Prisons: Education

(asked on 5th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which prisons have been affected by (a) redundancies of education staff employed through the Prison Education Framework (PEF) contract and (b) reductions in hours of PEF education staff since April 2020.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 13th October 2020

There have been restrictions on the delivery of face-to-face education due to Covid-19. In line with Cabinet Office guidance we have offered supplier relief to all suppliers commissioned through Core Education contracts or under the Prison Education Framework (PEF) and Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS), in both the adult prison estate and the youth custody estate. This has involved maintaining payments to providers to ensure that they have the capacity and capability to continue to deliver as the current restrictions are eased and return to full delivery as rapidly as possible.

Prison Education Framework (PEF) providers are contracted to provide a service and, so long as they provide this service, the staffing of this and how each PEF provider manages their staff is a matter for them and not the MoJ. We are not aware that any changes of staffing levels by any of the PEF providers has led to any reduction in the delivery of the service at any prison. Any erosion of service delivery, for whatever reason, will be challenged at all levels.

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