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Prison Service: Overtime

Volume 463: debated on Monday 23 July 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much was spent on staff overtime in (a) the Prison Service and (b) the Probation Service in the last five years for which figures are available. (150133)

Expenditure on overtime in HM Prison Service is as follows.

£

2006-07

10,610,045.39

2005-06

11,290,807.25

2004-05

11,845,928.68

2003-04

12,253,706.70

2002-03

12,074,887.73

In addition, the prison service has operated in some establishments a Contracted Supplementary Hours (CSH) scheme to meet specific operational needs, by which it pays for agreed volumes of additional hours from individual staff for specific periods at a standardised hourly rate. In some localised circumstances it is also possible for staff to work additional hours, for which they receive time off in lieu of payment. The expenditure on CSH (to nearest thousand pounds) is as follows:

£

2006-07

19,684,000

2005-06

15,226,000

2004-05

17,183,000

2003-04

18,341,000

2002-03

1

1 Not separately recorded.

Expenditure on overtime in the contracted out prisons is not collected by the Ministry of Justice.

The Ministry of Justice does not currently collect information on overtime expenditure from the 42 probation boards.