Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many providers are listed on the Dynamic Purchasing System for education in prison.

As at 15 October 2019, there were 282 suppliers on the prison education Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) with 146 contracts awarded.

The DPS enables prison governors to commission innovative, specialist or one-off education programmes for their establishment.

As set out in the Education and Employment Strategy, launched in May 2018, significant changes to the delivery arrangements for prison education took full effect from April 2019. From that point, governors took control of their establishment’s education budget, determined the curriculum on offer, how it is structured, and decided who their education providers will be.