Reports published 15 January 2024

HMP Ashfield

Type of inspection: full unannounced inspection

Dates of inspection: 9–20 October 2023

Summary of findings: Ashfield is a category C training prison holding prisoners convicted of a sexual offence. While staff were largely young and inexperienced, the new director had developed a positive culture meaning they were well supported. The programmes team, with the support of the psychology department, worked hard to help officers to understand the nature of the prisoners and the way in which their behaviour could mirror previous offences. This led to better collection of security information which could help to plan for individual prisoners and show if progress was being made. An excellent offender management unit (OMU) was backed by consistently good key working with individual prisoners.

Ashfield was failing to fulfil its role as a training prison, which was particularly disappointing because education provision was run directly by Serco, so there were none of the issues with managing education contracts often found in other prisons.

Points to note:  The provider had carpeted landings and cells, which meant that the prison was much quieter than most. The end of contract stipulation had ludicrously ordained that carpets should be removed so that the prison is returned to its original state; this will result in huge and unnecessary cost and disruption to staff and prisoners.

Read the report: HMP Ashfield

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HMP Bure

Type of inspection: full unannounced inspection

Dates of inspection: 2 – 12 October 2023

Summary of findings: Bure, a category C prison for men convicted of sexual offences, remained a safe and respectful jail with clean and well-maintained facilities. Relationships between staff and prisoners were very good, underpinned by effective key work. However, leaders had failed to address the comparatively negative experiences reported by black prisoners in the past three inspections.

Although prisoners were unlocked for most of the day, the jail was failing to fulfil its remit as a training prison with less than two-thirds of working-age men engaged in education, training or employment.

Points to note:  Prisoners had very good access to the library, with 81% saying they could visit weekly – more than twice as many as comparable prisons – and 80% being active library users. It was disappointing the library’s initiatives to promote literacy were not supported by the prison’s reading strategy which, while comprehensive, was not well coordinated.

Read the report: HMP Bure

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HMP Maidstone

Type of inspection: Independent review of progress

Dates of review:  20–22 November 2023

Summary of findings: Maidstone is a Category C prison holding foreign national offenders. Prison leadership was in a state of flux with a third governor in 18 months recently appointed. The new governor had made a number of improvements including the management of prisoner applications, complaints and external hospital appointments, and a new foreign national prisoner training package was being rolled out to staff. Whilst there were now enough education staff to deliver a suitable curriculum, there was still not enough full-time purposeful activity and prisoners were allocated to unsuitable activities. The prison also did not offer any of the offending behaviour programmes required for many sentence plans.

Points to note: The specific needs of the prison’s foreign national population were not yet met and there were ongoing concerns with safety. Sadly, there had been two self-inflicted deaths in the last five months, with lessons to be learned about shortcomings in support for prisoners anxious about their immigration status.

Read the report: HMP Maidstone