{"id":424467,"date":"2025-09-14T19:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T19:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/424467\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T19:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T19:53:09","slug":"prisons-in-england-and-wales-to-cut-spending-on-education-courses-by-up-to-50-prisons-and-probation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/424467\/","title":{"rendered":"Prisons in England and Wales to cut spending on education courses by up to 50% | Prisons and probation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prisons across England<\/a> and Wales are set to slash frontline spending on education courses by up to 50%, despite promises from Keir Starmer to improve \u201caccess to learning\u201d in last year\u2019s general election manifesto.<\/p>\n

The budget for classroom courses<\/a> at HMP Leicester will be cut by 46.5%, another men\u2019s prison is cutting spending by 25%, while a women\u2019s prison is cutting its provision in education by 26%, sources have confirmed.<\/p>\n

In one prison, there will be a reduction in the number of basic English and maths courses, including cuts to the hours of a specialist teacher who helps illiterate prisoners to read.<\/p>\n

Labour promised in 2024 to \u201cwork with prisons to improve offenders\u2019 access to purposeful activity, such as learning\u201d, acknowledging that \u201cprison leavers are more likely to reoffend if they do not have the tools to move away from crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Prison Governors\u2019 Association (PGA) told the Guardian that most prisons in England and Wales<\/a> would have their education budgets cut in real terms by at least 5%.<\/p>\n

Tom Wheatley, the president of the PGA, said: \u201cThese cuts to prison education budgets will have an immediate and direct impact on the ability of governors to provide a meaningful regime and purposeful activity for prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cuts could impede the government\u2019s plan to introduce a Texas-style system of good behaviour credits<\/a>, when prisoners can pass courses to move towards an earlier release, Wheatley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is happening at the same time as the government is proposing a move to an \u2018earned progression model\u2019 \u2026 These cuts are likely to reduce the opportunities for prisoners to earn progression,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The cuts are being introduced as the government rolls out new education contracts across prisons in England and Wales.<\/p>\n

While the overall education budget has remained the same, the cost of course contracts has soared, governors claim.<\/p>\n

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Dame Sally Coates, who conducted a landmark independent review into prison education in 2016, said: \u201cPrison education is already underfunded and to cut it even more seems a disaster. If we as a country prioritised education and training in prisons, there would be far less reoffending.\u201d<\/p>\n

Changes to prison education budgets are authorised by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). The Guardian has submitted freedom of information requests to find out more about how prisons will be affected but has been told that the MoJ does not hold data about the budgets of individual prisons.<\/p>\n

James Timpson, the prisons minister, has repeatedly emphasised the importance of prison education and training.<\/p>\n

In July, Lord Timpson wrote: \u201cWe know that purposeful activity can help to enable safe and decent prisons and have a transformative effect on reoffending rates \u2026 This is why the government committed to working with prisons to improve access to purposeful activity in its manifesto and is actively exploring the best approaches to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

An MoJ spokesperson said the government had secured investment in new roles, career advice and improvements in digital systems for prisoners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis government inherited a prison system in crisis and is working at pace to fix it. This includes changing how prison education works so that it is more effective and so that we also focus resources on building prisoners\u2019 vocational skills like construction, retail and hospitality, where there is demand for labour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe national budget for education services has not been reduced.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prisons across England and Wales are set to slash frontline spending on education courses by up to 50%,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-424467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115204404361518932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}