Prison
Cat C
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Wayland
IMB Annual Report 2021 · Published 23 November 2021
HMP Wayland's reporting year was dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to a severely restricted regime with prisoners often locked in cells for up to 22 hours daily, and a virtual halt to education and purposeful activity. The Board raised significant concerns about critically low staffing levels and inexperience, alongside a substantial minority of prisoners feeling unsafe and declining trust in staff. While improvements were noted in use of force management and new drug detection methods, the Board struggled to monitor healthcare due to exclusion from meetings.
Positive Findings
The Board noted Wayland's low number of Covid-19 cases and only one pandemic-related death, along with excellent communication with prisoners and consistent fairness from staff. Improvements in use of force management, new drug detection equipment (body scanner, X-ray machine), and the start of construction on a new segregation unit were welcomed. The Board was also pleased to see a decrease in healthcare 'did not attends' compared to the previous year.
Key Concerns
Staffing
Wayland is significantly short of staff, not just in numbers but, importantly, in experience and training in responding adequately to the many complex needs of its prisoners.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
There has been no research, actioned or contemplated, into the effect on rehabilitation and reoffending of the virtual cessation of programmed courses, vocational and employment training, and education for more than a year to date.
Estate/Conditions
A comprehensive refurbishment programme is necessary in the new-build wings, in order to prevent a continuing deterioration in the living conditions of prisoners.
Safety
35% of the prisoner community respondents felt that they could trust no other prisoner and of those who could trust others, an average of only three others suggests that there is an urgent need for more detailed research, and a strategic response then identified, to this situation.
Healthcare
If healthcare contractors’ contracts do not include a requirement to permit the Board’s sight of contract documents, excluding only financial and patient confidentiality issues, they are revised to do so.
Food/Catering
The per diem allowance of prison catering has remained at £2.02 for many years. It is the Board’s view that an increase per diem would create greater prisoner satisfaction with a fundamental aspect of the prison’s care for its prisoners and thereby encourage their positive response to the regime as a whole.
Staffing
Ensure that properly profiled key working, including time for training and supervision in this key prison officering skill, is included in the review of staff that we are calling for in this report.
Complaints/Property
A less tight timetable for responses would decrease delays in replies and increase the acceptance of replies which have had time to investigate the complaint properly. Relying on interim replies is seen as a brush-off by most prisoners.
Substance Misuse
Innovative use of modern technology, including the use of targeted sobriety testing or tagging, and an enlargement of official ways of sourcing permitted items, could be researched as a policy initiative by the Prison Service.
Board Commentary
Staffing
The Board is deeply concerned by low staffing numbers, with the prison often operating at two-thirds of its agreed profile and a deficit of 28 Band 3 officers. This is exacerbated by a high proportion of inexperienced staff, leading to demoralisation and a high resignation rate among junior officers. The Board believes the current staffing profile requires a radical overhaul, including better training, retention strategies, and a review of total numbers.
Healthcare
The pandemic lockdown had some negative impact on prisoners' mental health, though less severe than anticipated, with an increase in 'low mood' but not formal depression diagnoses. The Board faced significant challenges in monitoring healthcare provision, being excluded from external and internal meetings for the second consecutive year, hindering their ability to gain an evidenced view of health and wellbeing needs.
Regime & Daily Life
The Covid-19 pandemic severely restricted the regime throughout the year, with prisoners frequently locked up for up to 22 hours daily and limited time for exercise or domestic activity. Most employment, industrial workshops, training courses, and in-person education ceased. While unlock hours eased slightly towards the end of the year and for a brief period in summer 2020, the overall regime was impoverished, hindering rehabilitative opportunities.
Recommendations (21)
Other: 3
HMPPS: 10
Governor / Director: 8
Recommendation 1
The Board understands that the per diem allowance of prison catering has remained at £2.02 for many years. It is the Board’s view that an increase per diem would create greater prisoner satisfaction with a fundamental aspect of the prison’s care for its prisoners and thereby encourage their positive response to the regime as a whole (see section 5.1).
Other
(minister)
Food
Recommendation 2
We draw to the minister’s attention, as required under our remit, our surprise at our understanding that there has been no research, actioned or contemplated, into the effect on rehabilitation and reoffending of the virtual cessation of programmed courses, vocational and employment training, and education for more than a year to date (see section 7.3).
Other
(minister)
Rehabilitation and Education
Recommendation 3
The Board urges the minister to charge the public sector successors to the community rehabilitation companies with ensuring that, for all prisoners, there is effective planning for, and confirmed accommodation upon, their release (see section 7.5).
Other
(minister)
Resettlement
Recommendation 4
The Board believes, from its monitoring responsibilities, that Wayland is significantly short of staff, not just in numbers but, importantly, in experience and training in responding adequately to the many complex needs of its prisoners. The Board believes that this situation needs urgent action (see sections 3.1 and 4.2).
HMPPS
Staffing
Recommendation 5
The Board hopes, in addressing the scourge of drugs and intoxicants in prison, that innovative use of modern technology, including the use of targeted sobriety testing or tagging, and an enlargement of official ways of sourcing permitted items, could be researched as a policy initiative by the Prison Service and so recommends (see section 4.6).
HMPPS
Substance Misuse
Recommendation 6
The Board believes that a comprehensive refurbishment programme is necessary in the new-build wings, in order to prevent a continuing deterioration in the living conditions of prisoners, and looks forward to confirmation that such a programme will be commenced in the coming year (see section 5.1).
HMPPS
Estate
Recommendation 7
Based on our findings that a large majority of prisoners express a willingness to talk to staff about their problems, the Board urges the Prison Service to ensure that properly profiled key working, including time for training and supervision in this key prison officering skill, is included in the review of staff that we are calling for in this report (see section 5.3).
HMPPS
Staffing and Key Working
Recommendation 8
Through our discussions with prisoners, our reviews of the prison complaints procedures and their management, and the results of our recent survey, the Board suggests to the Prison Service that a less tight timetable for responses would decrease delays in replies and increase the acceptance of replies which have had time to investigate the complaint properly. Relying on interim replies is seen as a brush-off by most prisoners (see section 5.7).
HMPPS
Complaints
Recommendation 9
As our monitoring has revealed a significant likelihood that cell clearance certification procedures have not always been duly followed, the Board believes that the importance of managing an accurate and timely cell clearance certificate needs reinforcement on a national basis (see section 5.8).
HMPPS
Decency and Accommodation
Recommendation 10
The Board requests that if healthcare contractors’ contracts do not include a requirement to permit the Board’s sight of contract documents, excluding only financial and patient confidentiality issues, they are revised to do so (see section 6.1).
HMPPS
Healthcare Monitoring
Recommendation 11
With regard to contingency planning, the Board believes that the lesson from the current pandemic is for the Prison Service to plan, on a national basis, for the maintenance of its core remit of enabling prisoners’ rehabilitation, and so avoid the current position of almost complete failure to address rehabilitative needs for more than the first year of the pandemic (see section 7.1).
HMPPS
Contingency Planning and Rehabilitation
Recommendation 12
The Board believes that, despite the challenges, there should be a serious attempt to identify those with the greatest need for resettlement assistance and do what is possible to provide this and so recommends to the Prison Service (see section 7.3).
HMPPS
Resettlement
Recommendation 13
In the Board’s view, the expected benefit of ‘Purple Visits’ has not been fully realised due, prisoners have informed us, to the conditions imposed on relatives. It therefore urges the Prison Service to review these arrangements to find consumer-acceptable alternatives to face-to-face social and family visits (see section 7.4).
HMPPS
Visits
Recommendation 14
The Board believes, from its observations, discussions with staff and prisoners, and its recent survey, that an increasingly experienced prisoner community is meeting an increasingly inexperienced staff community, with obvious implications for prisoner management. The Board believes that this change, alone, requires focused training for new staff as they develop their skills, and urges the Governor to seek such staffing and re-establish the funding that will allow this training to take place (see section 4.4).
Governor / Director
Staffing and Training
Recommendation 15
The Board’s findings that 35% of the prisoner community respondents felt that they could trust no other prisoner and of those who could trust others, an average of only three others suggests that there is an urgent need for more detailed research, and a strategic response then identified, to this situation (see section 4. Introduction).
Governor / Director
Safety and Trust
Recommendation 16
The Board has been surprised to discover how few prisoners had had cell acceptance forms provided on their reception. Proper procedural implementation of this requirement would underline the prison’s acceptance of this practical demonstration of decency. The Board asks that an operational review be held into this identified failure in decency management (see section 5.1).
Governor / Director
Decency and Accommodation
Recommendation 17
The Board’s findings that almost 60% of survey respondents declared that they did not normally receive weekly bedding changes was disappointing, and a worse finding than previously found, when the response was evenly split. The Board draws the Governor’s attention to this finding and hopes that measures will be put in place to achieve a weekly bedding change as a matter of routine for all prisoners (see section 5.1).
Governor / Director
Decency and Accommodation
Recommendation 18
From respondents’ answers to other questions we posed, and from how prisoners describe to Members their disappointment if staff do not live up to the standards they expect, the Board believes that there is a bedrock of views in which prisoners see staff as people who they want to trust. The Board hopes that this insight is built upon to provide more effective staff training (see section 5.3).
Governor / Director
Staff Training and Relationships
Recommendation 19
This year, the Board has discovered that ‘did not attends’ for healthcare are much lower than last year’s, and hopes that strategies will be developed so that these lower numbers are maintained after lockdown is eased (see section 6.1).
Governor / Director
Healthcare Access
Recommendation 20
With an average of only half the education packs delivered to cells being returned, the Board hopes that the Governor can remedy this situation and ensure that operational and educational arrangements are brought into harmony in future, to avoid this significant waste of resources (see section 7.1).
Governor / Director
Education
Recommendation 21
The Board has been disappointed at the apparent inability to use pandemic-safe resources, such as the ‘Streetworks’ course, in the current operational response to the pandemic, and trusts that decisions can be taken, at both local and national levels, to plan for greater activity provision in future such emergencies (see section 7.2).
Governor / Director
Purposeful Activity
Other IMB Reports for Wayland
HMIP Inspections
Recent inspections by HM Inspectorate of Prisons for this establishment.
26 Jan 2026
Unannounced
PPO Fatal Incidents
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman fatal incident investigations for this establishment.