from staff.

2. The figures quoted have been drawn from live administrative databases and may subsequently be amended. Due care is taken during processing and analysis, but the detail is subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system.

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