HMIP Inspection of Bullingdon

The prison was given an inspection in  October/November 2022, the full report can be read at the Ministry of Justice web site, just follow the links below. In their latest report the inspectors said:

HM Prison Bullingdon, a 30-year-old facility located near Bicester in Oxfordshire, currently operates as a reception prison, holding just under 1,000 adult men. Serving courts in the Thames Valley and other parts of central southern England, the prison has a large number of unconvicted or relatively short stay prisoners: 60 or more new prisoners arrive each week and nearly three-quarters of the population are there for less than six months. As with many prisons across England and Wales, Bullingdon has grappled with the difficulties of a much reduced and inexperienced staff group.

Despite these challenges, at this inspection we found a prison that remained reasonably safe and respectful, which was consistent with our previous inspection findings in 2019. Outcomes in rehabilitation and release planning remained unchanged and were still not sufficiently good, and we judged the provision of purposeful activity to have deteriorated, to the extent that outcomes for prisoners in this area were now poor.

With the operational challenge faced with such a transitory population it was reassuring to see that prisoners were received well by the prison and given a reasonable level of support and assessment after their arrival, although there was limited extension of these assessments to prepare them to make good use of their time in the prison. In our report we describe the institution as settled but subdued. There was some useful work to reduce violence, support those at risk of self-harm and ensure reasonable governance over interventions such use of force and use of segregation. Safety outcome measures were generally unremarkable, evidencing some encouraging trends, but fairly typical of similar and comparable prisons. There was, however, considerable lock down. Most prisoners were allowed out of their cell for as little as an hour a day, normally first thing in the morning. While we saw some mitigations, our random roll check found 58% of prisoners locked up during the main part of the working day. In general, the regime experienced even by those who had some employment was just not good enough. Our colleagues in Ofsted judged the overall effectiveness of education, skills and work to be ‘inadequate’, their lowest assessment.

As an institution, the prison was showing its age, with many facilities in need of investment and refurbishment. Outside areas were similarly uninspiring and far too many prisoners experienced overcrowded conditions. To the credit of leaders, work had begun to improve prisoner consultation and the deployment of peer support. There was renewed energy and investment to better support the promotion of equality, and outcomes in the provision of health care were good overall.

Staff-prisoner relationships, however, were mixed. Interactions were impeded by the limited regime, but we also observed a staff group with low expectations of, and not enough interest in, the prisoners in their charge. At the heart of this, and many other problems faced by the prison, was a chronic shortage of staff.

The prison was short of frontline staff on the wings and specialist staff in almost every department, including rehabilitative specialists, the chaplaincy, and the providers of regime activity. Leaders told us of initiatives to improve recruitment and retention among staff and work was being done to support staff well-being in an attempt to stem a high number of resignations. This work was undermined, however, by the lack of visible leadership and role modelling in frontline areas of the prison.

In the main, leaders held an honest assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the prison and were grappling with the twin challenges of a high intensity operation and a dearth of resources. Some of their priorities needed to be more focused and measurable, but we also saw some very good initiatives to support partnership working, as well as investment in important work strands. Our report lists several priorities and concerns which we hope will assist leaders to take the prison forward.

Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
December 2022

 

The inspectors also provided a note of their key concerns

 

What needs to improve at HMP Bullingdon

During this inspection we identified 12 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 shortages were debilitating and had a major impact on outcomes for prisoners.
  2. Prisoners spent too much time locked in their cells with little to do.
  3. Leaders and managers had not designed an appropriate education curriculum that met the needs of the prison population, especially vulnerable and non-sentenced prisoners.
  4. Leaders and managers did not identify the education, vocational training and commercial work starting points of individual prisoners. Prisoners did not engage in meaningful education and workplace activities, which had a detrimental impact on their attitudes to learning and attendance at their lessons and therefore their ability to progress.
  5. Leaders and managers had not ensured that all prison and education staff knew how they could support prisoners to become more interested in reading and develop their reading skills.

Key concerns

  1. Leaders and staff had low expectations about what prisoners could be trusted to do or achieve, and didn’t do enough to motivate prisoner engagement in purposeful activity.
  2. The use of force was not always proportionate, and some staff did not do enough to de-escalate incidents before using force.
  3. ACCT case management for prisoners at risk of harm did not always evidence targets and interventions that were tailored to their individual circumstances.
  4. Living conditions on the main A–D accommodation were poor.
  5. Prisoners had too little contact with their prison offender managers (POMs) and there were too few opportunities for prisoners to progress during their sentence.
  6. Public protection arrangements were not robust enough to assure leaders that risk was managed properly.
  7. Outcomes for remand prisoners were worse than convicted prisoners in key areas, including education, careers guidance and support for resettlement.

Return to Bullingdon

To read the full reports, go to the Ministry of Justice site or follow the links below: