Jail population ‘set to stay near record for six years’

Ditching plans to halve sentences for offenders who submit early guilty pleas will deny the taxpayer £130m of potential savings and will result in 4,000 more people in prison than expected in 2015, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.

The move leaves the National Offender Management Service (Noms) “scrambling to find savings elsewhere”, Margaret Hodge, chair of the Commons Committee of Public Accounts added.

Some 86,000 people were in prison in England and Wales in June, compared with the all-time high of 88,179 in December last year, Prison Service figures show.

The Government’s original sentencing reforms were designed to give the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) greater influence over what it described as “the unsustainable rise in the prison population”.

It was predicted the reforms would lead to at least 6,000 fewer prisoners in custody for 2015, but dropping the proposed 50 per cent discount for early guilty pleas in June last year following an outcry over soft sentencing means that fall will be reduced to about 2,000, the NAO said.

Potential savings were also cut, from £324m to £190m, with 
£105m of this planned between 2013-14 and 2014-15, the MoJ told the watchdog.

Noms will find it harder to achieve savings as it will be more difficult to close older, more expensive prisons as a result, the NAO said.

Ms Hodge added: “This decision denies the taxpayer £130m of potential savings and leaves the agency scrambling to find savings elsewhere.

“The agency’s fragile financial outlook is at the mercy of events, such as last August’s riots, and sentencing decisions of judges and magistrates over which it has little control.

“Even the slightest changes in the prison population can lead to the agency’s plans being further knocked off course.”

The NAO report said that given the limited reforms which were granted Royal Assent in May, “the department expects the medium projection for the prison population to remain largely stable for the next six years”.

It went on: “Given the delays in making savings by closing prisons, the agency’s 2012-13 savings target of £246m is more challenging.”

Projections show it will spend £32m more than its budget and it also has less than half the £122m it needs to fund the early staff departures needed over the next two years to cut its payroll bill, leaving a £66m shortfall, the report said.

Ms Hodge went on: “The National Offender Management Service is less than halfway through its cost cutting programme, but is already lagging behind its target to curb spending by £884m before March 2015. I am concerned that the agency has yet to pin down a plan to get back on track. The task has been made even more difficult by the Government’s choice to limit reforms.”