Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve the retention of prison staff.

In late 2021, the Ministry of Justice launched a retention tool kit to help Governors to tackle the main drivers of attrition in their prisons. We are using the data from this and enhanced exit interviews to better understand why employees are leaving.

We made a significant investment in pay for prison staff through the 2022/23 pay award. This delivered an increase in base pay of at least 4% for all staff between bands 2 to 11, alongside further targeted pay rises for our lowest paid staff of up to £3,000, which we hope will help in reducing leaving rates.

Since April 2022, we have invested in several new initiatives to improve the experience of our new joiners and increase retention of our employees. These include a new peer-to-peer learning scheme, the introduction of mentors for new prison officers, a supervision pilot in two prisons, and new leadership training in prisons facing retention challenges.