Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has made an assessment of (a) the shortfall in and (b) the potential impact of increasing the level funding in the 2022-23 financial year on, recruitment to Independent Monitoring Boards.

We value the scrutiny provided by the independent scrutiny bodies, including the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs).

In the 2022-23 financial year, we increased the level of funding for the IMBs by £0.44m and provided an additional £0.5m of capital funding. The increases will fund structural developments to improve new member recruitment and retention, for example, through the recruitment of Regional Support Leads, who will play a key role in supporting recruitment to Boards through improving local outreach.

Additionally, the development of a new organisational database will provide improvements to member recruitment and retention by replacing the current outdated legacy software and providing better access to member learning and development records, whilst aligning with plans to improve recruitment techniques. We hope this will positively impact the recruitment of board members and we will continue to keep this under review.