Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prison officers at Wandsworth Prison attended their shift on the last day of each month since September 2022.

The figures requested are given in the table below. They represent the number of operational staff at Bands 3, 4 and 5 who attended the establishment for their shift on the last day of each month. They do not include staff on external duties.

[1] Last day of month fell at weekend, so fewer staff required.

[2] As above.

These figures exceed the minimum staffing level required by the prison’s Regime Management Plan to deliver a safe and decent regime.

We have taken, and continue to take, a series of measures to increase the prison workforce. Despite a challenging labour market, the 12 months ending 30 June 2023 saw an increase of over 700 Full-Time Equivalent Band prison officers. This means we now have 4,000 more prison officers than in March 2017. We are also recruiting 5,000 prison officers across public and private prisons by the mid-2020s.

We recently increased the pay of the vast majority of frontline officers by 7 per cent. Combined with other pay rises, this means starting pay for prison officers has increased since 2019 from £22,293 to £30,902 (on the basis of a national rate, 37 hour week with unsocial hours) or £23,529 to £32,851 (on the basis of a national rate, 39 hour week with unsocial hours).