Limited work and education is holding back a ‘safe and respectful’ prison, inspectors have said.

Lancaster Farms, located just outside the city of Lancaster, was inspected earlier this year, with inspectors noting that overall, the prison was calm and well maintained however, the provisions of purposeful activity – education, training, and work – was lacking.

The Category C prison, which housed 544 men at the time of the inspection, has a had a respectful culture underpinned by relaxed and friendly staff-prisoner interactions.

Prisoners surveyed were positive about their treatment by staff, although inspectors noted that delivery of the key worker scheme, which enables staff to develop constructive and motivational relationships with prisoners, was inconsistent.

Chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, said: “Overall, this was an encouraging inspection.

“Although outcomes in purposeful activity needed to improve radically, our findings showed that a score of ‘reasonably good’ had been sustained in our two of our healthy prison tests, safety and respect, while outcomes in rehabilitation and release planning had improved and were now also ‘reasonably good’.”

Inspectors said the prison felt safe and rates of violence had reduced since the last inspection.

Leaders had correctly identified bullying and debt as drivers of violence and some measures had been introduced to tackle these, but more work was needed.

Debt, alongside boredom, had been identified as reasons for self-harm, which was beginning to increase, but the prison’s response was ineffective.

Too many at risk of self-harm spent long periods locked up, and this limited time out of cell was one of the biggest problems at Lancaster Farms.

Those in full-time work or education had a good amount of time unlocked, but at the time of the inspection there were only enough full-time places for about a third of the population.

Mr Taylor added: “Lancaster Farms has a number of impressive qualities, but its fundamental purpose is resettlement, and it simply isn’t delivering on that at the moment.

“Senior leaders need to take our concerns about both the amount and quality of purposeful activity for prisoners seriously and act immediately to address them.”

Lancaster Farms opened as a young offenders' institute in 1993 and was doubled in size three years later, and has been re-roled a number of times since opening and is now a Category C men's prison, and is one of five prisons in Lancashire.