Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers were off sick at HMP Wandsworth on the first Monday of each month in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The requested information is shown in the tables below.
Number of Prison Officers at HMP Wandsworth on short-term sick leave, Mar 2023 – Feb 2024:
Date | 6 Mar | 3 Apr | 1 May | 5 Jun | 3 Jul | 7 Aug | 4 Sep | 2 Oct | 6 Nov | 4 Dec | 1 Jan | 5 Feb |
Number of Prison Officers on short-term sick leave | 17 | 10 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 11 | 8 | 12 | 7 | 14 | 14 |
Number of Prison Officers at HMP Wandsworth on long-term sick leave, Mar 2023 – Feb 2024:
Date | 6 Mar | 3 Apr | 1 May | 5 Jun | 3 Jul | 7 Aug | 4 Sep | 2 Oct | 6 Nov | 4 Dec | 1 Jan | 5 Feb |
Number of Prison Officers on long-term sick leave | 14 | 13 | 14 | 8 | 7 | 14 | 11 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 8 |
Note:
Long-term sickness is defined as a period of sickness consisting of 29 or more calendar days.
HMP Wandsworth has robust weekly absence management processes in place to ensure that those who are absent because of sickness are being appropriately managed. This includes a review of all sickness absence (short and long-term), the reason for absences and ensuring appropriate support is being provided where required.
Those on continuing long-term sickness absence will be managed through a Formal Absence Review Meeting with the Governor, to explore whether they are fit to remain employed or if they can return to work in a different role.
HMPPS is focused on reducing its sickness absence rates through the support currently offered to staff and managers, including a comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme that provides the workforce with access to confidential support and counselling services. This is in addition to the organisation’s Occupational Health Service that supports staff and management with medical advice, and HMPPS’ multitude of staff networks that are part of HMPPS’ commitment to ensuring our staff feel supported in their roles.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many days HMP Wandsworth has been at a (a) red, (b) amber-red and (c) amber-green operating state since 1 February 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
During the period since 1 Feb 2023, the regime at the prison has been at Green-Amber status for three weeks, and at Amber-Red for 51 weeks. Amber-Red confers that a safe, decent, secure, resilient and sustainable regime is being delivered, including purposeful activities, showers and exercise, and all essential services.
To improve regime delivery there has been significant focus on the recruitment of staff at HMP Wandsworth, with 66 new prison officers currently in training and being deployed to the prison in the coming weeks. In the meantime, HMP Wandsworth is being provided with continuing support through additional “Payment Plus” hours, equivalent to 39 additional prison officers. The Prison will continue to receive support as required and regularly reviews the level of regime it is able safely to deliver.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers were on restricted duties at HMP Wandsworth on the first Monday of each month in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The requested information is shown in the table below.
Number of Prison Officers on restricted duties at HMP Wandsworth, Mar 2023 – Feb 2024
Date | 6 Mar | 3 Apr | 1 May | 5 Jun | 3 Jul | 7 Aug | 4 Sep | 2 Oct | 6 Nov | 4 Dec | 1 Jan | 5 Feb |
Number of Prison Officers on restricted duties | 12 | 11 | 9 | 15 | 8 | 14 | 13 | 21 | 23 | 17 | 12 | 13 |
Restricted duties are where a member of staff is limited from their regular duties (this can be with regards to tasks or time), due to injury, illness or other reason, applied at the discretion of the line manager.
To ensure we support staff welfare, we have in place an Occupational Health and Employee Assistance Programme to improve wellbeing, as well as Care Teams, who are trained to provide support to any member of staff involved in an incident within the prison or when conducting official duties, present in all public sector prisons. Other services available include reflective sessions, access to online wellbeing services, 24-hour counselling, and a trauma-focused peer support system.
Alongside schemes to improve welfare, we continue to take steps to ensure that all prisons are sufficiently resourced through focusing efforts on recruitment, seeking to bolster our applicant pipelines through our use of incentives scheme to target prisons where there is the greatest need.
Despite a challenging labour market, the Ministry of Justice has seen an improving national staffing picture within prisons. The number of frontline (Band 3-5) prison officers increased by 1,634 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) (7.6 per cent) in the year to December 2023, to 23,266 FTE. Over the same period, there was a fall in the resignation rate among Band 3-5 officers of 2.4 percentage points.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 1 February 2024 to Question 11801 on Prison Officers: Labour Turnover, how many and what proportion of prison officers recruited at Wandsworth Prison in 2023 had left the prison service on 9 February 2024.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, including leavers, and the latest publication covers data up to 31 December 2023. Figures covering data up to 31 March 2024 are due for publication on 16 May 2024 and therefore this information cannot be released.
In the period from 01 January 2023 to 31 December 2023, there were 113 band 3-5 prison officers who joined HMP Wandsworth. Details of the number and proportion who have left HMPPS as of 31 December 2023 are given in the table below.
Table 1: Status of band 3-5 prison officers (1) who joined (2) HMP Wandsworth between 01 January 2023 and 31 December 2023 - as of 31 December 2023
Remained or left | Headcount | Percentage |
Working in public sector prisons (including YCS) | 106 | 93.8% |
Left HMPPS altogether | 7 | 6.2% |
Total | 113 | 100.0% |
Notes to table 1:
(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.
Across HMPPS, retention continues to be a priority. Exit interviews have been in place since 2021 to determine the reasons for leaving and appropriate action needed. Retention strategies and toolkits based around drivers of attrition, such as leadership and career progression, have been in place since 2021 to determine appropriate national and local interventions.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers were on active duty at HMP Wandsworth, on the first Monday of each month for the last 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The table below shows the number of staff on active duty at HMP Wandsworth in the morning (AM), the afternoon (PM) and on evening duty (ED) of the first Monday of each month, from March 2023 until February 2024. An individual member of staff may have completed more than one period of duty during the day.
The data include all Band 3 staff attending who were scheduled to attend, including those undertaking external escort duty. They do not include any staff on training, restricted duties or undertaking bed watch duties. In addition to those for scheduled staff, separate details are provided of Band 3 officers who attended under Payment Plus arrangements.
6 March | 4 April | 1 May | 5 June | 3 July | |||||||||||
On active duty | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED |
Scheduled | 102 | 64 | 13 | 87 | 75 | 21 | 83 | 77 | 21 | 83 | 74 | 25 | 99 | 85 | 29 |
Payment Plus | 5 | 13 | 15 | 13 | 15 | 13 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 13 | 11 | 5 | 10 | 9 |
7 Aug | 4 Sept | 2 Oct | 6 Nov | 4 Dec | |||||||||||
On active duty | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED |
Scheduled | 75 | 73 | 24 | 81 | 86 | 30 | 91 | 87 | 31 | 88 | 83 | 31 | 93 | 92 | 29 |
Payment Plus | 4 | 11 | 15 | 13 | 12 | 9 | 5 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 13 | 9 |
1 Jan | 5 Feb | |||||
On active duty | AM | PM | ED | AM | PM | ED |
Scheduled | 73 | 70 | 22 | 90 | 81 | 22 |
Payment Plus | 0 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 9 | 8 |
Active recruitment has been in progress at HMP Wandsworth, in recognition of the Band 3 prison officer staffing position. A steady increase of new starters has enabled the prison to achieve its target staffing figure of 315 Band 3 prison officers. Some of these new staff are still at training college but will be able to commence full duties within the next six weeks.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many deaths have been recorded at HMP Wandsworth since 30 June 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Deaths recorded by prison are published as part of our Safety in Custody statistics, updated quarterly, and available in the Deaths Data Tool at the following link: Safety in custody: quarterly update to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Please note that deaths at Wandsworth are currently published from 30 June 2023 – end of December 2023. Figures to the end of March 2024 are not due for publication until April 2024 and cannot be released at this time.
Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody. They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state has less direct responsibility.
In addition to deaths in prison custody which occur in hospitals, hospices or nursing homes, a small proportion will occur while in an ambulance on the way to hospital, while the prisoner is under escort.
Every death in custody is a tragedy and we continue to do all we can to improve the safety of prisoners.
We have implemented a revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) case management approach across the prison estate. Revisions in ACCT v6 include a stronger emphasis on taking a person-centred approach; better multi-disciplinary team working; a consistent quality assurance process and an improved focus on identifying and addressing an individual’s risks, triggers and protective factors.
We are implementing a new safety training package for staff. It brings together related safety topics, including suicide and self-harm prevention and understanding risks, triggers and protective factors.
We fund Samaritans through a grant providing total funding of just under £2 million between 2022 and 2025. This is primarily for the delivery of the Listener scheme (through which selected prisoners are trained to provide support to fellow prisoners in emotional distress).
We have also worked with Samaritans to develop a postvention response to providing support in the period following a self-inflicted death in order to reduce the risk of further deaths. This has been successfully piloted and the renewed grant includes funding for this service to be maintained until March 2025.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an assessment of the level of use of the new healthcare facility at HMP Wandsworth.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The new healthcare unit is in the process of completion, at which point it will be handed over to the healthcare provider, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust. The new building will be used to accommodate outpatient clinics and healthcare office space. The inpatient unit will remain in the existing healthcare building.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many meetings he has had with the senior leadership team at HMP Wandsworth since 7 September 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Secretary of State’s most recent meeting with the senior leadership team at HMP Wandsworth was a virtual meeting with the Governor on 6 September.
Ministers and senior government officials continue to work and engage closely with leaders responsible for HMP Wandsworth in a variety of ways beyond in-person meetings and site visits.
The Area Executive Director (AED) for Prisons and Probation in London is significantly active in the response to the escape at HMP Wandsworth. The Prison Group Director for London, along with their own team, frequently visits HMP Wandsworth and reports back the AED. The AED is in close contact with the Director General of Operations and the Chief Executive of HMPPS via formal governance, and with Ministers via the Ministerial Performance meeting.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many days of time off in lieu are prison officers at Wandsworth Prison owed in total as of 25 January 2024.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Time off in lieu is given in respect of additional duties performed in excess of an officer’s weekly hours, where such duties cannot be covered effectively by other means.
At HMP Wandsworth, as of 25 January 2024, an average of 13.4 hours was owed per Band 3 prison officer.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many new prison officers have been recruited at HMP Wandsworth since 7 September 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, including joiners. The latest publication covers data for up to the period 30 September 2023.
Workforce statistics after 30 September 2023 is unpublished and cannot be released.
In the period from 7 September 2023 to 30 September 2023, there have been a total of three Band 3 Prison Officers recruited to HMP Wandsworth. These are new starters only and do not include transfers from other prisons.