HMP Onley, HMIP Inspections

The prison was inspected in early summer 2022, and in their report the inspectors said:

HMP Onley is a category C training and resettlement prison in rural Northamptonshire. The work of this jail was being constrained by the staffing situation which was one of the worst I have seen. The nearby convergence of two motorways meant that there were many local employers to compete with. The jail is also next to a private prison which was able to pay a substantially higher starting salary to new officers and operational support grades. It is not far from the recently opened Five Wells, which again pays more and to the south, prisons such as Aylesbury and Woodhill (both themselves struggling with staffing levels), are able to pay a market supplement.

The prison was unable to deliver a proper category C regime. Out of a population of 732, less than half were working or attending education, and because the prison was operating a split regime even these prisoners were only spending half the day off the wing. Moreover, this restrictive regime wasn’t always being carried out; short staffing was leading to it being frequently curtailed, a situation that was worse during the weekends.

The education provider had underperformed and had been unable to recruit enough staff, meaning that most of the workshops were empty. The extensive greenhouses in the market garden were falling apart and beds were overgrown with weeds. The quality of teaching was poor and the allocation system did not work – for example, prisoners at GCSE level were in the same maths class as those at entry level.

Despite poor provision of purposeful activity, we were pleased to see significant improvement in safety. Led by the conscientious governor and his team, staff at Onley should be congratulated for the work they had put into reducing the supply of drugs and bearing down on the high levels of violence that we found at our last inspection when we awarded our lowest score for safety.

Violent incidents against prisoners had reduced by 65% and by 24% against staff, and 38% of prisoners in our survey, against 55% last time, told us that they had felt unsafe sometime during their time at the prison. Similarly, there had been a 19% fall in the number of prisoners who said it was easy to get drugs in the jail. Levels of violence however, still remained higher than in similar prisons.

The prison was also better maintained and much cleaner than at our last inspection with new showers fitted on many of the wings and most cells were in better condition.

Sentence progression should be at the heart of a category C training prison, but the offender management unit was, in most cases, providing little more than piecemeal support and prisoners said they rarely heard from their prison offender managers. There was a good team delivering accredited programmes, but the range was not wide enough to cover the needs of many prisoners, affecting their progression. Leaders had worked hard to restart key work, and although it was still inconsistent, Onley had made more progress than other prisons we had recently inspected.

The jail largely serves a London population, despite being a considerable distance from the capital, and although the prison had worked hard to restore visits to pre-pandemic levels – it remained a difficult and expensive place for families to get to. Despite this distance, the prison had worked hard to navigate the complexities of the various probation services it interacts with to provide a decent resettlement service.

With a high proportion of ethnic minority prisoners, the governor had taken personal responsibility to improve the responses to discrimination incident report forms and to address disproportionate outcomes.

Lower levels of violence, and the end of COVID-19 restrictions, offer a springboard for leaders at Onley to open up the regime and motivate prisoners, many of whom have become indolent after two years of lockdowns, so that the prison can really fulfil its function as a category C prison. Unless the dire staffing situation improves however, it is hard to see to see how this can be achieved.

Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
July 2022

 

The inspectors also listed areas which were of particular concern

 

What needs to improve at HMP Onley

During this inspection we identified 14 key concerns, of which five should be treated as priorities. Priority concerns are those that are most important to improving outcomes for prisoners. 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. Staff shortfalls in many areas limited progress in achieving better outcomes for prisoners.
  2. Governance of medicines management was limited and lacked effective oversight.
  3. Prisoners did not have sufficient access to education, skills and work activities to improve their resettlement chances. More than half of prisoners were unemployed and spent too much time locked in cells. The allocations process was inefficient and leaders did not use classroom and workshop places well enough. Too few prisoners had the opportunity to complete accredited qualifications.
  4. The quality of education was inadequate. The curriculum was not planned effectively, or the delivery of subjects sequenced well enough, to enable prisoners to build on their skills, knowledge and behaviour.
  5. Prisoners were rightly frustrated that they could not make progress in addressing their offending behaviour. They had insufficient contact with prison offender managers and there was too little access to offending behaviour programmes.

Key concerns

  1. Some escorting arrangements were poor. We found prisoners who had taken over 24 hours on transfer from London.
  2. Oversight and accountability for use of force against prisoners was not good enough.
  3. The quality and amount of food provided for prisoners was poor.
  4. There was too little support for foreign national prisoners and their specific needs were unmet.
  5. Support for prisoners needing social care was underdeveloped. There was no up-to-date memorandum of understanding setting out procedures for making social care referrals, which potentially led to unmet need.
  6. Prisoners did not have sufficient or fair access to the gym. We found prisoners who had had eight gym sessions during the previous week, while others were limited to nearer one a month.
  7. Attendance at education or workshop activities was poor. Leaders and prison staff did not encourage or motivate prisoners well enough to attend their activities. Too often prisoners chose, and were permitted, to remain on their wings.
  8. Careers advice and guidance provision was insufficient for the prison population. Too many prisoners had not received any advice for their next steps or future career goals. Leaders had not developed sufficient links with external employers.
  9. There was no tailored provision for those serving indeterminate sentences. The lack of progression opportunities, combined with the absence of a suitable living environment, caused many to feel frustrated.

Return to Onley

To see the full report go to the Ministry of Justice web site

This section contains the reports for Onley from 1999 until present