Prisoner Telephony Service replacement on hold yet again • The Register

The UK Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will pay telco BT £94.6 million plus VAT to keep its in-cell Prisoner Telephony Service (PTS) going for another 54 months after repeatedly pushing back procurement of its replacement.

The ministry announced a bridging agreement under which BT will continue to provide the PTS to prisons in England and Wales from June 1, 2027 – the current contract's expiry date – to November 30, 2031. The ministry says it needs the time to buy and set up its replacement, the Prisoner Integrated Communications Service (PICS), which will allow monitored voice calls, messaging, and possibly video calls through digital devices.

This latest delay marks another setback in the MoJ's efforts to modernize prisoner communications. The department was courting potential suppliers in February 2023, but in November that year, the MoJ said it was pausing the project to allow "a further period of discovery." In April 2024, it published a prior information notice for PICS with an estimated value of £330 million plus VAT. Procurement was scheduled to start "no earlier than early 2026."

A subsequent supplier event was delayed by the general election. The MoJ published a preliminary market engagement notice in April last year. The estimated value had shrunk to £302.4 million plus VAT over 14 years, which included an estimated tender date of November 30, 2026, and the new service starting on January 31, 2029.

This week's bridging agreement notice pushes back procurement for PICS to 2027, meaning the replacement service won't begin until at least 2031.

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PTS covers 109 prisons in England and Wales, allowing around 70,000 prisoners to call a limited number of approved numbers from their cells. They pay for calls to family, friends, and lawyers, and can contact the Samaritans support service for free.

The service is sometimes known as PIN phones as prisoners use personal identification numbers to access their accounts, with their call details logged and audio recorded and monitored, except for conversations with legal advisers.

The service used to rely on shared phones on prison landings, but over the last few years HM Prison and Probation Service has installed in-cell phones in its 92 closed prisons across England and Wales. These provide more privacy and avoid fights in queues for phones, according to prisoners' newspaper Inside Time.

The move to in-cell phones may contribute to prisoners spending longer on the blower. In the first half of 2025, they made 37.9 million calls lasting 264 million minutes, according to prisons minister Lord Timpson responding to a question last year from the Bishop of Gloucester Rachel Treweek. This is equivalent to triple the number of call volumes and a fivefold increase in call duration since 2016.

The repeated delays in replacing the Prisoner Telephony Service highlight ongoing challenges in government technology procurement, particularly for sensitive systems that must balance security, cost, and prisoner welfare considerations. The extended contract with BT ensures continuity of service but also means the current system, which dates back to earlier implementations, will remain in use for several more years.

The bridging agreement represents a significant additional investment in maintaining legacy infrastructure while the ministry works through the complex requirements for its replacement. The PICS system promises to modernize prisoner communications with digital devices supporting voice, messaging, and potentially video calls, but the timeline for delivery continues to slip as the MoJ navigates procurement challenges and technical requirements.

For the thousands of prisoners relying on the service to maintain contact with family and legal representatives, the delays mean continued use of the existing system, which while functional, lacks the capabilities of modern digital communication platforms. The extended contract also raises questions about the long-term costs of maintaining aging technology versus the investment required for a modern replacement system.

The Ministry of Justice has been approached for comment on the latest delay and the reasons behind the continued postponement of the PICS procurement process.