Staff vacancies at HMP Swaleside were affecting every area of the prison, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, publishing the report of an unannounced inspection of the Isle of Sheppey training jail.

HMP Swaleside held 1,107 adult men at the time of the inspection. Like a number of other prisons in the south east of England, HMP Swaleside was seriously affected by staff vacancies and the Prison Service nationally needed to take urgent steps to maintain appropriate staffing levels. Good relationships between staff and prisoners and a generally good environment mitigated some of the worst effects of staff shortages.

Inspectors were concerned to find that:

• prisoners spent too much time locked in their cells and the planned time of eight hours a day out of cell was curtailed because of staff vacancies;
• arrangements to meet the legitimate needs of some groups, such as the attendance of Muslim prisoners at Friday prayers, involved a restriction in the regime for others, which created tensions;
• there were insufficient activity places available for the whole population but not all of these were fully used;
• offender management processes should have been central to the prison’s efforts to enable the men it held to address their behaviour and progress through their sentence, but staff vacancies had completely undermined this function and meant that the identification and management of risks was dangerously inadequate;
• required mandatory drug testing had not been carried out by the prison and staff therefore had no accurate idea of the availability of drugs, and more prisoners than in similar prisons said it was easy to get alcohol;
• although most prisoners said they felt safe and the prison appeared calm, there had been a number of serious assaults on prisoners and staff and some prisoners were too frightened to come out of their cells;
• measures to prevent suicide and self-harm were inadequate;
• the use of force documentation was among the worst inspectors have seen, meaning the prison could not be assured that the use of force was necessary and proportionate; and
• special accommodation was used six times as much at comparable prisons.

However, inspectors were pleased to find that:

• prisoners appreciated good consultation and communication arrangements which helped prisoners reduce the impact of regime restrictions;
• healthcare was reasonable;
• all prisoners were held in properly equipped single cells and internal and external areas of the prison were clean and in good condition; and
• the availability of offender behaviour programmes was a real strength and met the needs of the population.

Nick Hardwick said:

“Some of our concerns about HMP Swaleside can, and should, be addressed by the prison itself. As a training prison it needs to create a better work ethic. Offender management services need to be better and more safely organised. Frightened prisoners need to be identified and supported and the violence reduction policy rigorously implemented. Management of the use of force also requires urgent improvement. However, other much-needed improvements, which go to the heart of the prison’s challenges, require staffing levels to be brought up to at least the agreed levels and to do this the prison needs much more effective support from the centre.”

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

“Since this inspection took place Swaleside has been receiving temporary staff support from other prisons to enable the Governor to provide a consistent, safe and purposeful regime for prisoners.

“We are actively recruiting permanent staff in prisons across the South East and Swaleside will continue to receive support until permanent staff are in place.

“Safety is a priority for the Governor – and action will be taken to address the recommendations made in this report.”

Notes to Editors:

1. Read the report.
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. HMP Swaleside is a category B adult male training prison.
4. This unannounced inspection was carried out from 28 April – 2 May 2014.
5. Please contact Jane Parsons on 020 3681 2775 or 07880 787452 if you would like more information or to request an interview.