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Home Office

Answer

Mr. Moore: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what actions he has taken to improve the management of Her Majesty's Young Offenders Institution and Remand Centre, Feltham following the report by the steering group set up by the Director General of the Prison Service in response to the recommendations made by the Chief Inspector of Prisons. [92629] Mr. George Howarth: The steering group set up by the Director General of the Prison Service for Feltham Young Offenders Institution following the Chief Inspector of Prisons' report, endorsed the recommendations contained in the four reports submitted to it by the task force which went into Feltham to address the immediate problems. The recommendations will form part of an action plan detailing improvements to be taken forward and will build on the six month improvement plan charted at the time of the inspection. This action plan is expected to be finalised shortly. Many improvements have already been taken forward at Feltham. The task force identified 39 issues for immediate action, 33 of these have now been implemented and work on the remaining six is well in hand. The significant achievements include: making significant in-roads into the `transit-camp' problem by ending the use of Kestrel unit as a daily discharge unit and the use of Osprey unit for allocation purposes; reducing the capacity of Feltham by 72 thereby reducing the overcrowding and allowing the refurbishment of two units to begin; increasing the quality of health care by moving into a fully refurbished health care unit and through the provision of eight officers on detached duty from other establishments to offset the staff shortages; discussions have begun with the local health authority about future service delivery; increasing the amount of physical education from two to five classes in both the morning and afternoon sessions; increasing the numbers attending education by 30; securing additional £2 million funding to develop a separate regime for under 18 year olds which will include 12 hours out of cell each day and 30 hours purposeful activity each week, for which a further £3.4 million capital investment is being made to provide separate reception and education facilities for the under 18s. an assessment centre has been held to recruit more officers. Consultation on proposals for revised staff attendance and shift patterns commenced this month; nearly 600 mattresses have been replaced and general cleanliness and hygiene have been improved with new cleaning schedules and inspection arrangements; and funds have been made available to undertake a backlog of small repairs.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

92629; 336 c250W

Session

1998-99

Subjects

Health services Finance Education Hygiene Staff Repairs and maintenance Exercise Young offender institutions HMP/YOI Feltham

Contains statistics

Yes