Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Question 9 of oral evidence taken before the Justice Committee on 24 October 2023, HC 1929, Session 2022–23, what the (a) leaving and (b) vacancy rates were of (i) prison officers and (ii) operational support staff, by prison, in the latest period for which information is available.

The leaving rates and indicative vacancy rates by prison of Band 3-5 Prison Officers and Operational Support Grade staff are provided in the accompanying Excel files.

Despite a challenging labour market, we have seen some indications of an improving resource picture nationally within prisons, with a substantial increase of 701 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) Band 3-5 Prison officers between June 2022 to June 2023. In the same period, we have seen a fall in the resignation rate amongst Band 3-5 officers of 2.6 percentage points, down from 11.5% in June 2022 to 8.9% as of June 2023 and a fall in the leaving rate* amongst band 3-5 officers of 1.9 percentage points, down from 15.3% in June 2022 to 13.4% as of June 2023.

The data on indicative vacancy rates are internal management information. Target Staffing levels cannot be used to directly calculate vacancies due to the discretion governors have to change establishment level staffing requirements through Governors' Freedoms. As a result, the MoJ does not regularly present vacancy data and the data presented should be treated with caution. We are considering options to publish vacancy data alongside wider Workforce data and future publications may take different forms. The data are provided from internal Workforce Planning Tools, a manual prison return and therefore subject to human error. Further caveats on the data and handling guidance is set out in the attached spreadsheet.

Where prisons are showing FTEs below their Target Staffing level, these are routinely supplemented (e.g. by using Payment Plus, a form of overtime) which is not accounted for in the indicative vacancy data provided. Use of detached duty (DD), a long-standing mechanism to deploy staff from one prison or region to support another, is also not reflected in the data. At times, we have intentionally over-recruited in certain prisons or regions as this gives the greater system wide resilience (including through the use of DD).

*Leaving rates refer to leavers who have left HMPPS, for all reasons for leaving excluding voluntary early departure or redundancy and relates to permanent staff only. Leaving rates do not include staff who have moved internally within MoJ or have been promoted or moved to non-Prison Officer roles. Resignation rates refers only to leavers who have Resignation as a reason for leaving.