28/09/2023
Police Oracle
The MoJ admits there is a level of cynicism over the ‘sugar-coating’ and aspirational language of recruitment into prison and probation jobs amongst existing staff.
The Ministry of Justice has launched a major new advertising campaign to tackle recruitment and retention, by showing the reality of life as prison and probation officers. It’s the first time the MoJ has ever invested in a national campaign which includes both TV and radio – a sure sign of the need to up its game and try to get our prisons and probation offices staffed to a decent level again.
Prison staffing
The most recent HMPPS workforce figures (published last month) show that although the prison service is succeeding in recruiting new staff, it is struggling to increase the number of staff in the workforce because of the rate at which existing prison officers are leaving.
Most worrying is the leaving rate of 13.4% of band 3-5 prison officers (this definition covers custodial managers, supervision officers and frontline prison officers). In other words, more than one in eight staff leave every year making the challenge of increasing overall staff numbers particularly problematic. It is frontline prison officers in particular who are leaving in droves. The leaving rate for Band 3-4 prison officers (including specialists but not supervisors) was a staggering 14.8% for the year ending June 2023, more than one in seven. The comparable figure for the 2021/22 financial year was 16.1% but in 2020/21 it was “only” 10.1%
The same exodus can be seen among operational support staff where the leaving rate to this June was 17.1% (more than one in six). It was 18.3% for the 2021/22 financial year, again a big jump from 2020/21 when it was a paltry 11.9%.
Probation staffing
The situation for the probation service is no less worrying. There were 4,418 FTE band 4 probation officers in post (band 4 is POs, band 3 PSOs) on 30 June. This is a decrease of 124 FTE (2.7%) since 30 June 2022 and no substantial change of FTE probation officers compared to 31 March 2023. In addition to the band 4 probation officers, there were 6,801 FTE band 3 probation services officers.
This is an increase of 990 FTE (17.0%) since 30 June 2022 and a decrease of 149 FTE (2.1%) since 31 March 2023. The decrease is particularly worrying because the main reason the annual increase was so large was the recruitment campaign to get more probation officers. HMPPS succeeded in recruiting 1,514 trainee probation officers in 2022/23 and these are classified as band 3/PSOs while in training. If a small but substantial percentage of these are leaving before qualifying, it will continue to be difficult to get enough probation officers in post.
The most recent (up to 30 June this year) leaving rates for probation staff are much lower than their prison counterparts but still critical for a service which has been chronically understaffed for the past five years:
Sickness rates are a particular concern with probation staff off sick for an average of 12.1 work days per year with probation officers off sick an average of 15.1 days or three weeks. PSOs are off sick for an average of 12.3 days per year. One clear indicator of the amount of stress probation staff are under is that the reason for well over half (57.4%) of probation staff taking absence for sickness was mental and behavioural disorders.
Recruitment
The MoJ has certainly upped its game in terms of the current recruitment campaign, commissioning research which found that 47% of the public don’t know much, if anything, about what the prison service does. Many who do join the service will ultimately leave due to having misunderstood what the role involves.
The Department acknowledges that recruiting the right people has been a challenge in the past, revealing that there is a level of cynicism over the ‘sugar-coating’ and aspirational language of recruitment into prison and probation jobs amongst existing staff. For example, the idea that staff can ‘change lives’ has been jarring to some existing staff who find it to be inauthentic and the idea of making a difference in small, every day ways was highlighted as more of a motivating factor.
Using this feedback, the new advert from the Ministry of Justice is a departure from what’s gone before and aims to tell the human stories of prisoners and staff through scenes depicting the reality of working in these extraordinary roles.
The campaign has launched on TV and radio across those parts of England and Wales where the recruitment challenge is greatest and features voices from serving prison officers and aims to challenge some of the misconceptions associated with working on the prison wings, and in the probation office.