Prison Officers: Recruitment

(asked on 17th January 2023) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applications were received for a band 3-5 prison officer position in each year since 2010.


Answered by
Damian Hinds Portrait
Damian Hinds
Minister of State (Education)
This question was answered on 25th January 2023

Table: Number of applications to Prison Officer roles, by year application submitted.

Submission Year

Total

2017

103690

2018

101076

2019

65501

2020

83913

2021

78339

2022

97887

Notes:

1. Data were extracted from the Oleeo recruitment system. Oleeo is a live system so records are subject to change.

2. The figures used here are based on applications submitted between 01 April 2017 and 30 November 2022 inclusive, as of 2 December 2022.

3. Data was only collected on Oleeo from 1 April 2017 and so data is not available for earlier dates.

4. Data for 2022 is incomplete and is only available up to and including 30 November 2022.

5. Data provided show the number of applications rather than the number of applicants since Oleeo data is at the application level.

6. Figures included in our response only cover data available in our Oleeo system, so any recruitment that is not entirely processed on Oleeo will be incomplete.

7. The majority of prison officer recruitment is at Band 3 and is external to the civil service.

8. The majority of Band 4 and Band 5 recruitment is internal to the Civil Service. These figures include internal progression to Band 4 and 5 roles.

9. These figures include applications to the "Unlocked Graduate Scheme", and to Operational Support Grade to Prison Officer / Youth Justice Worker fast track campaigns.

10. Figures do not include recruitment campaigns managed by external companies.

11. This data only includes recruitment for Public Sector Prisons (PSP).

12. Youth Justice Worker applications are included in the count of Prison Officer applications.

13. During the pandemic in 2021, we rapidly re-entered the market with an accelerated recruitment campaign to increase joiners, capitalising on a buoyant marketplace. However, as industries began to reopen, and competition in the marketplace significantly increased, our application volumes began to fall.

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