Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which regions ranked best and worst with regard to prison staff shortfalls in the latest period for which figures are available.

There is no specific ranking system used in regards to staffing shortfalls, which vary from month to month dependant on specific circumstances. However, at the date of the last published staffing data, 30 September 2014, the largest shortfall between benchmarked staffing level of officer grade staff and staff in post was in East Midlands region. Two regions, North East and Yorkshire and Humberside were showing as having no shortfall of officers at the latest published date.

Staffing levels have been reviewed prison by prison as part of a ‘benchmarking approach’. Benchmark staffing requirements for each establishment have been agreed with the unions and the NAO has commented that the wider strategy for the prison estate is the most coherent and comprehensive for many years. It delivers efficiencies while ensuring that public sector prisons operate safely, decently and securely. It delivers efficiencies while ensuring that public sector prisons operate safely, decently and securely. Benchmarking optimises the skills of staff by introducing new ways of working and puts all prison officers in prisoner facing role.

The Prison Service has been returning to large scale recruitment as the period of closures and benchmarking has been coming to an end.