HMYOI Werrington – high levels of violence pose ongoing threat to progress
Inspectors returning to HMYOI Werrington found worryingly high levels of violence continued to dominate the institution, with a number of serious assaults taking place even during the brief period of the review.
Inspectors carried out a full inspection of Werrington in January 2022, at which time they noted unacceptably high levels of violence and poor education and other activities for children. At this interim review of progress, carried out in September 2022, inspectors found an institution still struggling to manage behaviour and provide a purposeful regime for children.
It was clear that, despite support from the Youth Custody Service (YCS), local leaders were unable to prevent outcomes deteriorating further in the months following our inspection. Werrington was a very violent place where conflict and poor behaviour management led to children being locked up for far too long and often unable to access education or other interventions. Morale among staff was also understandably low as they experienced very high levels of assaults and their role was reduced to keeping children apart to prevent violence.
Since the appointment of a new governor and deputy governor three months before the review, staff morale had started to improve and progress had been made in areas such as living conditions, healthcare and provision of offending behaviour interventions. However, in the key areas of behaviour management, time out of cell and education the new governor had not had enough time for new initiatives to have a significant impact on the experience of children.
Inspectors were encouraged to see that the new governor understood that keeping children in small groups during the pandemic had created more conflict, and that increasing purposeful activity was key to reducing disorder at Werrington. But they were concerned to note that levels of violence and conflict were so high and behaviour management so poor that it had only been possible to reintroduce full-time education the week of the review, after two and a half years of part-time provision. This had led to an initial spike in violent incidents as children had more contact with each other.
It is going to take time and commitment to tackle the violence at Werrington, and the positive work that we saw had been initiated will need time to come to fruition. We were disappointed to hear that the new governor will not be remaining in post, risking more instability in an already fragile institution. It is vital that prison leaders persevere with the changes he introduced, including education and time out of cell for children.
Notes to editors
- Read the HMYOI Werrington independent review of progress, published on 3 November 2022.
- HM Inspectorate of Prisons is an independent inspectorate, inspecting places of detention to report on conditions and treatment and promote positive outcomes for those detained and the public.
- Werrington started life in 1895 as an industrial school and was subsequently purchased by the Prison Commissioners in 1955. Following implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 1982 it converted to a youth custody centre in 1985 and in 1988 it became a young people’s centre.
- Independent Reviews of Progress (IRPs) began in April 2019. They were developed because Ministers wanted an independent assessment of how far prisons had implemented HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ recommendations following particularly concerning prison inspections. IRPs are not inspections and do not result in new judgements against our healthy prison tests. Rather they judge progress being made against the key recommendations made at the previous inspection. The visits are announced and happen eight to 12 months after the original inspection. They last two and a half days and involve a comparatively small team. Reports are published within 25 working days of the end of the visit. We conduct 15 to 20 IRPs each year. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons selects sites for IRPs based on previous healthy prison test assessments and a range of other factors.
- At this Werrington IRP we followed up nine of the recommendations from our recent inspection and Ofsted followed up three themes. HM Inspectorate of Prisons judged that there was good progress in one recommendation, reasonable progress in two, insufficient progress in three and no meaningful progress in three. Ofsted found reasonable progress in one theme and insufficient progress two themes.
- A report of the most recent full inspection of HMYOI Werrington is available on our website, as is the accompanying media release.
- This inspection took place between 12–22 September 2022.
- Please email media@hmiprisons.gov.uk if you would like more information.