Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what comparative assessment they have made of the levels of pay for education staff (1) working in prisons, and (2) not working in prisons.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Education within the prison setting in England is contracted out and teacher pay, therefore, is a matter for the contract suppliers. There is no requirement in the contracts to agree such matters with the Ministry of Justice.
Providers of contracted services play an important role in the prison estate and we continue to monitor the delivery of Prisoner Education Services to raise prisoners’ levels of numeracy, literacy, skills and qualifications with the aim of helping them secure jobs or apprenticeships on their release.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of current workload of staff in (1) the Probation Service; and (2) the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
(1) As of March 2022, 96% of Probation staff (Probation Officers and Probation Service Officers) hold less than 50 cases, with an average caseload of 34 (rounded down to nearest full number). The average caseload for the 4% who hold over 50 cases is 59. The Probation Service is committed to providing a quality service in order to achieve its mission of protecting the public, supporting victims and reducing reoffending. We recruited a total of 1,007 trainees (against a target of 1000) in 2020/21 and 1,522 trainee probation officers (against a target of 1,500) in 2021/2022. Further recruitment is planned in 2022/23. This will ensure that the Service has the resources it needs.
(2) The number of open active children’s cases within Cafcass was 34,834 in May 2022. This has reduced from 38,178 in April 2021, but still represents an increase of 15.1% on pre-pandemic levels. Officials at the Ministry of Justice are in regular contact with Cafcass management to ensure it has the resources it needs to manage staff workloads. For 2022/23, the Ministry of Justice has provided Cafcass with a budget increase of £8.4m from its 2021/22 starting position. All public law work continues to be allocated in Cafcass in the usual way and within established timescales.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recent levels of (1) retention, and (2) cumulative experience, of prison officers.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
HMPPS does not have a standard definition of ‘retention rates’ however we do publish information on leaving rates which can be used as a proxy. The leaving rate is the number of staff who have left the department in the previous 12 months divided by the average number of people in post over the same period of time. Figures for leaving rates to 31 December 2021 are available in published workforce statistics here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/her-majestys-prison-and-probation-service-workforce-quarterly-december-2021
Figures for leaving rates by grade can be found in the table 11 of the Excel tables accompanying the publication.
The cumulative length of service, in years, held by all Band 3-5 Prison Officer as at 31st December 2021 is 240,501 years, based on a headcount of 23,123 staff or 22,156 Full Time Equivalent. Band 3-5 Officers includes Band 3-4 / Prison Officers (incl specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officers, and Band 5 / Custodial Managers.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect of the HM Courts & Tribunals Service Common Platform roll-out on (1) the delivery of justice, and (2) staff morale.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We have rolled out Common Platform to 112 criminal courts in England and Wales. It has already improved the format and timeliness of outcomes of hearings generated and shared with our criminal justice partner agencies and removed the need for staff to rekey information across different IT systems. In the Magistrates’ court, information about cases is now in a single place enabling collaborative working, updating information in real time, and creating efficiencies. The additional functionality currently being developed will bring more efficiencies and we will continue to monitor the impact of these on the delivery of justice.
We have designed the Common Platform in partnership with our key stakeholders and continue to release further improvements and functionality. When new functionality is implemented, we gather feedback from users to identify and prioritise improvements.
We support our workforce through the implementation of Common Platform and their health, safety and wellbeing is taken extremely seriously. At an organisational level, we have carried out a Change Impact Assessment, Public Sector Equality Analysis and a Workforce Equality Analysis, which remain under regular review. Alongside that, the Civil Service People Survey provides a real understanding of how HMCTS is managing change.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Scott of Bybrook on 30 September (HL8064), whether they plan to provide guidance to the courts on how to handle cases where a defendant cites the United Kingdom Internal Market Act as a precedent for breaking the law in a specific and limited way which should be acquitted without penalty.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government has no plans to issue guidance to the courts on this matter.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to produce a list of laws which can be broken in a specific and limited way without penalty; and if so, when such a list would be available.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Shadow Minister (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
There will be no such list.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
Her Majesty's Government, following the recent report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons on youth detention centres, whether they plan to consider the recommendations made in the report Rehabilitation by Design, published in 2016 by Gleeds, on solutions to high re-offending rates.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
Re-offending rates in youth justice are high, and the outcomes for young people leaving custody are not good enough. That is why we set out our plans to reform youth custody in response to Charlie Taylor’s youth justice review last December, so that it is better equipped to help young people turn their lives around and play a constructive role in their communities upon their release, away from re-offending.
We will continue to engage with key stakeholders and consider their recommendations as this work progresses.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to extend the mandation of electronic tagging to include priority and persistent offenders as part of integrated offender management programmes.
Answered by Lord Faulks
A comprehensive review of the Electronic Monitoring programme to introduce GPS technology is underway.