The women’s prison at Peterborough had become markedly safer, earning the inspectorate’s top grade for safety. Yet it struggled to give women anything useful to do, inspectors found.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons published the report in February 2024. Inspectors completed their fieldwork in November 2023.
Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, described a prison in transition after several changes of senior leader. He judged the overall picture satisfactory. In his words, “Overall, Peterborough women’s prison continued to be a competent and capable institution.”
What the grades showed
HMP & YOI Peterborough opened in 2005. The private company Sodexo runs it under a 25-year contract. The site holds a large men’s prison and a separate women’s facility, and it also serves as a designated foreign national centre. This report covered the women’s side only.
The women’s prison works as a reception and resettlement prison. It held 350 women during the inspection, against an operational capacity of 396. Women came from a wide catchment across the eastern counties and the southern Midlands. A mother and baby unit offers 12 rooms.
The inspectorate scores women’s prisons against four healthy prison tests: safety, respect, purposeful activity, and rehabilitation and release planning. Purposeful activity means education, training, work and time out of cell.
Peterborough scored good for safety. The Chief Inspector of Prisons called that a significant improvement since the last full inspection in 2017. Respect stayed reasonably good. Rehabilitation and release planning scored reasonably good, while purposeful activity fell to poor. A short Covid-era scrutiny visit, reported in April 2021, did not produce grades.
Overall, Peterborough women’s prison continued to be a competent and capable institution.
Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
Care for women in crisis
Staff treated women particularly well when they first arrived. Inspectors praised the support given to women with complex needs that often led to self-harm. Levels of violence matched those at other women’s prisons.
Most women had a member of staff they could turn to. The quality of formal key work, however, disappointed inspectors.
A new digital tool helped safer custody staff spot women at risk of cutting themselves off. It tracked kiosk activity, such as booking visits or ordering shop items, to flag those not using services. Inspectors counted it among four examples of notable positive practice.
Health care was satisfactory overall. However, mental health support did not meet the high level of need, with delays in assessments and care. Inspectors also found too few adapted cells for women with physical disabilities.
Living conditions were good, but the food was unpopular. Inspectors called the lack of self-catering facilities a missed opportunity. Work to promote equality had drifted until a newly appointed manager began to lead improvements. Foreign national women, of whom there were 52, could not access some key progression opportunities.
In the mother and baby unit, mothers could use a digital camera to photograph their children at key milestones and share the pictures with family.
Too little to do
The prison had struggled to keep up a purposeful regime. The report said: “Few women thought that their experiences at Peterborough would equip them usefully or meet their training or employment needs.”
Over a third of women did menial domestic work. Few gained useful skills through vocational training or education. Ofsted judged provision inadequate, its lowest score. During spot checks, inspectors typically found about a quarter of the population locked up during the working day.
Frequent changes of education leaders, poor planning and staff shortages had driven the decline. A newly appointed education leadership team had set a clear direction, and inspectors saw some early improvements. Leaders had not yet put in place a reading strategy.
Inspectors also warned leaders not to copy practices from the men’s prison without thought. Too few services reflected the specific needs of women, they found.
Preparing for release
The population mixed long and short stays. Nearly a quarter of women were serving more than four years, while more than 70% were on short sentences or on remand. That put heavy pressure on offender management staff.
Very high caseloads weakened offender management, and women on long sentences got too little contact with their offender manager. Some public protection measures lacked rigour. Psychological services, however, had improved.
Work to prepare women for release was generally very good. Any woman, including those on remand, could get help in the resettlement centre with tenancies, direct debits, CVs and disclosure letters. The Most in Need project built care plans for women who kept returning to prison or served very short sentences.
Many women were held far from home, but staff supported family ties. An external adviser had strengthened work on contact with children. The Chief Inspector of Prisons said stable leadership and more specialist and supervisory staff would help greatly.
About this story
This story is based on HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ report on HMP & YOI Peterborough (women), published on 26 February 2024, following an inspection that ended in November 2023. All figures and judgements are the inspectorate’s. Read the full inspection report · See the prison’s profile in our directory.
