Milton Keynes' struggling Woodhill prison has failed to make progress, say inspectors

In a report published today (Thursday) by the HMI Prison Inspectorate, the jail is described as “struggling to make progress”.

The inspectors made a follow up visit last month after declaring the prison unsafe and incapable of providing inmates with a purposeful regime in their 2021 report.

They found there were still severe staffing shortages and the situation had not improved since the previous scrutiny, with as many staff leaving the prison as joining .

Inspectors are now concerned that the staff shortages, inexperience and high turnover were limiting what the jail could achieve and were negatively affecting outcomes for prisoners.

The category B training prison also holds category A remand prisoners and operates several specialist units, making it a high-risk and complex jail.

Inspectors followed up eight recommendations during the June visit and found insufficient progress in four.

Ofsted followed up on three themes, judging progress to be reasonable in two and insufficient in one.

Charlie Taylor, Chief Inspector of Prisons, said: “In most areas, leaders and managers demonstrated a will and desire to improve outcomes for prisoners, and also for staff. Much of their effort was, however, thwarted by staff shortages.”

He said time out of cell was not good enough at around 2.5 hours a day for the many unemployed and underemployed prisoners.

Workshops and classes were not operating to capacity, and colleagues at Ofsted found limited participation in education, skills, and classes.

However, the jail had made progress in its identification of individual learning needs through an initial assessment, induction pack, and learning difficulties and disabilities ‘screener’ on arrival.

Some progress had been made to reduce violence and self-harm levels, and data indicated that self-harm was now on a downward trajectory. However, levels remained too high against comparator prisons.

The inspectors agreed that the staffing crisis was the single most limiting factor to progress at Woodhill.

Mr Taylor said: “The scale of the task is huge, but I would strongly urge leaders to continue in their quest to find creative and practical solutions to make Woodhill an attractive employer.

"Without continued vigour, it is inevitable that outcomes for the prison and the public will deteriorate even further.”