Summary
‘National Offender Management service: Maintenance of the Prison Estate in England and Wales (HC 722)’, reports that in 2007-08, the Service spent around £320 million maintaining the prison estate, down from £330 million in 2005-06.
This Report from the Public Accounts Committee finds that the National Offender Management Service NOMS has obtained good value for money from its expenditure, with prisons kept sufficiently well to maintain physical security, ensure prisoner and staff safety and maintain prison capacity despite a rising prisoner population. However, there is still plenty of scope for NOMS to improve its performance and its longer term management of the estate.
The Committee reports that basic information on how well prisons are carrying out maintenance tasks is not being produced locally or collected and analysed centrally therefore, the Service does not have a clear idea how much it is spending in total on maintenance or how it is performing as an organisation.
However, the Committee also finds that there are also gaps in the way NOMS manages its external contractors and its knowledge of how contractors are performing. Handovers from external contractors to local maintenance teams are not working as effectively as they should. The Service should consider developing cell availability as an overall measure of its success in maintaining the estate.
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