Prisons: Private Sector

(asked on 17th March 2015) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what funds his Department allocated to contractors to manage each privately-run prison in (a) 2012, (b) 2013 and (c) 2014.


Answered by
Andrew Selous Portrait
Andrew Selous
Second Church Estates Commissioner
This question was answered on 20th March 2015

The following table shows the annual expenditure for the contracted prisons for each of the last three financial years 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 for which information is available.

Prison

Operator

Direct Resource Expenditure (£000s)

2011-12 (restated)

2012-13

2013-14

Altcourse

G4S

46,219

46,494

45,538

Ashfield

Serco

26,426

27,660

23,451

Birmingham

G4S

14,022

30,035

28,611

Bronzefield

Sodexo

27,629

28,873

29,871

Doncaster

Serco

19,714

18,273

17,789

Dovegate

Serco

37,573

38,846

39,331

Forest Bank

Sodexo

34,626

35,682

37,187

Lowdham Grange

Serco

26,063

27,478

28,128

Northumberland

Sodexo

n/a

n/a

11,352

Oakwood

G4S

n/a

24,800

19,473

Parc

G4S

58,529

59,413

56,708

Peterborough

Sodexo

32,418

33,085

34,133

Rye Hill

G4S

18,663

19,138

19,997

Thameside

Serco

143

27,561

31,027

Wolds

G4S

8,470

8,598

2,157

To note within the Table:

1. Birmingham transferred to the management of G4S on 1st October 2011

2. Thameside became operational on 27th March 2012

3. Oakwood became operational on 24th April 2012

4. Wolds transferred to Public Sector management on 1st July 2013

5. Altcourse had Cabinet Office savings initiative from 2011 c £1m per year

6. Altcourse had 96 Additional Prisoner Places (APP's) deactivated in Dec 2012 and 75 deactivated in April 2013

7. Forest Bank has a disinvestment of c £1m per year from July 2012

8. Parc had 138 APP's deactivated in April 2013

9. Oakwood had £7.2m of fixed costs included in 2012-13

10. Thameside became operational at the end of 2011-12 and "ramp-up" progressed through 2012-13

11. Northumberland (merger of HMPs Acklington and Castington) transferred to the management of Sodexo in December 2013

Expenditure between prisons and years is not directly comparable, as this may vary due to a number of factors, including inflation uplift, contract variations, new prisons becoming operational or prisons transferring between the public and private sector, and additional prison places being commissioned or decommissioned.

The Department is committed to delivering prison capacity changes designed to modernise the prison estate and, where possible, reduce prison costs, whilst maintaining a high quality service.

From the financial years 2009-10 to 2013-14 there was a real terms reduction of 17% in the overall average cost for each prisoner in England and Wales, with a reduction of 5% achieved during the last financial year 2013-14.

The Department routinely publishes annual net resource expenditure for individual prisons in England and Wales each year alongside the management information addendums to the NOMS Annual Report and Accounts. The most recently published figures for financial year 2013-14, can be accessed by the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-and-probation-trusts-performance-statistics-201314

The published expenditure figures for 2012-13, and restated figures for 2011-12 can be accessed by the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-and-probation-trusts-performance-statistics-201213

Expenditure for financial year 2014-15 is not yet finalised and will be published in due course after the end of this financial period.

Reticulating Splines