Change needed
Earlier this week (24 March 2025), the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) published the latest Learning Lessons bulletin on property complaints. Property has consistently been the most common complaint category investigated by the PPO. In 2023/24 property complaints made up 27% of all complaints investigated. In total, there were 1,164 complaints regarding property during that year. Nearly half (between 40-49%) of all property complaints have been upheld by the Ombudsman over the last five-year period.
In undertaking research for this bulletin, there were a number of common issues including property going missing during transfers, missing property cards, and problems with prison laundry .
Concerningly, the PPO found several prisons were asking prisoners to sign a separate disclaimer agreeing that the prison could not be held responsible for clothing put through laundry. These disclaimers clearly breach national policy.
The Ombudsman, Adrian Usher, summed up the problem:
“Prisons are insufficiently motivated to improve property practices”. Taking into consideration the number of property complaints we receive, HMPPS must make operational changes now in order to motivate prisons to address property handling and bring these numbers down”.
Findings
The PPO team undertook an in-depth analysis of 713 property complaints in the five years between April 2019 and March 2024. Clothing was the most common
category of property complainants said to have gone missing, representing more than half (53%) these cases of missing property. Electrical items were mentioned in 38% of
analysed cases and shoes in 22%.
Transfers
When the PPO could determine where the property went missing, it was found that 40% of the complaints involved transfers and 89% of these involved a prison-to-prison transfer. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Ombudsman also found that individual establishments varied considerably in how efficient they were at looking after prisoners’ possessions.
Losing your personal possessions can be traumatic for people in prison. Judging by the case study I have reproduced below, the reason can often be simple disinterest on the part of prison staff:
Mr A submitted a complaint in February 2024 that some of his property did not arrive at his current prison following his transfer in November 2023. The current prison sent the complaint to the previous prison to respond. The previous prison confirmed that they delivered the property to the current prison in December and that they had no further property. They suggested that this was a matter for the current prison’s reception department.
Mr A submitted his complaint to the PPO and said that both prisons were saying they did not have his property. Mr A asked for his property to be returned or to be paid compensation.
The previous prison provided a full audit trail, including the signed receipt, to show the property had arrived at Mr A’s current prison.
The PPO’s investigation found that Mr A’s property had been at his current prison for around two months at the time he complained. However, instead of telling Mr A the property had arrived and taking him to reception to check the property, the complaints were all sent to the previous prison.
As a result of the PPO’s involvement, Mr A was finally taken to reception to check his property and have the property issued. This was eight months after the property had arrived, and six months since Mr A had raised a complaint.
Conclusion
The Ombudsman makes the paint that the Prisoners’ Property Policy Framework issued in September 2022 has not resulted in a reduction of property complaints to the PPO and needs to be properly implemented:
“More should be done to ensure property is handled efficiently, effectively and with respect to reduce tensions between staff and prisoners, as well as improve prisoners’ wellbeing”.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
