Better Prisons: Less Crime

This post was originally published in August 2025. It was updated in November 2025 to refer to the MOJ/HMPPS response to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee's report.

The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee does not pull its punches in its recent report into leadership, governance and staffing of prisons and the need for reform to reduce reoffending. It is highly critical of leadership from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Prison Service (HMPPS) in particular and concludes:

“The present poor system is a consequence of many leadership failures over years by both Ministers and officials in the Ministry of Justice and in HMPPS. The Secretary of State and the new Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice need to recognise this and that HMPPS owns the need for radical reform and has the will and new capabilities to engage with it; external support will be essential for this.”

“Reviewed in totality, HMPPS is inflexible, and overly bureaucratic. Whether it

is fit for purpose remains to be proven.”

“The stark conclusion of our inquiry is that MoJ and HMPPS have failed to improve the prison service to reduce reoffending.”

WPIC wrote to the Committee, and the report quotes from our submission several times. It makes recommendations on many of the areas that we have looked at in relation to HMP Wandsworth and we will press for these to be fully considered by Ministers and the Prison Service. There should be a full response from the Prison Service, but when is anyone’s guess. 

You can download the whole report by clicking on this link: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5901/ldselect/ldjusthom/153/153.pdf

Why there is a crisis in our prisons - facts behind the recommendations

• We have the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe, and it is only increasing.

• There are over 87,000 people in prison in England and Wales

• This is almost double the prison population in 1993

• The prison population is expected to exceed 100,000 by 2029

• 80 per cent of offending is reoffending.

• The economic and social cost of reoffending is estimated to be around £18 billion a year and is a major contributor to the size of the prison population.

Main findings and recommendations

 

Make clear the purpose of prison

There is a lack of clarity about the purpose of prisons and public understanding about prisons. The report quotes with approval WPIC’s view that “People are sent to prison as a punishment, not for further punishment”. The Committee concludes that the MoJ should set out a clear and consistent statement of the purpose of prison, with reducing reoffending as central. It says that this should be communicated within the prison system, across government and to the wider public to build greater support for evidence-based approaches to reducing reoffending.

Prison Governors should have more autonomy

Again, this is another area we focussed on, especially in relation to recruitment as currently the governor has no say in the process. We said “HMPPS’s recruitment process is highly centralised, so perhaps consideration should be given to providing more autonomy to Governing Governors in the selection process.” The Lords fundamentally disagreed with HMPPS’s claim that their recruitment process “is robust” and concluded that “a senior member of staff from the prison should hold a face-to-face interview with prospective candidates before the governor confirms a formal offer of employment”.

Staff appraisals also came in for some trenchant remarks “We are astounded by the confusion surrounding the current appraisal system. An appraisal system which does not make provision for a formal appraisal record and regular reviews is not a system at all.”

As well as recruitment, governors should have more decision-making power on key operational matters like staffing, budgeting, and regime design, allowing governors to create clear, tailored visions for their prisons. The Report also recommends that Governors are more visible in the community and WPIC will certainly be picking up this point!

Inadequate training

Training was also heavily criticised “The current training provided to prison officers is woefully inadequate and lacks reference to the purpose of prisons."

The Future Prisons Leaders programme “is long overdue and HMPPS has been negligent in not developing such a system earlier. It is naive to expect that enough talented governors will emerge from the ranks of prison officers who are recruited with minimum qualifications, limited life experience and a lack of training and support.”

“We note that the current training program does not address key areas such as managing high risk prisoners and dealing with mental health issues. Current training programmes undoubtedly contribute to a lack of clarity about the purpose of prison officers’ role and what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis.”

At the same time, the Report puts forward the idea of a Prison Service medal for those officers who go above and beyond in a very challenging role – similar to awards in the Police and Fire Services, and WPIC would support this. 

More purposeful activity and improving mental health

While purposeful and productive activities make prisons safer and reduce reoffending on release, “there is currently only limited access to these services in most prisons.  The MoJ needs to improve access to a more diverse range of educational opportunities in prisons expanding access to higher level education and vocational training, as well as providing governors with greater autonomy to tailor educational provisions to the needs of the local population. Investing in quality libraries within prisons and guaranteeing prisoners frequent access to them is essential for any serious effort to promote education and reduce reoffending.”

 “Addressing mental health and addiction is essential to delivering purposeful activity and reducing reoffending. Unless these needs are met, many prisoners will be unable to engage in meaningful education, work or other constructive activities. Prisons that fail to provide adequate support in these areas will be unable to meet their core purpose of breaking the cycle of reoffending.” 

A targeted strategy to reduce absence rates is critical as staff absences mean that purposeful activity is the first casualty. “This should include measures to improve staff wellbeing, enhance occupational health support, and to identify the root causes of long-term and frequent sickness.” At present prison staffing models do not reflect the operational impact of consistently high absence rates and this should be changed.

Giving the Chief Inspector more teeth

The Committee laments the lack of impact of the Prison Inspectorate’s reports and quotes Andrew Nielsen, Howard League, that “Increasingly it has felt like the Chief Inspector has been reduced to ringing an alarm bell that has no clapper in it and does not make any sound.”

The report argues that the Chief Inspector should be given enhanced powers to comment more widely on the approach of HMPPS and have the ability to place prisons in special measures and require reports from prisons and HMPPS on actions taken in relation to its recommendations.

HMPPS response to the report

The Ministry of Justice published its reponse to the Committee's report in September 2025. It has accepted 19 recommendations, partially accepted 15 and rejected one. However many of the responses are inadequate and refer to "work ongoing" without clear dates and commitments and are caveated with phrases such as "subject to affordability."T he response holds no hope of the radical reform and external support which the Committee's report said were essential.

WPIC analysis of MOJ response

Each section of the Committee's report concluded with a summary of findings making some very serious criticisms, followed by a brief recommendation for action.

A technique of the MOJ response is to completely ignore and make no comment on the wince-making summaries of findings and only address the recommendations.

Purpose

There is no acknowledgement of the report’s conclusion that there is “confusion

within government and HMPPS about the purpose of prisons. Policy and practice are fundamentally misaligned resulting in prisons that cannot fulfil their primary purpose.” The report makes a clear distinction between punishment and reducing reoffending: “We agree that being in prison is the punishment and once there the focus should be on reducing reoffending. The punishment is the deprivation of liberty itself, beyond that prisoners must be treated with dignity as human beings who are capable of change and deserving of the opportunity to rebuild their self-esteem and their lives.” This simple distinction eludes the authors of the response who continue the confusion, saying: “By focusing our communications on punishment that cuts crime, we place the outcome of reducing reoffending at the centre of all our messaging.”

Centralised control

As the report’s discussion of centralised control was not followed by a recommendation the response can simply ignore the report’s finding: “As things stand HMPPS remains a top heavy, inflexible and overly bureaucratic organisation. It is failing to show the change leadership, flexibility, and innovation that is desperately required. Whether it is fit for purpose is open to question and remains to be proven.”

The role of the governor

The report’s excellent discussion of the role of the governor stresses the need for

their visibility, and the need to be freed from admin and given enhanced autonomy.

The response meets this with the dead hand of HR and managerialism. There are no ideas on how to free governors from admin. Instead “Governors have accountability for fostering and progressing open and positive external relationships with stakeholders to the mutual benefit of the establishment and the community, ensuring the delivery of the services through service level agreements.” What does this even mean? And why do you need an SLA to engage with the community?

Much is made of the Enable Programme, “a dedicated HMPPS prison workforce

program that will transform prisons over the medium term through a series of

workforce and regime changes that will change how HMPPS trains, develops, leads

and supports prison staff.” Currently it’s not possible to find any detail on the Enable

Programme from other sources. We also get the first sighting of the glacial pace at which HMPPS is responding. “The Government is currently exploring how the

training offer for senior prison staff can be strengthened. This includes a programme which is currently being piloted. Crucially it incorporates a one-to-one session with senior HR leads for each governor’s site.”

Lord Timpson himself is quoted in the report saying “I do not think that the balance is right, there is a lack of operational freedom for governors. They need to be trusted more, but we also need to make sure that we provide central support in terms of HR, health and safety and so on that is a really positive way of supporting them and does not get in the way of them trying to do their job too much.” Charlie Taylor, HM Inspector of Prisons said many governors are “wrestling with a bureaucracy that is not geared up really to be able to support them.” The report’s summary of findings says “Prison Governors are over-managed, and there are too many layers of management responsibility within HMPPS. A culture of centralisation within HMPPS has stifled innovation and weakened the ability of governors to lead effectively. The balance between national consistency and local flexibility has shifted too far toward the former, undermining the leadership model and morale among governors and senior staff.”

The response meets these observations with reference to “a framework for governor empowerment - the Free, Flex, Fixed framework of operational policy” which is apparently not published. And some relaxations to the use of government

procurement cards.

Recruitment

The report makes the sensible point that prison governors should oversee the recruitment process in their prisons. “A senior member of staff from the prison should hold a face-to-face interview with prospective candidates before the governor confirms a formal offer of employment.” This is such a simple recommendation: there is already a centralised recruitment system screening candidates, take the output of that and offer a candidate short list to governors for their interview. Instead of which, the response records that HMP Berwyn was set up to fail by devolving back onto them a full recruitment process which didn’t work. Surprise, surprise.

Again the glacier reappears and is now overtaking HMPPS: planned enhancements

are scheduled for quarter 4 of 2025/26. “This will then be followed by a period of

evaluation of the impact of these changes. Once this is complete, further consideration will be given to increased governor interaction and face-to-face

interviews with senior staff.” Why so slow? Why doesn’t HMPPS trust its governors?

The Enable Programme is to have new assessment methods focusing on practical

competence, but that is by then too late if a dud has been recruited. Four serving governors who gave evidence in the report talked about “many occasions at the initial training school when training staff have identified significant concerns about individuals for example their general attitude but governors of the receiving prisoners have been powerless to prevent them arriving.” This is not addressed.

Staff Training

The report stated that “The current training provided to prison officers is woefully

inadequate and lacks reference to the purpose of prisons. New recruits are being set up to fail….the current training programme does not address key areas such as

managing high-risk prisoners and dealing with mental health issues.” The report also noted “Before his appointment as Prisons Minister, Lord Timpson led

an Independent Review into prison officer training. He found that the “standard

seven-week basic training simply wasn’t doing enough to prepare new recruits for

the reality of this incredibly tough job”, and recommended that the Service should

adopt “a more structured, longer-term approach.” 18 months on and the HMPPS glacier still grinds on, neither accelerated by climate change nor Lord Timpson’s elevation. The response notes “The Enable Programme is considering both ‘what’ and ‘how’ prison officers learn from the start of their career and develop throughout it…. Specifically, work is currently ongoing to develop the current foundation training package for new entry prison officers into a 12-month

modular package.”

There is silence on training to manage high risk prisoners and deal with mental health issues.

Staff Management

The report said “It beggars belief that Custodial Managers are expected to line

manage between twenty to thirty staff. This is unsustainable given the nature and

complexity of the role, and the volume of new staff entering the Service. HMPPS

must reassess this management structure urgently “ The response says there is ‘a review of the staffing model’ and a proposed uplift in custodial manager numbers to enable an average line management span of control of one to 15 heads. (The old model used to be 1 to 6). This is currently at the implementation planning stage but subject to affordability. The response notes an aspiration to reduce the ratio further but says that without a significant increase in custodial manager headcount, which is likely to be cost prohibitive, this would involve detailed workarounds of other workload factors. When will Government, including Treasury, recognise that the

funding of headcount is simply not adequate to run a decent and humane prison

system and that the UK is therefore in breach of its commitments to respect

international norms such as the UN’s Mandela Rules?

Staff Appraisal

The report noted “we are astounded by the confusion surrounding the current

appraisal system. An appraisal system which does not make provision for a formal

appraisal record and regular reviews is not a system at all“. Again this is met with comments about “ongoing work in this area . . . in the process of scoping system options for better capture of performance data”. There is no suggestion of urgency to introduce a workaround to ensure that proper appraisal of performance and development conversations are happening now.

Purposeful Activity

The report noted“Access to education remains inconsistent across the prison estate. Despite theacknowledged importance of education in reducing reoffending, there are significantbarriers to its delivery, including limited resources, outdated infrastructure, and staff shortages. While basic qualifications in English and maths are available, higher-level education and training opportunities remain scarce, limiting prisoners’ ability todevelop skills that could assist with their reintegration into society.” The response gives detail on investment in libraries, 300 industry work areas available, collaboration with the Department of Education and centrally contracted providers. It misses the point completely that without regimes that allow proper time out of cell and escort to facilities such as libraries and training rooms none of the provision matters. Instead, in a deflection from the staffing point, the response misquotes the Institute for Government’s “Inside England and Wales’s prison crisis” report to try to suggest that there is no link between the numbers of operational staff and the proportion of prisoners in purposeful activity. This is borderline dishonest use of the IFG’s carefully worded research.

Employment Preparation

The response on employment is the one bright spot noting particularly a small

increase in employment six months post release from 35% to 38%. Clearly this is still

not good enough.

Accountability

The Committee‘s report concluded with comments on Independent Monitoring

Boards, HM Inspector of Prisons and the Prisons Ombudsman. The most radical was a proposal to enhance the powers of the Inspector to quasi-regulatory levels.

Predictably this has met with a comment that the Inspector is not a regulatory body

and to give it regulatory powers would fundamentally change the way it would need to operate. This is so blinkered. If it is the right way to go then the change needs to happen. The call for this change is not new. Are too many prison reform charities and campaign groups, some with roots in the 19th century, so invested in tinkering with the status quo that nothing radical can be contemplated? There was a helpful acknowledgement that giving the Inspectorate power to comment on policies and structures impacting on prison delivery and to make recommendations aimed at improving the performance of HMPPS would be

considered. No time scale is given.