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Written Question
Probation: Staff
Monday 19th February 2024

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the sustainability of probation officer caseload.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We have increased funding for the Probation Service by an additional £155m a year since 2021 to recruit staff, bring down caseloads and deliver better supervision of offenders in the community.

We have also accelerated recruitment of trainee Probation Officers, particularly in areas with the most significant staffing challenges. As a result, over 4,000 trainees, a record number, have started on training courses between April 2020 and March 2023. These intakes will qualify by the end of 2024 and will have a direct impact on reducing caseloads.

The Probation Service is constantly monitoring staffing levels and retention, specifically in hard to recruit to areas, which remain challenging. We continue to take tactical decisions to mitigate the risk in sites where it is most acute, as well as taking forward several non-pay related activities to improve retention.

From September 2022 to September 2023, the Probation Service saw an increase in staff of 11.8%, Senior Probation Officers saw an increase of 13%, and Probation Officers saw an increase of 6.9%.


Written Question
Community Orders
Thursday 7th December 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the number of hours of unpaid work completed at home as part of community sentences in each year since 2010.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Independent working projects were introduced as a temporary delivery method in response to COVID-19 restrictions and enabled the Probation Service to continue delivery during periods of lockdown.

Independent working projects were not in use prior to April 2020, therefore there is no relevant data between 2010 and that date. The practice of home working ceased in September 2022

The following number of hours of unpaid work have been recorded as completed at home as part of a community sentence.

Date

UPW hours completed at home

01/04/2020 to 31/03/2021

71,711

01/04/2021 to 31/03/2022

294,554

01/04/2022 to 31/03/2023

168,738

01/04/2023 to 30/09/2023

492

Explanatory note

These figures differ from previously reported figures due to data recording corrections.

Independent home working ceased in September 2022, however, some recording errors where probation teams still recorded completed UPW hours under the heading of home working have resulted in some hours recorded in 2023.

The 492 hours recorded since April 2023 result primarily from data recording issues (for example, hours delivered prior to September 2022 but recorded on the system at a later date). A small number of hours relate to the continuation of home working in 4 individual cases due to specific, unavoidable factors (for example, an absence of childcare).

This data was sourced from the Probation Case Management System, nDelius. While reasonable efforts have been taken to ensure the accuracy of this data, the inaccuracy inherent in any large-scale administrative data source means data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last unit presented.


Written Question
Prisons: Recruitment
Wednesday 6th December 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department holds on the number of applications received for jobs in prisons at grade bands 3 to 5 in each year since 2010.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Submission Year

Number of Applications -Band 3

Number of Applications -Band 4

Number of Applications -Band 5

Total

2017

109520

6245

2647

118412

2018

108259

10182

6152

124593

2019

73709

11094

4820

89623

2020

95667

12143

4072

111882

2021

84635

12740

5309

102684

2022

112068

10366

4427

126861

2023 (January to September)

85610

9086

3305

98001

Notes

  1. Data was extracted from the Oleeo recruitment system. Oleeo is a live system so records are subject to change.
  2. The figures used here are based on applications submitted between 01 April 2017 and 30 September 2023 inclusive.
  3. Data was only collected on Oleeo from 1 April 2017 and so data is not available for earlier dates.
  4. Data for 2023 is incomplete and is only available up to and including 30 September 2023.
  5. The data provided shows the number of applications rather than the number of applicants since Oleeo data is at the application level.
  6. Figures included in our response only cover data available within our Oleeo system, so data for any recruitment that is not entirely processed on Oleeo will be incomplete.
  7. These figures include internal progression to Band 4 and 5 roles.
  8. These figures include applications to the "Unlocked Graduate Scheme", and to Operational Support Grade to Prison Officer / Youth Justice Worker fast track campaigns.
  9. Figures do not include recruitment campaigns managed by external companies.
  10. This data only includes recruitment for Public Sector Prisons (PSP).
  11. The data request for this Parliamentary Question (PQ) and PQ 192091 is similar to PQ 118603 and PQ 125377. If comparing this data, please note that figures in PQ 118603 and PQ 125377 cover applications for prison officer roles only. Data in this PQ and PQ 192091 cover applications for all roles in Public Sector Prisons. In addition, please note that small differences in the data can occur when completing new analysis. There can be a small number of changes and corrections to historic applications, which is why the numbers can be fractionally different.
  12. Applications in prisons relate to any vacancies in Public Sector Prisons in England and Wales. This includes non-frontline vacancies and vacancies which list the base location as a non-prison establishment. It excludes anyone working in HMPPS HQ or the Probation Service

Written Question
Judges: Retirement
Wednesday 6th December 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many judges retired in each of the last five years.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The number of judges in the courts and tribunals who retired in each of the last five financial years is:

2018-2019

2019-2020

2020-2021

2021-2022

2022-2023

Salaried

Courts

80

80

41

45

67*

Tribunals

34

32

8

14

25*


Fee paid

Courts

68#

54*

69*

29*

39*

Tribunals

71#

38*

50*

44*

39*

Data for salaried judges who retired in the financial years 2018-2022 is taken from MoJ’s evidence provided to the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) for the 2023 Annual Report on Senior Salaries (www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministry-of-justices-evidence-to-the-senior-salaries-review-body-2023).

#This data is the number of fee-paid judges who left office (including retirements, resignations and deaths in office) reported in the 2019 Diversity of the Judiciary statistics: https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/diversity/judicial-diversity-statistics/.

*This data is a subset of the data of judges who left office reported in the annual Diversity of the Judiciary statistics, which only reflects those who retired: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-2023-statistics.


Written Question
Community Orders
Monday 4th December 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many hours of Community Payback are yet to be delivered as of 28 November 2023 in each (a) region of (i) England and (ii) Wales and (b) probation service area in the latest period for which figures are available.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Below is a table which shows the total number of community payback hours yet to be delivered for each region of England and Wales as of 27 November 2023.

Region

Hours Outstanding

England and Wales Total

3,978,852

East Midlands

271,848

East of England

446,167

Greater Manchester

272,324

Kent, Surrey and Sussex

272,131

London

630,995

North East

182,048

North West

340,021

South Central

301,545

South West

280,126

Wales

155,132

West Midlands

370,286

Yorkshire and The Humber

456,228

The current number of hours outstanding reflects the hours yet to be delivered on the Unpaid work caseload.

Please see attached annex for a table which shows the total number of community payback hours yet to be delivered for Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) as of 27 November 2023.

This Government has announced up to £93million additional investment in Unpaid Work over the next three years. The funding is being used to recruit an additional ~500 Unpaid Work staff so that we can ramp up delivery to address the Covid backlog and effectively manage oncoming orders.

This investment gives Probation a vital opportunity to relaunch Unpaid Work and make sure that placements are visible and robust, and put UPW delivery on a sustainable footing following disruption caused by the pandemic.

Explanatory note

Data for part B (Probation service areas) has a high proportion of hours allocated to unknown PDUs within regions. This is due to regional practice on how UPW requirements are managed (single Regional PDU for all UPW requirements vs localised PDUs managing both standalone UPW requirements and other multi requirement orders).


Written Question
Community Orders
Monday 4th December 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many hours of community service were not carried out in each (a) local justice area and (b) region in (i) England and (ii) Wales in each year since 2010.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Please see attached annex for data table contain information on how many hours of community service were not carried out in each local justice area and region in England and Wales since 2010.

Owing to data migration issues following the move to a single National Recording Platform, with Transforming Rehabilitation in 2014 and subsequent changes to Probation Delivery boundaries, it is less possible to accurately map older locations to the current Probation Regions.

The dataset covers reasons hours are not carried out including offender deaths, deportation, orders revoked, and resentenced, successful appeals and Suspended Sentence Order (SSO) activated.

This Government has announced up to £93million additional investment in Unpaid Work over the next three years. The funding is being used to recruit an additional ~500 Unpaid Work staff so that we can ramp up delivery to address the Covid backlog and effectively manage oncoming orders.

This investment gives Probation a vital opportunity to relaunch Unpaid Work and make sure that placements are visible and robust, and put UPW delivery on a sustainable footing following disruption caused by the pandemic.


Written Question
Prisoners: Drugs
Wednesday 11th October 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many drug overdoses took place in prisons from March (a) 2021-2022 and (b) 2022-2023 broken down by institution.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

Between January 2021 and December 2021, a total of 2,273 incidents of self-harm were recorded that were linked to overdoses.

The total figure for January 2022 to December 2022 was 2,387 incidents linked to overdoses. Please see the accompanying table.

The data has been produced on a calendar basis to match published figures on method of self-harm. Information is reported for calendar rather than financial years to avoid the risk of identifying individuals in combination with published calendar year breakdowns of self-harm data.

We do not explicitly collect data on an “overdose” incident type. The data we have provided is based on the “self-harm” incident type. In particular, the data is based on self-harm categorised as “Self-Poisoning/Overdose/Substances/Swallowing” and subcategorised as “illegal drugs”, “own persons medicine” or “other persons medicine”.

The data provided is based on two main assumptions:

  • Incidents relate to the consumption of substances, including illegal drugs and prescription medication.
  • Incidents were judged by staff to be incidents of self-harm, i.e. where a prisoner deliberately harmed themselves.

There will be other incidents involving the consumption of substances that are not included as they were not reported as self-harm by the prison and so would not have been captured in the provided data.

These figures have been drawn from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System and although care is taken when processing and analysing returns, the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to the last case, the figures may not be accurate to that level.

The data only includes self-harm incidents collated centrally; identifying any wider incidents that lead to a hospitalisation and have a connection to drugs would exceed the cost threshold as it would require reading through the text of each incident.

We are committed to doing all we can to prevent deaths from drug overdoses in prison. We have outlined in both our Prisons Strategy White Paper and the Government’s 10-year drug strategy ‘From Harm to Hope’ (2021) how we will achieve this.

All prisons have a zero-tolerance approach to drugs. Our £100m Security Investment Programme, completed in March 2022, introduced measures such as 75 additional X-ray body scanners and airport-style gate security. To prevent the smuggling of illegal drugs such as psychoactive substances through the mail, we have deployed 95 next generation drug trace detection machines. We are aiming for full coverage of public sector prisons by March 2024.

We are also increasing the number of Incentivised Substance-Free Living units, where prisoners commit to remaining free of illicit drugs with regular drug testing and incentives. We have more than doubled the number of these from 25 last summer to 60 now and we are aiming to reach up to 100 by March 2025.


Written Question
Prisons: Locks and Keys
Tuesday 26th September 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions a prison has had to be relocked because of the loss or theft of keys between (a) July 2015 and July 2020, (b) July 2020 and July 2021, (c) July 2021 and July 2022, (d) July 2020 and July 2023; and what the cost of each such incident was.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

The table below shows the number of incidents and cost of relock within prisons in England and Wales due to loss or theft of keys, for the time period requested.

Date

Number of Relocks

Cost (excluding VAT)

July 15 to July 20

6

£117,211.50 £422,447.46 £438,525.29 £441,649.00 £21,304.70 £323,151.44

July 20-July 21

2

£2,821.40 £313,139.66

July 21-July 22

0

0

July 22-July 23

2

£28, 650 £29,187.59


Written Question
Prisons: Drugs
Thursday 21st September 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the target was for the number of random mandatory drug tests to be carried out by HM Prison and Probation Service staff in the year to March 2023.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

Between start March 2022 and end March 2023, the national Key Performance Indicator target of expected random mandatory tests to be completed was 54,138 based on an overall prison population ranging from 79,698 in March 2022 to 83,918 in March 2023.

All random mandatory drug testing (rMDT) was paused in March 2020 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Low levels of testing resumed from September 2020 in line with establishments’ position within the National Framework for managing COVID-19 before formal performance expectations around rMDT volumes were re-instated in April 2022. As set out in the HMPPS Annual Digest 2022-23 publication, rMDT levels did not return to the pre-pandemic levels in 2022-23. The levels of testing delivered varies across the estate from month to month and was impacted by the level of regime being operated by prisons, in line with staffing resource and other operational pressures.


Written Question
Prisons: Drugs
Thursday 21st September 2023

Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many random mandatory drug tests were carried out by HM Prison and Probation Service from March 2022-2023 by institution.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

Between March 2022 and March 2023, a total of 41,308 random mandatory drug tests were carried out by HM Prison and Probation Service in 122 prison establishments. Please see the accompanying table.

All random mandatory drug testing (rMDT) was paused in March 2020 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Low levels of testing resumed from September 2020 in line with establishments’ position within the National Framework for managing COVID-19 before formal performance expectations around rMDT volumes were re-instated in April 2022. As set out in the HMPPS Annual Digest 2022-23 publication, rMDT levels did not return to the pre-pandemic levels in 2022-23. The levels of testing delivered varies across the estate from month to month and was impacted by the level of regime being operated by prisons, in line with staffing resource and other operational pressures.