Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisons are fully staffed.

Fully staffed’ has been interpreted as having Staff in Post full time equivalent (FTE) equal to or in excess of Target Staffing FTE for the establishment. Staff in Post and Target Staffing have been summed across all staffing grades, meaning that surpluses and deficits may exist within individual grades. Band 3 to 5 prison officers are considered the key operational grades and so we have additionally presented a comparison based on these grades alone.

In reality, many establishments will routinely sit marginally below their Target Staffing level due to normal attrition and time to hire and so we would not expect establishments to run consistently at 100% staffing. To present a more realistic picture, we are presenting data which shows staffing compared to 97.5% of Target Staffing levels which we would assess as well within tolerance.

Where prisons are not at their Target Staffing level they are routinely supplemented, for instance by the use of Payment Plus, a form of overtime, or agency staff for non-operational grades to ensure the minimum staffing level required by the Regime Management Plan is met and that a safe and decent regime can be delivered. This is not accounted for in this analysis. Similarly, the use of Detached Duty, a long-standing mechanism to deploy staff from one prison or region to support another, is also not reflected in the data. Factoring in these forms of temporary staffing would further increase the number of prisons considered at full staffing or 97.5% of Target Staffing. The use of tactical resourcing and, where necessary, population management at sites with higher levels of vacancies ensures that all prisons are able to operate regimes considered by HMPPS Operations to be safe and decent.

As of September 2023, 70 out of 106 establishments in England and Wales had at least 97.5% of their target staffing level for band 3 to 5 prison officers. The equivalent figure when summing across all grades and roles is 56 out of 106 – however this includes business administrators, operational support grades, instructors, governor grades and other roles held in a prison.

As of 30 September 2023, there had been an increase of 1,441 FTE (6.7%) band 3-5 prison officers compared to 30 September 2022 and resignation rates had fallen for this group to 8.6%. Since 2019, the starting salary increased for an entry level prison officer from £23,529 to £32,851 (national rate, 39-hour week with unsocial hours allowance). Further improvements will be evidenced in the next set of published data.

Footnotes and caveats

1. Data have been taken from Workforce Planning Tools, which are completed manually by the business each month and are subject to error.
2. Data shows average resource across the month, adjusted for joiners and leavers in month.
3. Target Staffing is the number of staff required to run an optimal regime in each prison. This level is greater than the minimum number of staff required for a prison to operate safely, and includes allowances for staff taking leave, being off sick or being on training.
4. Target Staffing figures are set on a site-specific basis and vary in size.
5. Target Staffing levels for key operational grades are established based on a 39-hour working week. Staff in Post FTE is set at 1.0 FTE for those on a 39-hour contract, 1.05 FTE for those on a 41-hour contract, and 0.95 FTE for those on a 37-hour contract.
6. Band 3-5 Officers includes Band 3-4 Prison Officers (including specialists), Band 4 Supervising Officers, and Band 5 Custodial Managers.
7. Data only includes staff employed by the Prison Service in public sector prison establishments and excludes private sector prisons / area offices and other prison related business units. Data includes the four Young Offenders Institutions (Cookham Wood, Feltham, Werrington and Wetherby).
8. Adjustments have not been made for loans / secondments / temporary cover / agency staff or long-term absences (e.g. career breaks).