Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department have made a risk assessment of prison officer vacancies in the Long Term High Security Estate.

We closely monitor staffing levels across the estate via a number of internal governance forums, which assess the vacancy levels for individual prisons and across regions and functions, including the Long Term High Security Estate (LTHSE). Vacancies are one of a number of contributory factors that determine HMPPS' assessment of risk and stability within prisons. We will always ensure that prisons are sufficiently staffed to deliver safe and secure regimes. Where establishments feel that their staffing levels will affect stability or regime, including because of vacancies, there are a number of ways they can maximise the use of their own resource and seek support from other establishments in the short term, through processes managed nationally at Agency level. These include overtime payments and support via Detached Duty staff from other prisons.

We are continuing recruitment activity at all sites with a current or future need, including in the LTHSE. Nationally, we have seen a substantial improvement in the national staffing picture within prisons over the past year. The number of Band 3-5 prison officers increased by 1,634 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) between December 2022 and December 2023, and resignation rates have fallen over the same period. This is the result of significant efforts across the agency, including substantial increases in pay for staff, our first-ever nationwide advertising campaign, incentivized recruitment schemes where we incentivised applicants to relocate to ‘harder-to-staff’ sites, and the Prison Officer Alumni Network, where we have fast-tracked former staff back into the service.