HM Prison and Probation Service is facing a call to increase pay for staff at operational grades by 6.3% from April next year as the government comes under increasing pressure over its management of the nation’s jails.
The Prison Officers Association made its demand in a submission to the Prison Service Pay Review Body published earlier this week. The request for a 6.3% rise for staff at pay bands 2 to 5 “would begin to repair and correct years of real-term losses, rebuild morale and support staff retention,” the POA said.
It is one of two options presented by the union to the PSRB. The other is the introduction of a new, “simplified” pay model that would raise prison officer salaries to £41,700 – which is the minimum earnings required for non-UK nationals to obtain a skilled worker visa.
In September it emerged that hundreds of Prison Service staff recruited from abroad may have to leave their roles because of an increase in the earnings level required to secure a visa. The current starting salary for a pay band 3 prison officer is £33,746. Staff at the lower pay band 2 are classified as “operational support grades”.
The POA said that of the two pay options it has proposed for 2026-27, the rearranged pay model was its preferred pick.
“The desired proposal for the POA is for the PSPRB to accept that it is crucial that we keep these overseas recruits – and attract more – by raising the salary of prison officers to satisfy the legislative changes,” it said in the submission.
“We therefore propose a complete overhaul of the complicated and confusing pay scales to accommodate this.
“For many years, the POA have commented to the PSPRB on the pressing need to simplify the HMPPS prison officer pay model. If the PRB do not accept that this proposal is the only option available to ensure the service is stable and able to staff prisons appropriately, by agreeing to satisfy immigration salary thresholds, we ask them to consider our proposals for a percentage pay rise for the remit group that targets gradual pay restoration.”
POA said its proposals to reform the Prison Service’s pay structure would cost £287m, while the alternative option would cost £280m.
HMPPS’s submission to the pay review body proposes a 2026-27 pay rise of 3% for band 2 staff and a “headline rise” of 2.5% for staff at bands 3 to 12.
It asked the PSPRB to "make affordability an important part of its consideration" and said the cost of the pay review body's recommendations "will need to be balanced against other prison priorities" including increasing prison places, delivering reforms recommended through the Independent Sentencing Review and "wider pressures across MoJ/HMPPS including in the Probation Service".
‘System-wide problems’ to blame for accidental releases
The POA submission on pay comes in a week when errors over prisoner releases have been the source of heated debate in Westminster.
On Wednesday, justice secretary David Lammy was repeatedly asked in parliament to clarify whether any more jailed asylum seekers had been released in error by the Prison Service since the case of sex offender Hadush Kebatu last month.
Lammy, who is deputy prime minister and was standing in for Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions, sidestepped all interrogation on the issue. It subsequently emerged that two convicts had been accidentally released from HMP Wandsworth in the preceding week, although neither of the men is an asylum seeker. One handed himself in yesterday, while the other was arrested earlier today.
Lammy said in a statement today following the arrest: "We inherited a prison system in crisis and I'm appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing. I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.
"That is why I have ordered new tough release checks, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures, and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons."
PCS, which is the civil service’s biggest union, said the mistakes highlighted “ongoing crises” faced by staff.
It said systemic issues were blighting the Prison Service, including inadequate staffing and training, unrealistic workloads and expectations, lack of planning and oversight from leadership, and “numerous” recent changes to processes designed to rapidly free up prison places.
PCS said senior prison management and government officials had ignored “grave concerns” it had raised over the past decade on behalf of its members who work in offender-management units and across the wider prison estate.
It said that mistakes such as the recent high-profile wrongful releases were “symptoms of multiple widespread problems” and that individual staff could not be blamed.
Union general secretary Fran Heathcote said the organisation stood “in full support” of members who continued to uphold professionalism and public safety under “shockingly difficult” conditions.
“Offender management units are staffed by some of our lowest paid members working in prisons. They remain under-resourced despite the prison population’s all-time high,” she said.
“We call for an immediate review of staffing levels and procedures, urgent investment in recruitment, retention and training, and guarantees that hard-working staff will not be scapegoated for the massive problems out of their control.
“If the deputy prime minister is serious about leaving no stone unturned during the independent review, PCS must be invited to contribute. It's time for managers and ministers at MoJ and HMPPS to listen, and to then to ensure that their staff are no longer left to carry the burden of a broken system.”