Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to reduce prison officer vacancies in (a) public prisons and (b) prisons run by contractors.

We remain committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced and that we retain and build levels of experience, both of which are fundamental to delivering quality outcomes in prisons. As of December 2024, there are 23,062 Band 3-5 Prison officers in post and nationally we are at 97.2% of our Target Staffing Figure, based on hours adjusted FTE. Substantive recruitment efforts will continue at all sites where vacancies exist or are projected, with targeted interventions applied to those prisons with the most need.

In private sector prisons, Directors (who are equivalent to Governing Governors in public sector prisons) manage vacancies in line with the contract set by the Government. If there are particularly acute resourcing challenges, we sometimes send HMPPS staff on detached duty to support sites.