Official Statistics

Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2023/24

Published 25 July 2024

Applies to England and Wales

© Crown copyright 2024

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-performance-ratings-2023-to-2024/annual-prison-performance-ratings-202324

Main Points

This publication covers reporting period for the period between the 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024.
There has been no change in the proportion of prisons rated as outstanding since 2022/23   13 (10.9%) prisons were given a rating of outstanding, the same number as in 2022/23. A further 56 were given a rating of good, meaning 69 (58.0%) were rated as good or higher.
There was an increase in the proportion of prisons rated as serious concern compared to 2022/23   15 (12.6%) prisons were given a rating of serious concern. This is an increase of 6 prisons from 2022/23 where 9 (7.6%) prisons attained this rating.
Open, Female, Category C Trainer prisons were strong overall performers   Open, Female and Category C Trainer prisons were the only functional groups that had no prisons attain a rating of serious concern. These functional groups all had prisons attain a rating of outstanding.
Three of the prisons that have received an Urgent Notification were rated as serious concern   Bedford, Bristol and Woodhill were rated serious concern. Six out of the 7 adult prisons to receive a UN since 2017 are all Reception prisons.

Statistician’s comment

Over the performance year (1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024) 15 (12.6%) prisons were given a rating of serious concern. This is an increase on the 2022/23 performance year and may reflect the capacity pressures on the prison estate. However, different frameworks have been used in different performance years, reflecting changes in HMPPS priorities, which makes comparison over time difficult.

In 2023/24 Reception prisons were generally the weakest performers, while Open prisons were the strongest performers.

1. Background

The 2023/24 prison performance framework used 33 outcome-focussed measures to formally assess prisons. HMPPS manage the performance framework, which is structured against six main priority areas. These are:

  • Safety

  • Security

  • Respect

  • Purposeful Activity

  • Preparation for Release

  • Organisational Effectiveness

The Prison Performance Tool Dashboard (PPTD), which is owned by HMPPS’s Prison Performance Committee, reported the 2023/24 framework. Most of the measures within the framework utilise a data-driven “performance against target” model to assess the performance of each prison. Further information about the performance framework and PPTD, performance measures that make up each priority area, descriptions of the functional groups and detail regarding the methodology, thresholds and rules applied can be found in the Annual Prison Performance Ratings Guide 2023/24 accompanying this bulletin. Details of which prisons belong to which functional group can be found in the Supplementary Tables that accompany this bulletin.

Annual performance for each prison in the PPTD has been assigned one of four ratings.

Figure 1: Rating definitions

Rating Definition
4 Outstanding performance
3 Good performance
2 Performance of concern
1 Performance of serious concern

Following the production of the data-driven performance ratings, a moderation process took place where a moderation panel reviewed any evidence provided to determine the final performance rating for each prison. The analysis in this publication reflects the data-driven breakdowns at measure level along with the final moderated overall prison rating.

The performance ratings of 8 prisons were adjusted through the moderation process. These prisons are noted in tables 1, 4 and 5 of the Supplementary Tables.

2. Annual Prison Performance Ratings

2023/24 had the same proportion of prisons rated as outstanding as 2022/23

13 (10.9%) prisons attained a rating of outstanding. There has been no change in the proportion of prisons attaining this rating since 2022/23.

There was an increase in the proportion of prisons rated as serious concern compared to 2022/23

15 (12.6%) prisons attained a rating of serious concern. This is an increase of 6 prisons from 2022/23 where 9 (7.6%) prisons attained this rating.

Figure 2: Summary of Annual Prison Performance Ratings for 2023/24 (Source: Table 1)

Prison Rating Number of prisons Percentage of prisons
4: Outstanding Performance 13 10.9%
3: Good Performance 56 47.1%
2: Performance is of concern 35 29.4%
1: Performance is of serious concern 15 12.6%

  • For 2023/24, 13 (10.9%) prisons were rated as having outstanding performance, the same as 2022/23 and the joint smallest number since 2016/17.

  • 56 (47.1%) prisons were rated as having good performance, this is a decrease from 62 (52.1%) prisons in 2022/23. 

  • 35 (29.4%) prisons were rated as concern, the same as 2022/23.

  • 15 (12.6%) prisons were rated as serious concern which is an increase of 6 prisons from 2022/23.

69 prisons (58.0%) were rated as either good or outstanding. 50 prisons (42.0%) were rated as either performance of concern or performance of serious concern.

Figure 3 shows the distribution of prisons by rating per year since 2016/17. However, performance frameworks have changed markedly over recent years and therefore caution should be taken when making year on year comparisons.

Figure 3: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2016/17 to 2023/24 (Source: Table 4)

3. Prison Function Ratings and Performance Drivers

Open, Female and Category C Trainer prisons were strong performers.

Open, Female and Category C Trainer are the only functional groups that had no prisons rated as serious concern. Each of these functional groups had at least one prison attain a rating of outstanding.

Three of the prisons that have received an Urgent Notification were rated as serious concern.

Bedford, Bristol and Woodhill were rated serious concern. Six out of the 7 adult prisons to receive a UN since 2017 are all Reception prisons.

All functional groups had prisons that were rated as good performance. Across all the groups, Reception prisons perform least well, with 22 (73.3%) rated as of concern or of serious concern. Open prisons performed the best, with 9 (69.2%) rated as outstanding and 100% rated as good or higher.

Prisons in the Open, Female and Category C Trainer groups had no prisons attaining a rating of serious concern.

Figure 4: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2023/24 by Prison Function (Source: Table 1)

Areas of Strong Performance

Open prisons performed well across the priority area of Safety. All 13 Open prisons scored a rating of 4 for the measures of Assaults on staff incidents and Self-harm incidents and 3 or above for Prisoner on prisoner assaults incidents.

95 (80.5%) prisons attained scores of 3 or 4 for their Security Audit. All prisons in the Category B and High Security functional groups achieved a rating of 3 or higher for this measure, with 4 (80.0%) High Security prisons and 6 (60.0%) Category B prisons attaining the maximum rating of 4 as demonstrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Security Audit scores by Prison Function (Source: Table 2)

Female, High Security and Open prisons performed well in the priority area of Purposeful Activity:

  • For Education progress in English and maths, all 10 public prisons in the Female functional group were in the top 25% best performing prisons. 7 (70.0%) of these 10 prisons met or exceeded their targets.

  • For Achievement of vocational qualifications, 3 (60.0%) High Security prisons were in the top 25% best performing prisons with all 5 High Security prisons meeting or exceeding their target.

  • For Percentage of prisoners in purposeful activity, all 13 Open prisons were in the top 25% highest performing with 10 (76.9%) of the 13 prisons meeting or exceeding their target.

For the Employment at six weeks following custodial release measure, Open and Category C prisons performed well:

  • All 13 Open prisons performed in the top 25% of prisons nationally for this measure. 8 (61.5%) of these prisons met or exceeded their target.

  • Category C prisons (inclusive of Category C Resettlement, Category C Trainer and Category C Trainer/Resettlement) were the next best function group for this measure, with 10 (20.4%) in the top 25% of prisons and all of the 10 meeting or exceeding their target.

Areas of Poor Performance

Figure 6 shows the proportion of prisons within each function group that feature in the lower 25% of prisons across the estate for three of the Safety measures. This demonstrates that Female and Reception prisons generally performed poorly in this area.

  • 8 (66.7%) of Female prisons attained a rating of either 1 or 2. This means that they failed to meet their target for self-harm incidents.

  • Female prisons were also the poorest performing function group for Assaults on staff incident rates, with 9 (75.0%) prisons failing to meet their target.

  • For Prisoner on prisoner assaults incident rates, all Reception prisons attained a rating of 1 or 2 in this measure, meaning that they were all under target.

Figure 6: Percentage of prisons within each functional group that feature in the lower 25% performing prisons nationally across Safety measures (Source: Table 2)

Figure 7 shows the proportion of prisons by function group that feature in the lower 25% of prisons across the estate for three of the Purposeful Activity measures. This demonstrates that Category B and Reception prisons performed poorly across this area.

  • For Education progress in English and maths, 4 (57.1%) eligible Category B prisons and 16 (64.0%) eligible Reception prisons failed to meet their target.

  • For Attendance at education courses,16 (64.0%) eligible Reception prisons and 3 (42.9%) eligible Category B prisons failed to meet their target.

  • For the Percentage of prisoners in purposeful activity measure, 4 (57.1%) eligible Category B prisons and 14 (56.0%) eligible Reception prisons failed to meet their target.

Figure 7: Percentage of prisons within each functional group that feature within the lower 25% performing prisons nationally across Purposeful Activity measures (Source: Table 2)

Nationally, 101 (96.2%) of eligible prisons attained a rating of 1 in the Keyworker Quality Assessment measure, with the remaining prisons attaining a rating of 2, meaning that no prisons nationally met their target for Keyworker Quality Assessment.

Urgent Notifications

HMIP have invoked an Urgent Notification (UN) at 7 adult prisons since the process was introduced in 2017. Figure 8 below shows the Annual Prison performance Ratings for 2023/24 for those prisons where an Urgent Notification (UN) has been invoked by HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP). All of these prisons are currently rated as either concern or of serious concern.

Figure 9: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2023/24 for Prisons where an Urgent Notification has been invoked by HMIP

Prison Functional group UN Issued Rating 2022/23
Bedford Reception 17 November 2023 / 13 September 2018 1
Woodhill Category B 1 September 2023 1
Bristol Reception 28 July 2023 / 11 June 2019 1
Exeter Reception 18 November 2023 / 30 May 2018 2
Chelmsford Reception 27 August 2021 2
Birmingham Reception 20 August 2018 2
Nottingham Reception 17 January 2018 2

Nottingham received a UN in January 2018, Birmingham received a UN in August 2018, and Chelmsford received a UN in August 2021.

Exeter received an initial UN in May 2018 and a second UN issued in November 2022 and was rated as of concern in 2023/24. Bristol received an initial UN in June 2019; however, in July 2023 a second UN was issued, and was rated as of serious concern in 2023/24. Woodhill received a UN in September 2023 and was rated as of serious concern in 2023/24. Bedford received an initial UN in September 2018, a second UN was issued in November 2023, and was rated as of serious concern in 2023/24.

For more information about Urgent Notifications, please see: Urgent Notification - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

4. Further Information

The following products are published as part of this release:

  • A statistical bulletin, containing commentary on key findings.

  • Annual Prison Performance Ratings Guide 2023/24, providing further information on how the data are collected and processed to derive prison performance ratings.

  • A set of supplementary tables, providing underlying data and the rating for each measure by prison.

  • YCS Annex: 2023-24, YCS Annex Guide: 2023-24 and YCS Annex Table: 2023-24, providing further information on Youth Custody Service Performance.

The Annual Prison Performance Ratings Guide 2023/24 and supplementary tables are available to download from Prison and Probation Performance Statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The following publications contain related statistics:

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For further details on the methodology used to compile the report, please refer to the guide.

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Contact

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office:

Tel: 0203 334 3536

Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to:

Julie Sullivan

Prison, Probation and Reoffending Data and Statistics

Ministry of Justice, 10 South Colonnade, Canary Wharf, E14 4PH

E-mail: CustodialPerformance.Enquiries@justice.gov.uk

Next Update: 31/07/2025

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