Concerns raised over cuts to real-term prison education budgets

Photo by Andy Aitchison

Elisabeth Davies, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) National Chair, has today written to the Prisons Minister, Lord Timpson, raising concerns over significant cuts to education budgets in prisons. The letter includes findings from IMBs that suggest real-term cuts at a local level significantly exceed the inflationary pressures cited by the Prison Service. As a result, courses have already been, and will continue to be cut back dramatically across all categories of prison, leaving prisoners spending even more time locked in their cells and preventing them from making progress. Releasing prisoners without the right experience or qualifications to make a fresh start in the community simply sets them up to fail.

You can read more about the level of cuts being seen on the ground and the resulting impact on prisoners in this open letter.