On 17 March 2020, Peter Clarke, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, announced that all of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons’ (HMI Prisons) scheduled inspection work involving visits to prisons or other places of detention had been suspended up to the end of May 2020. This affected inspections, independent reviews of progress and visits as part of thematic inspection work.

We have since considered, in light of concerns about transmission of the COVID-19 virus, both the risk of HMI Prisons staff spreading COVID-19 in court custody facilities (and subsequently into other places of detention and the community) and the burden of inspections when determining what our approach to court custody facilities should be.

Given our statutory requirement to provide independent scrutiny of courts, and the fact that we are able to take steps to mitigate the risks of inspection, we have decided to reinstate our full inspection methodology for courts. We propose to conduct the first court custody facilities inspection in a small cluster which can be inspected within one week. This will allow us to test the approach and keep any burden to a minimum.

In addition, to minimise the spread of COVID-19, we will ensure that our inspection work is in line with the ‘do no harm’ principle, which requires us to take steps to ensure we do not put detainees, court custody and escort staff or our own staff at unreasonable risk.

Accordingly, we have developed detailed health and safety guidance specifically for courts, which our staff will follow at all times. We will also observe any additional health and safety processes in place at each site.

Court custody facilities – methodology (PDF) (176 kB)

Court custody facilities – health and safety guidance (PDF) (March 2021) (402 kB)