HMYOI Werrington, Inspections

The prison was given an inspection by HMIP in August 2023. The full report can be found if you follow the links below. In their latest reports the inspectors said

Werrington is a young offender institution near Stoke-on-Trent, which at the time of this inspection held just 89 boys aged between 15 and 18 – slightly under its capacity. The risks associated with children’s custody means that we inspect young offender institutions more frequently, and our last inspection of Werrington was only last year. Our findings at this visit were consistent with the disappointing outcomes we reported on then. Our healthy establishment tests remained poor in safety and purposeful activity. In care they had deteriorated and were now not sufficiently good. Only in resettlement did we consider outcomes to be reasonable.

Werrington’s predicament was not helped by the instability and churn in its leadership. The current governor had been in post for only six months, and while we were assured that she understood the challenges to be addressed, she was the institution’s fourth governor in three years.

Appropriate priorities were being set to address deficits and encourage improvement, but it was unclear how this would be achieved. One of the priorities we identified concerned how oversight of critical processes, such as child protection and behaviour management arrangements, had drifted and needed to be reinvigorated. Indeed, our report describes safeguarding and child protection processes as being in disarray. More positively, recorded violence, weapon finds, and use of force had all reduced, but the institution remained incredibly volatile, with individual acts of violence giving way to other forms of delinquency, notably repeated and increasing incidents of disorder and concerted indiscipline.

Over a quarter of the children we surveyed told us they felt unsafe, and 388 specific ‘keep apart’ instructions for just under 90 children dominated life in the institution, undermining everything from attendance at education to the quality of relationships they had with staff. Such arrangements, combined with staff shortages, meant that most children were out of their cells for no more than four hours each day and we found over a quarter locked in their cells during the school day. The library had been closed for over a year, too few children accessed the gymnasium and expectations for what could be achieved in education were very low. Our colleagues in Ofsted judged the overall effectiveness of education and work activities to be ‘inadequate,’ their lowest assessment. The failed nature of the regime, the lack of time out of cell, and the stifling effect of the overwhelming requirement to keep various children separated from one another, meant that various schemes supposedly aimed at incentivising children were totally lacking in credibility and effectiveness.

More positively, the institution did have an up-to-date reducing reoffending strategy supported by a good needs analysis, and reintegration planning was reasonably well organised. Work to support and maintain family contact was similarly encouraging.

Despite the near 340 staff of all grades and disciplines employed at Werrington, there was a significant shortfall in frontline supervisory staff, limiting access and negating the influence of much of this resource. Addressing this imbalance, as well as the need to reset what constitutes acceptable behaviour among children, seemed to be the critical next steps for this institution.

 

Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
September 2023

 

The inspectors provide a brief summary of action points

What needs to improve at HMYOI Werrington

 

During this inspection we identified 15 key concerns, of which seven should be treated as priorities. Priority concerns are those that are most important to improving outcomes for children. They require immediate attention by leaders and managers.

Leaders should make sure that all concerns identified here are addressed and that progress is tracked through a plan which sets out how and when the concerns will be resolved. The plan should be provided to HMI Prisons.

Priority concerns

  1. Shortfalls of operational staff hindered the development of effective relationships with children and prevented children from accessing other services at Werrington.
  2. Systems for the safeguarding of children had fallen into disarray. Too many child protection referrals were outstanding and there were long delays in referring allegations of abuse to the local authority designated officer.
  3. Behaviour management systems were ineffective. Leaders were consistently unable to deliver the incentives on offer and there were limited consequences for poor behaviour by children.
  4. Werrington accounted for 56% of all injuries during use of force in the YOI estate despite holding just 18% of the children. Governance arrangements had not identified or addressed this issue.
  5. Children spent far too long locked up, particularly on weekends where many were in their cells for up to 22 hours a day.
  6. Senior leaders had not given sufficient priority to delivering a high-quality education, skills and work curriculum.
  7. The quality assurance and improvement arrangements for education were not effective in making sure that children received high-quality learning experiences. Leaders and managers were unaware of the substantial weaknesses in the quality of education.

Key concerns

  1. Oversight of separated children was insufficient. The regime for most separated children was poor, and some children were separated without authority.
  2. In our survey, just 37% of children said they felt cared for by staff. The staff-children interactions we saw were mostly transactional and too few children received meaningful support from their allocated officer.
  3. Identified unfair treatment among different groups of children had not been investigated and addressed. Leaders did not understand the perceptions of protected groups due to a lack of regular consultation.
  4. Regime pressures and the policy to keep children apart meant that they were often not taken to health care appointments. This was a major waste of resources and had a negative impact on all services.
  5. Leaders did not promote reading and literacy. There had been no library provision for over a year and there was an absence of an appropriate reading curriculum.
  6. Leaders and managers had not made sure that all children accessed their entitlement to education, and that allocations to education, skills and work activities were driven by children’s needs and ambitions.
  7. Leaders had not developed a wider curriculum that helped children to develop social, emotional and communication skills or prepare them sufficiently for life in modern Britain.
  8. Children’s risk management plans were weak and did not fully address the risks identified.

Return to Werrington 

To read the full report go to the Ministry of Justice web site or follow the links below