Watchdog: Safety at 2 in 5 UK prisons 'poor' or 'not sufficiently good'

The National Audit Office (NAO), Whitehall’s spending watchdog, in a report put out on Friday, found that efforts by the government to improve prison conditions, with record levels of safety breaches and “huge” backlogs in repairs, are failing to produce the desired results and that plans to “provide and maintain safe, secure and decent prisons” had not been carried out.

The report also revealed that safety in 2 out of every 5 prisons inspected were either rated “poor” or “not sufficiently good” with recorded problems at an unprecedented level.

The Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) has, in the last ten years, permanently retired 1,730 cells and expects to lose another 500 places every year due to the poor conditions of the remaining estate, the NAO said.

Furthermore, according to the report, 41% of prisons shall require major repair or replacement work in the next three years, which is in addition to the present £916m backlog of repairs.

In December the prison population was around 82,300, which equates to 98% of its capacity.

This comes at a time when minister hope to pass emergency legislation to block the automatic early release of convicted terror offenders, which will surely put further pressure on the prison system.

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The London attacker has been identified as Sudesh Amman, a former terrorism convict who was recently released from prison.

The push to pass the legislation follows three attacks in recent months by men convicted of terror offences, including the stabbing on Sunday of two people in Streatham, south London.

Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee, said the ministry had failed once more to oversee outsourcing firms or get to grips with management of a crumbling estate.

“As with probation reforms, the ministry has not got outsourcing right. Provider performance has been poor and planned savings failed to materialise.

“The ministry is on course to deliver just a third of previously promised places. The government say they want people to serve more time, but soon the prison population could exceed capacity. As the Streatham attack highlighted, the Prison and Probation Service urgently needs a long-term plan to improve our prisons and will need the funding to do this.”

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Boris Johnson is in a rush to pass emergency terror legislation by February 27, a day before a convicted terrorist is due for release.

In 2015, HMPPS outsourced management of prison facilities to Amey and Carillion, expecting to achieve savings of £79m, but had an inaccurate and incomplete understanding of the condition of the assets, the report said.

“Due diligence was not sufficiently robust and HMPPS severely underestimated the demand for reactive maintenance work arising from vandalism and failing assets.” HMPPS expected to pay providers £17.7m for variable costs by 2018-19 – the fourth year of the contracts – but has paid £160.4m, according to the latest findings.

The government has “struggled to create new prison places”, having committed to create 10,000 new places in 2016, it has only built 206 and  has 3,360 under construction.

“The main reason behind these failures was the delays in agreeing and receiving funding to build new prisons. This meant construction work began later than planned,” the report said.

The HMPPS was advised to develop a long-term strategy on condition standards and minimum levels of investment.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “The government has recently committed to creating 10,000 new prison places and needs to learn lessons from its recent experiences.”

The Ministry of Justice said it “recognised” the exigent need to invest in maintenance and safety and pledged to spend £256m more to bring about improvements over the coming year.

A spokeswoman said: “We will always have enough prison places to keep offenders behind bars, and the government’s £2.5bn investment will create 10,000 modern places, on top of the two new jails already being built.”

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