Erlestoke independent review of progress 2022
Report for Erlestoke Prison
Summary
we found little improvement, and, indeed, deterioration in the areas covered by our ‘respect’ healthy prison test. Frustration among prisoners was linked to rising levels of violence and of self-harm, as well as to an unduly impoverished regime. Leadership was not strong and many of the staff lacked confidence in the absence of active support from managers. 1.4 During this independent review of progress, we examined 13 key recommendations, and our colleagues in Ofsted addressed progress against three themes. There had been a serious attempt to address the growing concerns of our previous two visits, with the result that we found reasonable or good progress against all but two of our key recommendations, while Ofsted assessed progress against all three of their themes as reasonable. In the two areas where progress was judged insufficient, there had been a start on measures to address the deficiencies, but their impact was not yet clear. Report of an independent review of progress at HMP Erlestoke 3 1.5 The quality of leadership had improved, with some energetic new senior managers, and some new posts had been created, targeted to key priorities such as the upskilling of new staff, better use of data on matters of safety (both violence and self-harm), and development of equality work.