HMP Nottingham had experienced many changes and increased its population, but had still made some improvements, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, publishing the report of an unannounced short follow-up inspection of the local jail.

HMP Nottingham held just over 1,000 men with over a third on remand and a small number aged under 21. It had almost doubled in size since its last inspection in 2010 and its focus had moved away from being a community prison to a local prison. At its last inspection in 2010, inspectors found that the prison was achieving reasonably good outcomes for prisoners in all four healthy prison tests: safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement. This short follow-up inspection found sufficient progress had been made on safety, respect and purposeful activity but insufficient progress on resettlement.

Inspectors were pleased to find that:

• significant steps had been taken to improve the safety of vulnerable prisoners and to ensure they had equitable access to the regime;
• use of the special cell had ceased;
• actions to address significant issues raised by black and minority ethnic prisoners relating to staff-prisoner relationships had been identified, but not yet implemented;
• sufficient purposeful activity places were now available; and
• recommendations about education and training had mostly been achieved with significant improvements in qualification rates.

However, inspectors had some concerns:

• there were still no constructive interventions to change the behaviour of perpetrators or support victims of bullying;
• insufficient progress had been made in resettlement – there was no up-to-date needs analysis or action plan and offender supervisors were not seeing prisoners regularly enough; and
• some prisoners waited too long when a transfer to another prison was needed, and there were no interventions to address attitudes, thinking and behaviour.

Nick Hardwick said:

‘HMP Nottingham had experienced considerable changes since our last inspection with a significantly increased population and a change in role. Despite these challenges, there has been a positive response to some key findings from our last inspection.’

Michael Spurr, Chief Executive Officer of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), said:

‘I am pleased that the Chief Inspector has noted the good progress being made at HMP Nottingham.

‘During a period of considerable change the governor and staff have worked well to follow the previous report’s recommendations with some significant improvements made.

‘Work will continue to further improve performance, particularly with regard to resettlement.’

Notes to editors:

1. View the report. (243 kB)
2. HM Inspectorate of Prisons is an independent inspectorate, inspecting places of detention to report on conditions and treatment, and promote positive outcomes for those detained and the public.
3. This unannounced short follow-up inspection was carried out from 25-27 February 2013.
4. HMP Nottingham is a local prison holding young adult (18-21 years old) and adult male remand and sentenced prisoners.
5. Please contact Jane Parsons in HMI Prisons Press Office on 0207 035 2123 or 07880 787452 if you would like more information or to request an interview with Nick Hardwick.