Founded 1980
Chair:
Secretary:
Treasurer:
Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft
Home
Issue No. 89 Autumn 2023
Paul Laxton
HMPS IS NOT A HAPPY SHIP
I’m obliged to Brendan O’Friel for both the theme and much of the content of this editorial, as it was he who brought to my attention to the Operational Workforce Survey, commissioned by the House of Commons Justice Committee, and published on the 23rd of June this year. Around 25% of staff in bands 2-5 responded to the survey, so the findings will be pretty representative. For those so long retired that Bands 2-5 is a foreign language, they cover the uniformed grades that we knew originally as auxiliaries, through the ranks to PO, now known as CM for Custodial Manager.
The findings make grim reading, particularly on staff safety. Only a quarter of prison officers felt safe in Category A and B establishments, and as little as 19% in male Young Offender Institutions. A staggering 65% of surveyed staff in Y.O.I’s felt strongly that their establishment was unsafe. Unsurprisingly staff felt at their safest in male and female open prisons. Staff felt twice as safe in female establishments where the highest security women were held, than their counterparts in the male high security estate. It will not come as a surprise that 43% of staff are planning to leave in the next 3-5 years. 75% of staff in bands 3-5 felt they were not valued, 81% complained of low morale, and 71% felt stressed several times a week. 84% of staff in bands 3-5 felt that there were not enough staff to provide purposeful activity. Staff were almost as negative about their own training and career development. I need hardly add that staff felt underpaid and that a retirement age of 68 was far too high.
Although Governor grades were not included in the survey, it is difficult to believe that findings would be vastly different except perhaps in relation to their personal safety. I think most of us will be very sad at these findings, and the devastation wrought on the service that we loved. There seems to have been no recovery from the slash and burn of the Grayling years that saw prison officer numbers decline by up to 30%, and experienced staff by far more as they raced to take the exit packages.
HMPPS has also suffered the public humiliation of a daring, but preventable escape from Wandsworth prison. Until the inquiry is complete we will not know whether this was an error on the day, or something that could have happened on any day because of poor compliance with procedures and inadequate supervision. Mercifully, there does not seem to be any real suggestion of staff corruption. We also do not know how this prisoner came to be on remand in a Category B local prison, rather than in the High Security estate given the nature of the charges he was facing. All this will come out in the wash in due course, but right now HMPPS is facing another yet another population crisis as numbers reach a record high of over 88,000 prisoners. I refer you to Andrea Albutt’s Presidential address.
PAUL LAXTON, editor
Spring 2023
PENSIONERS UNDER SIEGE?
Many of you will have seen the outrageous suggestion from a 'think tank' called the Adam Smith Institute that state pensions should be denied to those pensioners whose wealth measured in terms of pensions and property exceeds a million pounds. I was immediately struck by the .........
