And a further 1,582 new recruitsghave been offered
roles and are booked onto Prison Officer Training
(POELT) courses, meaning the Government is on target to
recruit the 2,500 officers nine months ahead of
schedule.
Figures released today show there was a net increase of
1,970 officers from October 2016 to December last year,
up from 17,955 to 19,925. The boost in staffing numbers
will help deliver our new Offender Management in
Custody model which will provide prisoners with a
keyworker to support them in custody.
The recruitment efforts form part of a wider drive to
ensure that all prisons are fully staffed so that they
can deliver safe and decent regimes. Prison officer
recruitment will continue over the coming months and
new recruits, alongside existing staff, are being given
improved Suicide and Self Harm (SASH) prevention
training, with 14,300 staff members having now received
it.
Justice Secretary said:
I want to commend our hard-working prison officers
who do a vital job in protecting the public every
day, often in very challenging, difficult and
dangerous circumstances. These figures show we are on
target to recruit 2,500 additional prison officers.
I am determined to tackle the issues in our prisons
head on and I am committed to getting the basics
right so we can focus on making them safe and decent
places to support rehabilitation. Staffing is the
golden thread that links the solutions we need to put
in place to drive improvement, so I am delighted our
recruitment efforts are working.
Today’s announcement shows that the government’s
nationwide drive to recruit the best talent from around
the country into the prison service – regardless of age
or background – is working.
Governors are being given greater flexibility over
their local recruitment and encouraged to engage with
new schemes and initiatives to attract the best and
most committed talent.
By having more staff on the ground, staff will be
better supported to do the job they came into the
prison service to do, and spend more time reforming
offenders.
Notes to editors
Since publication of the White Paper:
-
we are making a substantial investment in marketing
and targeted recruitment to generate even more
interest in these valuable roles
-
we have increased our POELT training capacity by
more than 75% for this year and next
Starting pay for a National based Prison officer ranges
from £20,751 to £23,052 for a 37 to 41 hour week and
this increases to a maximum range of £23,122 to £25,685
for the same hours.
