Prison officers’ union POA accused the government yesterday of failing to protect the public after it announced plans to “raise capacity” at bursting jails by cramming more prisoners into existing sites.

An extra 440 places were announced this week by the Ministry of Justice and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), but all will be in established prisons.

This is in addition to a further 900 places in private jails.

But POA general secretary Steve Gillan warned that the prison system was in absolute crisis following the axe of 20 prisons and the plans would place it under intolerable strain.

Thousands of staff had left the service under voluntary exit schemes that had placed even more strain on the system.

He said that the government and NOMS must now acknowledge that their predictions of a falling prison population were wrong.

“The POA takes no pleasure in saying ‘we told you so’,” said Mr Gillan.

“It would appear that only NOMS and the coalition government were unaware, or chose to ignore, the perfect storm of a rising population, lack of staff and too few prison cells.

“This is tantamount to an abrogation of responsibility by those tasked with the essential protection of the public.”

Once again it would be his members left to “deal with the fiasco in the management of the criminal justice system,” he said.

“So nobody is left in any doubt, we hereby place on record that if NOMS and the coalition government will not protect prison staff and the prisoners in our care, the POA will.”

The government announcment came as it was revealed that NOMS boss Michael Spurr has been included in the Queen’s birthday honours list.

His award for services to offender management came despite “draconian cuts” he has implemented that have added to Britain’s prison chaos. 

POA general secretary Steve Gillan said Mr Spurr may be doing a difficult job in dealing with Con-Dem budget constraints but “many of our members will view this as a reward for his implementation of the draconian cuts of this government.

“This honour has been awarded on the backs of our members.”