Prison Officers: Early Retirement
(asked on 24th July 2019) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers took early retirement due to ill health in (a) publicly-managed and (b) privately-managed prisons in each of the last 10 years.
HMPPS is committed to ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of its staff in England and Wales, with all staff having access to a comprehensive occupational health service and employee assistance programme.
The number of prison officers in public sectors prisons who took early retirement due to ill health in each of the last 10 years is shown in the table below.
Table 1: HMPPS band 3-5 prison officers1 who retired early due to ill health in public sector prisons, 2009/10 to 2018/19
Headcount | |
| Number of prison officers who retired early due to ill health |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2010 | 85 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2011 | 82 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2012 | 113 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2013 | 129 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2014 | 124 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2015 | 154 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2016 | 150 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2017 | 142 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2018 | 109 |
12 months ending 31 Mar 2019 | 112 |
1. Includes Band 3-4 / Prison Officer (incl. specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officer and Band 5 / Custodial Managers
Although there appears to be a clear upward trend, the figures have remained fairly static, representing only 0.3% of the workforce in 2010 and 0.5% of the workforce in 2019.
We do not collect this information for privately managed prisons, as there is no contractual requirement for us to do so. All staffing matters in privately managed prisons, including the responsibility of ensuring the availability of sufficiently trained and experienced staff to maintain safe and decent prisons, lies with contractors.