Groundhog Week for Youth Custody

 

It’s Groundhog Week for  youth custody, as the Justice Secretary is told today to take urgent action to improve Oakhill Secure Training Centre (STC) where inspectors have found serious and systemic failures putting children there at risk of harm. On Monday, inspectors reported that only a third of children at Werrington Young Offender Institution felt cared for by staff with most spending too long locked up and not getting enough education.  

The Oakhill failings are particularly troubling, the latest in a long line of crises to engulf STCs over the last 30 years- and the second time Oakhill itself has been subject to an Urgent Notification. Four years ago it “barely met minimum standards of human decency” and despite some short lived improvements it’s back in a shocking state- unsanitary conditions, unresponsive healthcare, inappropriate use of separation and restraint and safeguarding in disarray.

Perhaps the most worrying part of the Ofsted Chief Inspector’s letter to Shabana Mahmood is the revelation that the Director of the G4S run centre and one of the deputy directors were formally suspended from their duties earlier this month and the other deputy director was recently fired.

30 other staff have been suspended in the last eight months, most because of concerns about “conduct with children”.  All of the 18 investigations completed have led to “various managerial actions including dismissals”. Some staff facing serious allegations have been allowed to continue to work with children. Staff convey a culture of fear, mistrust and reprisal, with some saying they have been left feeling unsafe while working alone on a unit.

Ministers should be worried too that the Youth Custody Service (YCS) -responsible for contractual management of private sector sites- has failed “to identify and/or take sufficient action to help safeguard children and to ensure that children receive good quality care”.  After the first Urgent Notification, in 2022 YCS assessed that despite limited improvements in G4S’s management of Oakhill STC, “there remained a risk that these improvements may not prove sustainable”. YCS should therefore have been much more on the case since then.

So what is to be done? It’s almost nine years since the then government agreed that Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) and STCs should be replaced in the longer term by smaller secure schools situated in the regions that they serve. Since then one Secure School finally got off the ground last year. It’s progress has been disappointing- an inspection coincidentally out today finds it needs improvement to be good.

Oasis Restore is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people- and it’s of concern that the effectiveness of leaders and managers there is rated as inadequate. However, “there are no serious or widespread failures that result in children’s welfare not being safeguarded or promoted”, unlike at Oakhill.  Such failures tend to be even less common in Secure Childrens Homes, whose capacity in my view should have been expanded instead of creating the Secure School. But we are where we are. That doesn’t mean we have to stay here forever.

The Oakhill contract runs until 2029 and would probably cost too much to end early. But that could and should be the target date for the government to remove children from YOI’s and STC’s using Secure Children’s Homes and Secure Schools instead.  

Catching Fire

 

Quietly published last month was the latest annual report of the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate, (CPFSI) the body which enforces fire safety legislation in most government buildings including prisons. It’s long overdue, covering the financial year to March 2024- and it’s troubling.

The year 2023-24 saw one prisoner die as a result of fire – the fourth since 2019- with 16 suffering major injuries such as serious burns or severe smoke inhalation.  Across the estate 19 more, and 21 prison staff suffered minor injuries with well over 500 other individuals in prisons given precautionary medical assessments following their involvement with fire. The number of people affected by prison fires rose in line with the increase in fires. The CPFSI report says there were 2,477 fires in 2023-4 up 74% from the previous year.  Data for the calendar year 2024 suggests a continuing rise through last year with almost 3,000 cell fires.

CPFSI Chief Inspector Peter Holland reports that 95% of prison fires are started deliberately and the significant increase is mainly due to the misuse of both vapes and electrical equipment by prisoners. Vapes were responsible for causing two thirds of prison fires, with mishandling of non-faulty electrical wiring causing a further 12%. Holland says there’s a need for improved compliance with the Fire Safety Legislation “and further concerted action to reduce the frequency and impact of fires”.

So what is the Prison Service doing? Fire safety is ostensibly a high priority, governed by a detailed Prison Service Instruction. HMPPS has recently achieved conformity with the British Standard for Fire Risk Managment Systems.

On primary prevention, a new ‘Moja’ vape pen is being introduced with a battery cell welded directly to the circuit  board, preventing rewiring and misuse of the heating element. In April, trials involving 1,138 prisoners were underway at HMP Swaleside and HMP The Mount, with five additional prisons due to join last month. It’s been reported the new safer pens will be rolled out to all prisons by October although this looks ambitious to me.

There have been local initiatives too. In the three Leeds prisons, cell fires reportedly reduced when prisoners’ property was subsequently removed for decontamination or destruction - though many fires are still started by new arrivals who do not yet have enough personal property to deter them. More positively, fire crews have been working with respected members of the prisoner population at HMP Wealstun on the risks of cell fires so they can help deter newcomers during their induction period.

In West Yorkshire a new Incident Reporting Form has been created to try to increase the use of prosecution following cell fires. The Fire Service say there have been instances in the UK where up to two years were added to a sentence, which could serve as a powerful deterrent. It’s not clear that tougher punishment will work. The CPFSI report says “inmates start fires for numerous reasons: challenging prison regimes, conflicts with other prisoners and staff, and to inflict harm”. Current CPS guidance says that a cell fire may be an attempt to commit self-harm, and these cases should not normally be referred by the prison to the police.

As for responding to fires, HMPPS has a major fire safety improvement programme which aims to bring all cells up to standard by the end of 2027 through automatic fire detection and suppression measures. MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) concluded earlier this year that the deadline won’t be met, in part because of the collapse of construction company ISG. Whether the red line commitment not to use non-compliant cells after that date will be maintained presumably depends on population pressures at the time. PAC have asked the MoJ how they plan to meet the maintenance backlog in prisons more broadly. The latest MoJ delivery plan includes making more cells fire safety compliant but not where and when.

One urgent priority must be to ensure that prisons comply with enforcement or alterations notices served by CPFSI. The latest list  includes notices in force on two public and two private prisons, but the list is incomplete. I know of one other prison served with an enforcement notice and am seeking information about any others.

CPFSI has recently been moved from the Home Office into the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I hope this will stimulate a more urgent and comprehensive approach to the oversight of fire safety in prisons. Neither Independent Monitoring Boards nor the Prison Inspectorate look systematically at fire safety during their visits to prisons. I was surprised to learn that the latter no longer has a formal protocol in place with CPFSI about the sharing of information. They should agree one in my view.