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31 March 2011
Last updated at 07:56 ET
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Justice Secretary Ken Clarke: 'A very impressive £216m will be saved'
The 1,400-inmate Birmingham Prison is to become the first jail in the UK to be privatised, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has told MPs.
The decision to award G4S the contract to run it came after a competition for the management of four prisons.
The Prison Officers' Association called the decision "disgraceful" and said it would campaign against the change.
Mr Clarke told MPs the "military are involved" in contingency plans should Prison Officers stage a strike.
He also told MPs that G4S will run the proposed Featherstone 2 prison, while Serco will continue to run Doncaster Prison, which was built by a private company.
'Disgraceful decision' The other prison in the competition, Buckley Hall, will continue to be run by HM Prison Service, he said.
The competition between public and private bidders to run the prisons was launched by the last Labour government, in 2009.
Birmingham jail's 752 staff were told the result of the tender at noon, BBC Home Affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said.
He said the Prison Officer's Association (POA) has a mandate from its members to take industrial action if any prisons are contracted out to the private sector.
In a statement Steve Gillan, general secretary of the POA, said: "This is a disgraceful decision. Prisons should not be run for the benefit of shareholders nor for profit. The state has a duty to those imprisoned by the criminal justice system and this coalition government have betrayed loyal public sector workers for their friends in the private sector."
In his statement Mr Clarke also said Wellingborough Prison, in Northamptonshire, had been withdrawn from the competition and would need to deliver the 10% efficiency savings required by all prisons over the next four years.
'Public protection' He said the changes would deliver savings of £21m for the three existing prisons and deliver the new Feathersone 2 prison £31m cheaper than originally planned and said "cumulative savings over the lifetime of the contracts for the three existing prisons are very impressive at £216m".
Mr Clarke said: "This process shows that competition can deliver innovation, efficiency and better value for money for the taxpayer - but also that it can do so without compromising standards.
"Public protection is not just about how we manage prisons in order to punish people. It is also about how we achieve genuine and long-lasting reductions in crime, by cutting reoffending."
Mr Clarke said that central to this was a pilot payment-by-results project at Doncaster Prison, where 10% of the contract price will be held back unless the prison can cut by 5% or more the one-year reoffending rates.
Doncaster's operators Serco will work with a range of voluntary sector and other organisations to "enable them to meet the specific needs of each individual offender".
The new contracts come into force from October, apart from Featherstone 2, which runs from April 2012.
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Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.Justice Secretary Ken Clarke: 'A very impressive £216m will be saved'
The 1,400-inmate Birmingham Prison is to become the first jail in the UK to be privatised, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has told MPs.
The decision to award G4S the contract to run it came after a competition for the management of four prisons.
The Prison Officers' Association called the decision "disgraceful" and said it would campaign against the change.
Mr Clarke told MPs the "military are involved" in contingency plans should Prison Officers stage a strike.
He also told MPs that G4S will run the proposed Featherstone 2 prison, while Serco will continue to run Doncaster Prison, which was built by a private company.
'Disgraceful decision' The other prison in the competition, Buckley Hall, will continue to be run by HM Prison Service, he said.
The competition between public and private bidders to run the prisons was launched by the last Labour government, in 2009.
Birmingham jail's 752 staff were told the result of the tender at noon, BBC Home Affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said.
He said the Prison Officer's Association (POA) has a mandate from its members to take industrial action if any prisons are contracted out to the private sector.
In a statement Steve Gillan, general secretary of the POA, said: "This is a disgraceful decision. Prisons should not be run for the benefit of shareholders nor for profit. The state has a duty to those imprisoned by the criminal justice system and this coalition government have betrayed loyal public sector workers for their friends in the private sector."
In his statement Mr Clarke also said Wellingborough Prison, in Northamptonshire, had been withdrawn from the competition and would need to deliver the 10% efficiency savings required by all prisons over the next four years.
'Public protection' He said the changes would deliver savings of £21m for the three existing prisons and deliver the new Feathersone 2 prison £31m cheaper than originally planned and said "cumulative savings over the lifetime of the contracts for the three existing prisons are very impressive at £216m".
Mr Clarke said: "This process shows that competition can deliver innovation, efficiency and better value for money for the taxpayer - but also that it can do so without compromising standards.
"Public protection is not just about how we manage prisons in order to punish people. It is also about how we achieve genuine and long-lasting reductions in crime, by cutting reoffending."
Mr Clarke said that central to this was a pilot payment-by-results project at Doncaster Prison, where 10% of the contract price will be held back unless the prison can cut by 5% or more the one-year reoffending rates.
Doncaster's operators Serco will work with a range of voluntary sector and other organisations to "enable them to meet the specific needs of each individual offender".
The new contracts come into force from October, apart from Featherstone 2, which runs from April 2012.
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