Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions a body was released more than seven days after the coroner's office was notified in (a) Birmingham and (b) Solihull in each of the last 12 months; and whether the coroner (i) collects information on someone's religion and (ii) takes into account the timeframe for religious beliefs and practices relating to death and dying.
Answered by Mike Freer
Information is not held centrally on the release by coroners of the bodies of the deceased whose deaths are reported to them.
Coroners are judges and, as such, are independent in the decisions they make in conducting their investigations. They exercise their judicial discretion in accordance with the relevant statutory and regulatory framework.
The Chief Coroner has issued a suite of Guidance to assist coroners with the law and their legal duties, and to provide advice on policy and practice. His Guidance No.28 on Decision Making and Expedited Decisions is intended to be a practical guide to assist coroners in situations where a bereaved family has made a request to the coroner for urgent consideration of the death of a loved one and/or early release of their body; or where the coroner or coroner’s officers otherwise become aware of features of a particular death which may justify treating it as especially urgent.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to increase retention levels of experienced prison officers.
Answered by Edward Argar
In late 2021, the Ministry of Justice launched a retention toolkit to help Senior Leaders across HMPPS including Governors/Directors to tackle the main drivers of attrition in their departments and improve retention levels. We are using the data from enhanced exit interviews to better understand why experienced Prison Officers are leaving.
We made a significant investment in pay for prison staff through the 2023/24 pay award. This delivered an increase in base pay of at least 7% for all staff between bands 2 to 5 which includes Prison Officers.
Since April 2022, we have invested in several new initiatives to increase retention of our employees including Prison Officers. These include a new peer-to-peer learning scheme, the introduction of new staff mentors to support new Prison Officers in their roles, which takes the pressure off both experienced Prison Officers and managers, and a Career Pathways framework to enable staff to identify their development needs and career aspirations. We are also running supervision pilots in two prisons alongside the introduction of new leadership training, which will contribute to supporting career development and retention of experienced officers.