The UK government is spending millions of pounds transporting temporary prison staff around the UK and putting them up in hotels in an attempt to deal with the staffing crisis in jails, The Independent reports. Officers are being sent hundreds of miles away from home, for just a few days or weeks at a time, to plug staffing gaps where prisons are struggling due to chronic difficulties with hiring and retaining staff. The government has now admitted spending £16.2 million on accommodation costs, transport and extra pay in 2023, costing the taxpayer almost £50,000 per officer, more than the annual salary of a senior recruit.

The number of officers being dispatched, mostly from northern to southern England, has soared by nearly 350% in the space of just four years, with HM chief inspector Charlie Taylor warning that several prisons are now “entirely dependent” on borrowed staff. An average of more than 350 officers a month were deployed in 2023 on what is termed “detached duty”. This is an increase from 79 officers a month in 2019, which cost £2.3 million according to data previously released via freedom of information requests. A total of 21 struggling prisons, one in six prisons in England and Wales, relied on detached duty last year, figures released to Labour’s shadow prisons minister, Ruth Cadbury, show, with the taxpayer spending an average of nearly £1,000 per officer each week.

“A prison service spokesperson said, “We make no apologies for ensuring that prisons are adequately staffed across the country – including areas where recruitment has been challenging. Detached duty helps us run safe prisons by quickly deploying staff to where they’re needed most. Our successful recruitment campaign means we have 4,900 more officers than in 2017, and retention rates are also improving.”