Official Statistics

Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25

Published 31 July 2025

Applies to England and Wales

1. Introduction

The Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 report presents an official assessment of prisons across England and Wales for the performance year 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025. This report assigns data-driven ratings from 4 (Outstanding performance) down to 1 (Performance of serious concern) for each measure in the 2024/25 Prison Performance Framework resulting in an overall prison rating.

2. Main Points

Over the performance year (1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025) 22 (18.5%) prisons were given a rating of serious concern. This is an increase on the 2023/24 performance year as well as being the largest number of prisons rated as serious concern since the beginning of this series. This may be a reflection of the pressures facing the prison estate which are outlined further in the Operational Context section below. Comparing performance over time is challenging, as different frameworks have been used in different years to reflect shifting HMPPS priorities.

There has been a decrease in the proportion of prisons rated as outstanding since 2023/24	↓	12 (10.1%) prisons were given a rating of outstanding, one prison fewer than in 2023/24. 60 (50.4%) prisons were rated as good or higher.
There was an increase in the proportion of prisons rated as serious concern compared to 2023/24	↑	22 (18.5%) prisons were given a rating of serious concern which is an increase of 7 prisons from 2023/24.
Category C Foreign National, Category C Trainer, Female and Open were strong overall performers		Category C Foreign National, Category C Trainer, Female and Open were the only functional groups that had no prisons attain a rating of serious concern.
8 of the prisons that have received an Urgent Notification since 2017 were rated as serious concern		8 out of the 11 adult prisons to receive a UN since 2017 were Reception prisons.

3. Background

The 2024/25 prison performance framework used 36 outcome-focused measures to formally assess prisons. HMPPS manage and own the performance framework, which is structured against six main priority areas. These are:

• Safety

• Security

• Respect

• Purposeful Activity

• Preparation for Release

• Organisational Effectiveness

Most of the measures within the framework utilise a data-driven “performance against target” model to assess the performance of each prison. Further information about the performance framework, performance measures that make up each priority area, descriptions of the functional groups and detail regarding the methodology, thresholds, and rules applied can be found in the Annual Prison Performance Ratings Guide 2024/25 accompanying this bulletin. Details of which prisons belong to which functional group can be found in the Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 Supplementary Tables that accompany this bulletin.

Each prison has been assigned one of four ratings to reflect annual performance.

Figure 1: Rating definitions

Rating	Definition
4	Outstanding performance
3	Good performance
2	Performance of concern
1	Performance of serious concern

Following the production of the data-driven performance ratings, a moderation process took place where a panel reviewed any evidence provided to determine the final performance rating for each prison. The analysis in this publication reflects the data-driven breakdowns at measure level along with the final moderated overall prison rating.

For 2024/25, the performance ratings of 9 prisons were adjusted through the moderation process. These prisons are noted in Tables 1 and 4 of the Supplementary Tables.

4. Operational Context

In 2024/25 the prison estate experienced significant capacity pressures (Prison population statistics - GOV.UK). To manage these pressures a series of measures were implemented including; an expansion of Home Detention Curfew (Home Detention Curfew and Requisite and Minimum Custody - Hansard - UK Parliament), a change to the Standard Determinate Sentence automatic release point from 50% to 40% for certain offences (Lord Chancellor sets out immediate action to defuse ticking prison ‘time-bomb’ - GOV.UK), and a change to risk assessed recall policy (Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament). There has also been a focus on building new prison places (10-year Prison Capacity Strategy - GOV.UK) and although Dartmoor was temporarily closed in July 2024 (Dartmoor Prison - GOV.UK), within 2024/25 HMP Millsike was opened (First prisoners arrive at new 1,500-place jail - GOV.UK) and HMP Cookham Wood was repurposed as an adult prison (Young offender’s institution to be repurposed - GOV.UK).

The impact of the capacity pressures, and measures to address them, will vary across the estate, but is likely to contribute towards the performance measures presented.

5. Annual Prison Performance Ratings

In 2024/25, prison performance ratings have declined compared to 2023/24. Figure 2 shows the distribution of prisons by rating per year since 2017/18. However, performance frameworks have changed markedly over recent years and therefore caution should be taken when making year on year comparisons.

Figure 2: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2017/18 to 2024/25
(Source: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 Supplementary Tables; Table 4)

• For 2024/25, the number of prisons rated as concern or serious concern was 59 (49.6%). This is an increase from 50 (42.0%) in 2023/24.

• 22 (18.5%) prisons were given a rating of serious concern in 2024/25, this is the largest number of prisons rated 1 since the start of the publication series.

• Prisons rated as outstanding represented 10.1% of prisons and is the smallest number of prisons rated 4 since 2016/17 excluding the COVID affected performance years.

A total of 27 prisons received lower ratings than the previous year, while only 10 prisons improved. Figure 3 shows the changes in prison performance ratings from 2023/24 to 2024/25.

Figure 3: Changes in Prison Performance Ratings from 2023/24 to 2024/25
(Source: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 Supplementary Tables; Table 4)

		2024/25 Rating
		1: Performance of serious concern	2: Performance of concern	3: Good performance	4: Outstanding performance
2023/24 Rating	1: Performance of serious concern	9	4	2	0
	2: Performance of concern	12	19	4	0
	3: Good performance	1	13	41	0
	4: Outstanding performance	0	0	1	12

6. Prison Function Ratings and Performance Drivers

Within Figure 4 below, the distribution of overall prison performance ratings are shown by functional groups. For how these groups are defined, please refer to Section 8 of the Annual Prison Performance Ratings Guide 2024/25.

• All functional groups had prisons that were rated as having good performance.

• Across all the groups, Reception prisons performed least well in terms of ratings, with 27 (87.1%) rated as of concern or of serious concern.

• Open prisons performed the best in terms of ratings, with 8 (61.5%) rated as outstanding and 100% rated as good or higher.

• While Open prisons still score positively, there has been a reduction in the number of prisons rated as outstanding.

• Prisons in the Category C Foreign National, Category C Trainer, Female and Open groups had no prisons attaining a rating of serious concern.

Figure 4: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 by Prison Function^{[footnote 1]}
(Source: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 Supplementary Tables; Table 1)

7. Further Insights

Housed on first night of custodial release

• Within the 2024/25 performance year, 56.3% of eligible prisons were scored as good or outstanding for the Housed on first night of custodial release measure. For the Open functional group, all 13 prisons were rated as outstanding.

• The functional group which is an exception to this distribution is Reception. For this measure, no Reception prisons were given a rating of good or outstanding and 80.6% were rated as serious concern.

Figure 5: Housed on first night of custodial release Ratings by Functional Group
(Source: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 Supplementary Tables; Tables 1 and 2)

Prisoner on prisoner assaults incidents, assaults on staff incidents and self-harm incidents

• For each of these safety measures, the majority of prisons were rated as concern or serious concern. For Prisoner on prisoner assaults incidents, 75.6% of prisons received one of these ratings. For Assaults on staff incidents and Self-harm incidents this was 72.3% and 70.6% respectively.

• Figure 6 shows the serious concern ratings (Rating 1) attributed to each function group by different safety measures. For assaults on staff, 19.4% of these prisons were Category B, even though only 8.4% of all prisons fall into that category (10 out of 119).

• Across all three safety measures, Reception prisons made up over 30% of those rated as serious concern, despite representing only 26.1% of all prisons (31 out of 119).

Figure 6: Each Function Group’s Contribution to Prisons rated Serious Concern, by Safety Measure
(Source: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 Supplementary Tables; Tables 1 and 2)

Education progress in English and Maths

• This measure was a poor performer in terms of ratings with 45 prisons (44.1% of eligible prisons) receiving performance of serious concern. 31.1% of these prisons were from the Reception prison group.

Keyworker Quality Assessment and Racial disparity in the use of force applied in prisons

• Similarly to the 2023/24 performance year, the Keyworker Quality Assessment measure had poor performance nationally. This measure had the largest number of prisons rated as performance of serious concern. This has however reduced from 2023/24 where the proportion of prisons with this rating has declined from 96.2% to 77.1%.

• Racial disparity in the use of force is another measure which saw poor performance nationally. 49.6% of prisons were rated with a performance of serious concern. This is the first year this measure was in the framework.

• The design of these measures will continue to be refined to ensure the measures are reflecting performance as accurately as possible. For the current methodology, please see the accompanying Prison Ratings Guide.

8. Urgent Notifications

HMIP have invoked an Urgent Notification (UN) at 11 adult prisons since the process was introduced in 2017. Figure 7 below shows the Annual Prison performance Ratings for 2024/25 for those prisons where an Urgent Notification (UN) has been invoked by HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP). Nearly all of these prisons were rated as either concern or of serious concern in 2024/25, except for Woodhill which was rated as good.

Figure 7: Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 for Prisons where an Urgent Notification has been invoked by HMIP
(Source: HM Inspectorate of Prisons)

Prison	Functional Group	UN Issued	Performance Rating 2024/25
Winchester	Reception	23 October 2024	1
Manchester	Category B	09 October 2024	1
Rochester	Category C Trainer/Resettlement	30 August 2024	1
Wandsworth	Reception	08 May 2024	1
Bedford	Reception	15 November 2023 / 12 September 2018	1
Woodhill	Category B	30 August 2023	3
Bristol	Reception	26 July 2023 / 11 June 2019	2
Exeter	Reception	18 November 2022 / 30 May 2018	1
Chelmsford	Reception	26 August 2021	1
Birmingham	Reception	16 August 2018	2
Nottingham	Reception	17 January 2018	1

For more information about Urgent Notifications, please see: Urgent Notification - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

9. Further Information

9.1 Accompanying Files

The following products are also published as part of this release:

• Annual Prison Performance Ratings Guide 2024/25, providing further information on how the data are collected and processed to derive prison performance ratings;

• Annual Prison Performance Ratings 2024/25 Supplementary Tables, providing underlying data and the rating for each measure by prison;

• YCS Annex: 2024/25, YCS Annex Guide: 2024/25 and YCS Annex Table: 2024/25, providing further information on Youth Custody Service Performance.

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office.

Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to:

J Sullivan

Email: CustodialPerformance.Enquiries@justice.gov.uk

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1. ‘Category C and FNO’ is a grouping of the function groups Category C Foreign National, Category C Resettlement, Category C Trainer and Category C Trainer/Resettlement. ↩