£2.5M BILL FOR JAIL GUARDS IN HOTELS
Outcry at cost of shunting staff round UK to plug gaps
MILLIONS of pounds are being squandered putting prison officers up in hotels near understaffed jails.
Officers are being shunted round the UK to plug shortfalls as the system is at breaking point.
More than £ 2.5million was spent on hotel rooms and rail fares in the year to November.
Prison officers’ association leader Steve Gillan said: “I am astounded that staff are being forced to plug gaps at other jails at the expense of leaving their own prisons under-resourced.
“Money supposed to be going to prison officers to improve pay and increase staff is instead going on hotel bills.” In October last year, £320,363 went on 837 hotel bookings. The same month saw £26,363 spent on 566 train fares.
The £ 2,657,732 yearly total would pay 100 officers’ salaries.
Labour MP Richard Burgon uncovered the figures through a parliamentary question. He said: “This is an expensive sticking plaster that doesn’t resolve the disastrous Tory decision to axe thousands of prison officers.”
The government says it is on track to recruit an extra 2,500 prison officers by the end of 2018.
But Mr Gillan said this was “a drop in the ocean in a service that has lost 10,000 staff”.
The Ministry of Justice said: “Detached duty is a proportionate measure we take to cover resourcing pressures and ensure we run safe regimes in prisons.”