Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister of State on 4 July 2023, Official Report, Col. 760, if he will list the key performance indicators used to measure violence in prisons; and whether his Department plans to introduce any sanctions for prison operators failing to meet these targets.

Prison governors and senior leaders use a variety of measures to understand violence within prisons. The 2021/2022 Prisons Performance Framework (PPT) rated the performance of all public and private sector prisons in England and Wales. It contains two violence Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which prisons are assessed against. These are:

• Prisoner on prisoner assaults – rate per 1,000 prisoners, and;

• Assaults on staff - rate per 1,000 prisoners.

These are available on gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-performance-ratings-2021-to-2022. The prison performance ratings for 2022/2023 will be published on 27 July 2023.

HMPPS monitors performance against these KPIs on an ongoing basis and takes action if this is deemed necessary.

Private prison contracts are managed by operational contract managers who assure delivery against performance and contract measures.