Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for how many and what proportion of people on community sentences with a supervision element was a breach recorded in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The supervision requirement was phased out with the introduction of Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, therefore we have used the Rehabilitation Activity Requirement as the data source in this response as the best match to Supervision.
Between 01/04/2022 and 31/03/2023, the last full year for which data is available, breaches were initiated one or more times for 39,617 individuals with a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement as part of their Community Sentence.
During this period, the typical number of persons with an active Rehabilitation Activity Requirement was 84,608. As the caseload will vary, with a vast number of sentences commencing and ending on a daily basis, it is not possible to provide a figure for the proportion of those with a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement, with a breach recorded.
It should be noted that a breach being initiated does not necessarily mean that a breach was heard at court, or resulted in a Court hearing, they may instead have been withdrawn due to renewed compliance, at the Probation Practitioner’s professional judgement. Breaches are undertaken for a number of reasons, including non-attendance, unacceptable behaviour and commission of further offences.
Data are as at 16/04/2024. Data are sourced from nDelius and while these data have been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people recalled to prison were recalled due to (a) new offences, (b) a lack of address and (c) non-compliance with appointments in the latest 12 months for which data is available.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Public protection is our priority. The decision to recall on offender on licensed supervision is taken on the professional advice of senior probation staff following consideration of safe alternatives to recall. Where offenders are recalled, it is because they present a risk of serious harm to the public and the controls available are no longer sufficient to keep the public safe. These individuals will remain in prison for only as long as necessary to protect the public.
Reasons for recall are recorded and published as set out in the table below. Further breakdown of recall reasons is not possible without significant manual checks.
Recall period | Oct-Dec 2022 | Jan-Mar 2023* | Apr-Jun 2023 | Jul-Sep 2023 | % Proportion |
Total Recalls | 6,092 | 6,824 | 6,814 | 7,030 |
|
Facing further charge | 1,821 | 1,977 | 1,883 | 1,815 | 28 |
Non-compliance | 4,378 | 5,047 | 5,038 | 5,376 | 74 |
Failed to keep in touch | 1,960 | 2,140 | 2,110 | 2,286 | 32 |
Failed to reside | 1,613 | 1,792 | 1,810 | 1,920 | 27 |
Drugs/alcohol | 413 | 437 | 489 | 577 | 7 |
Poor Behaviour - Relationships | 205 | 214 | 212 | 224 | 3 |
HDC - Time violation | 124 | 131 | 171 | 151 | 2 |
HDC - Inability to monitor | 65 | 75 | 71 | 81 | 1 |
Failed home visit | 89 | 78 | 73 | 86 | 1 |
HDC - Failed installation | 37 | 29 | 30 | 51 | 1 |
HDC - Equipment Tamper | 9 | 2 | 15 | 11 | 0 |
Other | 1,091 | 1,299 | 1,304 | 1,296 | 19 |
* Figures for Jan-Mar 2023 have been revised since last publication.
The table includes instances of offenders recalled multiple times.
Recall reasons do not sum to the total number of recalls published, as more than one reason can be recorded against each recall.
We routinely publish recall data at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/offender-management-statistics-quarterly.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many hours of corruption prevention training are provided to non-uniformed prison staff.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The vast majority of prison staff are hardworking and dedicated. A minority of staff engage in corrupt activity which is often as a result of conditioning and manipulation by prisoners.
Our Counter Corruption Unit led Awareness sessions, delivered by our Prevent team, run between two and two and a half hours, dependent on staff involvement on the day. We do not record this as hours delivered, but sessions, and we have delivered 2544 sessions since April 2021.
Data collection/recording methods changed in January 2023 to reflect the number of attendees to these sessions. Since then, over 9702 staff have been trained in total. They changed again in June 2023 to record those that were of an operational grade. From June 2023 onwards, 2602 non-operational staff received training.
This Corruption Prevention training is in addition to the induction security training package delivered to non-operational staff by local establishments for new starters, which will be establishment specific in terms of length.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many serving prisoners are subject to serious crime prevention orders in England and Wales.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on how many serving prisoners are subject to serious crime prevention orders is not currently held and would only be available at disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers who joined in 2023 resigned within (a) 14 and (b) 30 days of the start of their employment.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, including joiners and leavers, and the latest publication covers data up to 31 December 2023.
In the 12 months to 31 December 2023 there were 5,066 Band 3-5 Prison Officers1 who joined2 HMPPS. Of these, 66 resigned3,4 within the period up to and including 14 days, and an additional 33 resigned3,4 in the period of 15 days to 30 days after joining.
Notes
1. Includes Bands 3-4 / Prison Officer (incl specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officer and Band 5 / Custodial Managers.
2. New recruits joining HMPPS - does not include internal transfers or conversions.
3. Resignation date taken as the last day of service. Date that resignation handed in is not available.
4. Staff who left for other reasons are not included.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Written Statement of 11 March 2024 on Update on Foreign National Offenders, Prisons and Probation, HCWS332, whether the new 10,000 prison places include rapid deployment cells.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are delivering 20,000 additional, modern prison places, the largest prison build programme since the Victorian era, ensuring the right conditions are in place to rehabilitate prisoners, helping to cut crime and protect the public. So far c.5,900 places have been delivered.
Of these places, we have so far delivered c.670 Rapid Deployment Cells (RDCs) across 12 sites. By the end of 2025 we are on track to have delivered around 10,000 places in total, this will include hundreds more RDCs. We are looking at all options to accelerate delivery of all types of places across the estate.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many trainee probation officers have resigned from the service within (a) one week, (b) one month and (c) three months of starting their role as a trainee probation officer.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The recruitment team has worked extensively to improve candidate experience by broadening the information and communication channels available to potential applicants, to help reduce attrition. This includes interactive webinars for successful candidates to ensure new trainees are starting the role with a clear understanding of their responsibilities, the organisation, and the trainee programme. We have also reviewed the trainee learning and development curriculum to improve learner experience and have launched a refreshed induction in March 2024.
For the period from 16 October 2016 to 31 December 2023, there have generally been two cohorts of Trainee Probation Officers who started training each year. Out of the people undertaking this training:
10 individuals resigned in the period up to one week after the start date of their PQiP training course.
23 resigned in the period of over a week but up to and including one month after the start date of their PQiP training course.
57 resigned in the period of over one month up to and including three months after the start date of their PQiP training course.
For the two cohorts across 22/23 there were 1,514 starters, for the two cohorts across 21/22 there were 1,518 starters and for the two cohorts across 20/21 there were 1,007 starters. We are unable to provide data on 23/24 at the current time as this would pre-empt the next set of published data, which will be released on Thursday 16 May 2024.
Notes:
1. Includes staff on Trainee Probation Officer (PQiP) courses. A considerable majority of these individuals are of the Probation Services Officer grade.
2. Resignation date taken as the last day of service. Date that resignation handed in is not available.
3. Staff who left for other reasons are not included.
5. In order to arrive at this information there had to be some data matching from a trainee probation officer staff list to staff who left to separate out trainees from substantive Probation Services Officers. In instances where data from the staff list was incomplete with data such as relevant staff ID then matching may not have been possible.
6. Data on the number of starters each financial year can be found in the March edition of the Probation Officer Recruitment Annex (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6464f746d3231e001332db9d/annex-probation-officer-recruitment-March-2023_final.ods).
7. It should be noted that a considerable number of trainees withdraw from PQiP training but remain in HMPPS. For information on withdrawal and leaving rates from PQiP training, please see Table Three of Probation Officer Recruitment Annex.
8. In January 2023, a considerable number of PQiPs onboarded early to the Probation Service. For the purposes of this response, we have looked at the time of resignation following the time at which they started their PQiP training course. If any of these individuals left the service before starting their PQiP training course, they have been excluded from this analysis.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many vacancies in the probation service there are as of 16 April 2024, by region.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on Wednesday 20 March to Question 18474. Data was provided on the average number of vacancies for the month of December 2023, in line with our latest published workforce statistics (which present data up to 31 December 2023).
We are unable to provide a more up-to-date number of vacancies at the current time (for periods following December 2023) as this would pre-empt the next set of published data, which will be released on Thursday 16 May 2024. Once updated staffing data have been published in May, including data up to 31 March 2024, we will then be able to respond to questions for vacancy data up to and including March 2024.
Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service and we have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to deliver more robust supervision, recruit more staff and reduce caseloads to keep the public safer.
We have recruited a record 4,039 trainee Probation Officers between 2020/21 and 2022/23 and we expect these intakes to qualify by the end of 2024 and begin to take on Probation Officer caseloads.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people that had served sentences of 12 months or less were released from custody without a permanent address in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are delivering our groundbreaking transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), so prison-leavers who are subject to probation supervision have a guaranteed 12-weeks of basic, temporary accommodation to provide a stable base on release. By January 2023, the proportion of offenders housed on the first night of their release from custody was 7.6 percentage points higher in CAS3 regions versus non-CAS3 regions.
Data for accommodation outcomes on the first night of release from custody, broken down by sentence length, is published in the Community Performance Annual Statistics.
Data for accommodation outcomes for people on community sentences is not collected at commencement of order; however, data from the case management system in relation to accommodation 3 months after commencement is published.
Latest statistics for April 2022 to March 2023 for both are available here: Community Performance Annual, update to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Accommodation data for releases from remand could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people on community sentences were assessed under the offender assessment system as lacking stable accommodation in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are delivering our groundbreaking transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), so prison-leavers who are subject to probation supervision have a guaranteed 12-weeks of basic, temporary accommodation to provide a stable base on release. By January 2023, the proportion of offenders housed on the first night of their release from custody was 7.6 percentage points higher in CAS3 regions versus non-CAS3 regions.
Data for accommodation outcomes on the first night of release from custody, broken down by sentence length, is published in the Community Performance Annual Statistics.
Data for accommodation outcomes for people on community sentences is not collected at commencement of order; however, data from the case management system in relation to accommodation 3 months after commencement is published.
Latest statistics for April 2022 to March 2023 for both are available here: Community Performance Annual, update to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Accommodation data for releases from remand could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.