Hansard - United Kingdom Parliament

105W
Written Answers
20 JUNE 2011
Written Answers
106W
From 1 April 2009 buprenorphine was added to the
standard panel of drugs tested for under MDT. This
explains the slight increase in overall positive rates in
2009-10.
Data for 2010-11 will be published in July 2011 as
part of the National Offender Management Service
annual report for 2010-11.
These figures have been drawn from live administrative
data systems which may be amended at any time. Although
care is taken when processing and analysing the returns,
the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent
in any large scale recording system.
Prisoners: Training
Sadiq Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice
how much his Department has allocated to employment
and learning services for prisoners in each year of the
comprehensive spending review period; and how much
funding his Department and its predecessors allocated
for such purposes in each year between 1995 and 2010.
[59891]
Mr Blunt: Education services for prisoners 1 are funded
by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
(BIS), devolved to the Skills Funding Agency, formerly
the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).
1
Offenders aged 18 and over.
The Learning and Skills Council assumed responsibility
for planning and funding the integrated Offender Learning
and Skills Service (OLASS) in England on 31 July 2006.
OLASS funds the delivery of skills for offenders (aged
18 and over) held in English Public Sector prisons for
both sentenced prisoners and those held on remand.
In Wales, from April 2006, commissioning responsibilities
for offender learning and skills provision became the
responsibility of Director of Offender Management in
Wales. Responsibilities for learning and skills provision
for those in custody in Wales transferred to the Welsh
Assembly Government with effect from 1 April 2009.
Data are available on spend since 2001. Table 1
includes spend directly relating to the OLASS provision
and also spend associated with the employment of
Heads of Learning and Skills in prisons, Libraries and
Higher Education in public sector prisons in England
and Wales:
Table 1
Total spend (£ million)
2001-02 57
2002-03 73
2003-04 116
2004-05 126
2005-06 151
2006-07 156
2007-08 161
2008-09 171
2009-10 181
Over the comprehensive spending review (CSR) period,
allocations are as follows:
Table 2 includes spend directly relating to the OLASS
provision and also spend associated with the employment
of Heads of Learning and Skills in prisons, Libraries
and Higher Education in public sector prisons in England
and Wales:
Table 2
Total spend in England
£ million
Total spend in Wales—
funded by the Welsh
Government
2010-11 171 2.3
2011-12 172 2.4
2012-13 1
170 1
2.4
1
Indicative.
Allocations beyond 2012-13 have yet to be confirmed.
£34 million of the growth between 2005-06 and 2010-11
(inclusive) was as a result of additional education allocations
to support the places flowing from the prison capacity
programme.
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS)
provides both physical resources and staff to support
educational activities and employment support for prisoners.
Some employment support is delivered in partnership
with the Department for Work and Pensions. It is not
possible to separately identify these costs which are not
held centrally.
Training for prisoners is undertaken, mainly by Prison
Service staff, while prisoners work or are engaged in
various areas such as prison industries, catering, physical
education, land based activities, industrial cleaning and
laundries. The central costs of the training elements of
these, mainly production functions, are not kept centrally.
NOMS gained co-financing organisation status in
January 2009 and successfully bid for a total of £50
million of European Social Funding to enhance the
skills and employment services to offenders in prison
and the community. NOMS has been granted the funding
over 27 months to increase offenders’ employability and
improve their access to mainstream support provision.
Funding has been extended into a second phase up to
2013.
Prisons: Drugs
Sadiq Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice
how much his Department has allocated to tackle drug
addiction on the prison estate in each year of the
comprehensive spending review period; and how much
funding his Department and its predecessors allocated
for such purposes in each year since 1995. [59888]
Mr Blunt: From April 2011, the Department of Health
assumed responsibility for funding all drug treatment in
prisons in England. They are providing £69.4 million 1
of prison funding previously allocated by the Ministry
of Justice and £44.5 million from their Integrated Drug
Treatment System (IDTS) budget in each of the three
years of the comprehensive spending review period
(2011-14).
Drug treatment funding allocated to prisons from
1999-2000 to 2010-11 is shown in the following table.
Information from 1995-99 is not centrally available and
could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Funding allocated to prisons in England and Wales for drug treatment
£ million
1999-2000 2 12.6
2000-01 16.5
2001-02 27.3
2002-03 28.7
2003-04 37.7