Prison education cuts have fallen hardest on jails in Greater Manchester and Merseyside where planned teaching hours have been slashed by 40 per cent.
Data published by the Ministry of Justice this week shows at least 79 individual prisons have seen cuts as high as 58 per cent since the new “overhauled” Prison Education Service (PES) began last October.
Ministers admitted earlier this year that the government expected reductions to education delivery hours of between 20 to 25 per cent due to inflationary pressures affecting prison budgets.
New data shows planned education hours in 93 English jails have dropped by 21 per cent in total since the £1.5 billion contract took effect six months ago.
It means that over 130,000 hours of planned education have been lost in total to the rising costs of education delivery.
The data compared planned education delivery hours in the first six months of the new PES contract with the final six months of the previous Prison Education Framework (PEF) contract.
Prisons in Greater Manchester and Merseyside have experienced the largest drop. On average, the seven prisons in the region saw a 40 per cent reduction in education hours.
The cut is up to 20 times the reduction seen in prisons the north east and 10 times the reduction in London, which saw a decrease of 2 per cent and 4 per cent respectively.
Unhappy campers
The stark regional differences likely stem from the MoJ’s “revised” funding formula to prison budgets, which calculated a “fair” allocation to prisons based on population numbers and regional cost differences.
This meant that 79 prisons saw reductions and 13 received an increase.
North Sea Camp men’s prison in Lincolnshire has seen the biggest change – 58 per cent, or 3,328 hours, of its education time was slashed under PES.
Meanwhile, Coldingley, a small men’s prison in Woking, saw a 49 per cent, or 1,299 hours, boost to education delivery since October (see the full prison list here).
The data showed the planned education hours for 93 prisons across England, representing over 90 per cent of the prison estate.
Eight prisons in the West Midlands were excluded from the dataset as MoJ is still retendering the contract after failing to select a supplier last year due to “exceptionally close scoring” between bidders.
Cuts to education time are ‘madness’
Launched in 2023, the PES promised more focus on English and maths education and employment outcomes in a bid to boost rehabilitation and cut down on reoffending.
After a two-year-long procurement, three existing providers were awarded PES contracts worth up to £1.5 billion.
Prisons were informed of their budgets under the new PES for October 2025 to March 2027 last April. Nearly £148 million was earmarked for core prison education across 94 jails.
Critics warned of “seismic” cuts to core education, which offers prisoners literacy and numeracy courses up to level 2, as well as ICT and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) courses.
Prisons minister Lord Timpson stressed there were no cuts to the budget, but the cost of delivering education has increased significantly, causing decreases in education delivery hours.
Jon Collins, chief executive of Prisoners’ Education Trust, said: “At a time when the government should be investing in education to reduce reoffending, we have instead seen drastic cuts in the first six months of these new contracts.”
He added: “As we have said before, it is madness to cut prison education just as signs of improvement were beginning to emerge.”
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