Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 24 February 2021 to Question 154966, Prison Officers: Pay, if he will place in the Library a copy of the equalities impact assessment that was conducted and considered in reaching the decision to reject recommendation 3.

We value the dedication and hard work of our prison officers who have worked tirelessly during the pandemic to keep the public safe. That’s why we awarded all staff an above-inflation pay rise for a third year running while balancing the need to keep these in step with other public sector workers.

The 20/21 Prison Service Pay Review Body report was received on 5 June 2020 and included a recommendation, recommendation 3, to uplift the pay of Band 3 prison staff on modernised terms and conditions by £3,000. This recommendation was not accepted by the Government, on the basis of the exceptional costs associated with implementing the recommendation, the impact on the overall prison service pay structure, and the changing labour market conditions due to the exceptional economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision regarding this recommendation was announced on 10 December 2020 (https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2020-12-10/hcws638).

An Equality Impact Assessment was conducted and considered in reaching the decision to reject recommendation 3. This considered the demographics of staff and how the decision to reject the recommendation would impact eliminating unlawful discrimination and advancing equality of opportunity. It concluded that any risks would be mitigated by our longer-term strategy to close the gap between those on modernised / Fair & Sustainable terms and conditions and those on closed-grades term and conditions. In line with the practice of successive administrations, the Government does not routinely publish Equality Impact Assessments. Furthermore, the full assessment contains legal advice which is not usually disclosed in this way. However, the key statistics from this analysis are as follows:

Workforce demographics:

This equality analysis assessed the impact of the PSPRB proposed 2020/21 pay award on protected characteristics, based on the demographics of the workforce as at 31st March 2020, and the type of pay award.

There are particular differences between the demographics of staff on Closed Grades and on Fair and Sustainable (F&S):

• There is a higher percentage of females than males on F&S (43% compared with 37%)
• There is a higher percentage of part-time staff than full-time staff on Closed Grades (24% compared with 7%) (this is likely to include partially retired staff)
• Age is a more complex demographic to analyse due to the multiple age ranges, however by assessing staff groups under the age of 40 and over age 40:

o F&S is more evenly split with 54% under the age of 40, and 46% over the age of 40

o Closed Grades generally have older staff, 12% are under the age of 40 and 88% are over the age of 40

• Since 2019, there has been a substantial increase in ethnicity declaration rates in this group and the overall percentage of staff who do not declare their ethnicity has reduced from 30 % to 17%.
• The current percentage of staff who declare their Ethnicity as BAME is slightly higher in F&S (9%) compared to in Closed Grades (8%).
• Since 2019, the percentage of staff in minority groups has increased for all protected characteristics analysed.