Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of prison officer salary levels on staff retention rates.

The 2024/25 Prison Service pay award delivered a pay rise of at 5% for all Band 3 – 5 Prison Officers on modernised terms and conditions. This brings the starting salary for an entry level officer (on the national rate, 39 hours with unsocial hours) from £32,851 to £34,494.

As of 30 September 2024, there are 23,571 Band 3-5 Full Time Equivalent Prison Officers in post, and nationally across establishments we are at 99.5% of our Target Staffing Figure (when using hours adjusted FTE). We have seen indications of an improving retention picture in the past two years – as of September 2024, the resignation rate for Band 3-5 prison officers was 8.5%, which is an improvement of 3 percentage points since September 2022 (11.5%).

When asked about their primary reason for leaving the prison service, Pay and Reward no longer consistently features in the top five reasons for leaving as cited by staff in exit interviews.