Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to ensure the recruitment of prison officers stays in line with planned expansion of prison capacity.

We know that sufficient and skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure, and rehabilitative prison regimes. We remain committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced and that we retain and build levels of experience, both of which are fundamental to delivering quality outcomes in prisons.

As of 30 September 2024, there are 23,571 Band 3-5 prison officers in post, and nationally across establishments we are at 99.5% of our Target Staffing Figure (when using hours adjusted FTE). Our current national resourcing context is much stronger in comparison to September 2022, when there were 21,617 FTE Band 3-5 prison officers in post.

All prison expansion projects, whether new prisons or smaller builds, are factored into our staffing forecasts to ensure we recruit on time and build up the experience needed to continue to deliver safe and secure regimes. HMPPS works closely with our partners to ensure that there is capacity across other workforce groups in prisons, including for educational and health posts.