NAO blames failures in Boris Johnson plan on successive governments’ policies and ‘unrealistic timelines’
Boris Johnson’s plan to provide 20,000 new prison places by 2026 is due to be completed five years late and billions over budget, a “scathing” assessment by Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.
The National Audit Office said current plans for prison capacity were “insufficient to meet future demand” amid a projected shortage of 12,400 places by the end of 2027, with costs expected to be at least £4bn higher than initially estimated.
