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Home Office

Answer

Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prison officers failed their annual control and restraint test in the past 12 months; and what their ages were. [152711] Paul Goggins: There is no annual control and restraint test in the Prison Service. Prison establishments are required to maintain an appropriate level of officers trained at basic level control and restraint, and those officers selected to fulfil this requirement all undertake initial and refresher training courses. However, these courses do not include a test. Officers who deal with incidents of concerted indiscipline attend an advanced control and restraint training course. Again, officers are not formally tested at the end of this training. However, to gain admission to the course, an officer must be identified by his or her line manager as having an aptitude for the role; and is required to undertake a fitness test. From 1 January to 31 December 2003, a total of 4,353 officers undertook this fitness test, including officers from private prisons. The overall pass rate was 98.6 per cent, with 62 officers, aged between 18 and 65, failing. Their age distribution was as follows: _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Age Number of advanced for advanced C and R training who failed the fitness test 18-25 5 26-34 12 35-44 35 45-54 8 55-65 2 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

152711; 417 c1275W

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Discipline Custodial treatment Prisons Staff Training Testing Restraint techniques

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk