Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what average amount of time a prisoner spends on education or work-related activities at each (a) young offender institution and (b) secure training centre.

Andrew Selous

Under-18 YOIs

Since 16 August 2015, education providers in public sector under-18 Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) have been required to provide 27 hours of education a week, supplemented by three hours of physical education. Whist the majority of education time is protected, young people will miss some lessons to attend appointments such as court appearances, medical appointments and legal visits and therefore the average hours of educations received will be less than the 27 provided.

Although youth crime is down, reoffending rates are far too high and the care and supervision of young offenders in custody is not good enough. That is why the Justice Secretary has asked Charlie Taylor to conduct a review of youth justice.

The following table provides the average number of classroom based education hours, alternative activities hours and physical education hours accessed by under-18 public sector YOIs since 16 August 2015.

Table 1: Average hours of education or alternative activities and physical education at public sector under-18 Young Offenders Institutions since 16 August 2015

	Feltham	Cookham Wood	Werrington	Wetherby
Average hours accessed by young offenders	23.15	17.07	24.78	20.44

Notes

(1) Average hours includes alternative activities (interventions relating to offending behaviour, focus groups, release on temporary licence, unit cleaning and catering etc) and physical education.

(2) Data are provided by the National Offender Management Service. These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing and can be subject to change over time.

(3) This table does not include outreach education provision, which is provided to young people who are not able to engage with class room based education. The YJB currently commissions up to 15 hours of this type of provision for a set number of young people at each YOI.

Under-18 YOI Parc

YOI Parc is operated by G4S and is currently contracted to provide 25 hours of education and 5 hours of interventions each week. The average number of hours of education or vocational training delivered per young person per school week at Parc YOI in calendar year 2015 was 23.7 (see notes below).

Secure training Centres (STCs)

STCs are currently contracted to provide 25 hours of education and 5 hours of interventions each week. From 1 April 2016 at Medway STC and 5 May 2016 at Rainsbrook STC new contracts will require 30 hours education and interventions a week, of which 25 hours must be education.

Table 3: Average number of hours of education or vocational training delivered per young person per school week in each Secure Training Centre in calendar year 2015

	Medway	Oakhill	Rainsbrook
Average hours accessed by young people	24.9	24.8	24.9

Notes

(4) Data for YOI Parc and Medway, Oakhill and Rainsbrook STCs is taken from YJMIS from the figures submitted by secure establishments.

(5) These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing and can be subject to change over time.