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<p>The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information
and the latest publication covers data up to 31 March 2024.</p><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-offender-management-service-workforce-statistics"
target="_blank">HM Prison and Probation Service workforce statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)</a></p><p>
</p><p>Ensuring we attract people with the right skills and retain them so they can
progress their career in HMPPS is a key priority, we are working hard to retain and
develop clear career paths for our operational staff.</p><p> </p><p>We have invested
in several new initiatives to improve the experience of our new joiners and increase
retention of our employees.</p><p> </p><p>These include:</p><ul><li>a new peer-to-peer
learning scheme</li><li>the introduction of New Colleague Mentors for all staff</li><li>the
Career Pathways Framework</li></ul><p> </p><p>To help stem attrition we have implemented
a Retention Strategy which is linked to wider activities to improve employee experience,
employee lifecycle and staff engagement at work.</p><p> </p><p>Nationally, we have
seen a substantial improvement in the national staffing picture within prisons over
the past year. The number of Band 3-5 prison officers increased by 1,396 Full Time
Equivalent (FTE) between March 2023 and March 2024. This is the result of significant
efforts across the agency, including substantial increases in pay for staff, our first-ever
nationwide advertising campaign, recruitment schemes where we incentivised applicants
to relocate to ‘harder-to-staff’ sites, and the Prison Officer Alumni Network, where
we have fast-tracked former staff back into the service</p><p>.</p>
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