Ashfield inspection report 2024

Summary

Ashfield is a category C training prison that, at the time of our inspection, held 410 prisoners who had been sentenced for a sexual offence. The recently appointed director, after a period of leadership instability, had successfully built a strong, positive staff culture. This meant that the often young and inexperienced officers felt well supported and motivated, which in turn led to excellent staff-prisoner relationships. Real thought had gone into building the expertise of staff in relation to this oftencomplex group of prisoners. The programmes team, with the support of the psychology department, worked hard to help officers to understand the nature of the prisoners and the way in which their behaviour could mirror previous offences. This led to better collection of security information which could help to plan for individual prisoners and show if progress was being made.

Inspection ratings

Findings

Priority concerns

HMIP reported that Ashfield was failing to fulfil its role as a training prison and that purposeful activity had dropped from good to poor.

Other key concerns

Purposeful activity and the prison's training function.

Notable positive practice

HMIP noted a positive culture, support for young and inexperienced staff, strong work by the programmes team and psychology department, an excellent offender management unit and consistently good key working. Inspectors also noted that carpeted landings and cells made the prison much quieter than most.

Progress since the previous inspection

Safety and respect remained good; purposeful activity declined from good to poor; preparation for release improved from not sufficiently good to good.