The Government has almost doubled to £1,500 the “bribe” offered to foreign national prisoners to persuade them to return home and ease prison overcrowding, The Times has learnt.

The improved package of help is being offered for the next 5½ weeks as the Government attempts to meet a target of removing 4,000 foreign prisoners by the end of the year. Opposition politicans and penal reform groups suggested last night that the enhanced package was a clear sign that the Government was not on target.

The revised package was introduced quietly without any publicity or formal announcement by the Home Office a week ago as Parliament rose for a week’s break.

Ministers were forced to offer the initial incentive package as a way to create urgently needed spaces in jails. It was also hoped that foreign prisoners who must consent to serve sentences in their home countries would be persuaded to return if offered a resettlement deal.

Prisoners from outside the European Economic Area will be able to apply for help with education, training, housing and resettlement of up to £1,500 if they apply by December 7 and are out of Britain by January 1, 2008. Under the existing scheme, announced by John Reid in October 2006, foreign national prisoners are eligible for a reintegration package of up to £800. In addition, all foreign prisoners receive a £46 discharge grant on leaving jail. British prisoners are eligible for the discharge grant but not the reintegration package.

“The scheme is designed to free up places in prisons and reduce the costs of managing these individuals who have no right to stay here,” a paper seen by The Times said.

The incentives package is available to about 8,000 foreign nationals from nonEEA states and is intended for those finishing their sentences.

The first incentive-to-leave-Britain package was launched in October last year and since then only 600 of the 11,211 foreign national prisoners have taken up the offer.

Mark Leech, the editor of the Prisons Handbook, condemmed the increase being offered. “I find it outrageous when we are releasing prisoners from this country with just £46 in their pocket and then stopping them from picking up benefits for two weeks. It would be much better if the Government focused on the 100,000 British prisoners released every year.”

Mr Leech added: “It gives totally the wrong impression. A lot of these people are from the Caribbean, many are drug mules. What message are we sending out that you get convicted and then can receive a £1,500 package of help with training, education and resettlement on returning home? It is just wrong.”

Nick Herbert, the Shadow Justice Secretary, said: “Gordon Brown talked tough when he promised to remove all foreign criminals. Now it appears he is having to resort to larger bribes to beg them to leave. The suspicion is that the Government is desperate to meet a target for deportations – which in any case is only a fraction of the foreign national prison population.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Government is committed to increases in the number of foreign national prisoners leaving the UK. We are deporting record numbers of FNPs.”

A total of 2,784 were removed or deported between April 2006 and March 2007, he said, adding: “We expect to meet the target to deport a record 4,000 for this calendar year.”

The spokesman said that the scheme was a practical and cost-effective solution to getting prisoners out of UK detention and out of the country. “There will be additional safeguards to prevent prisoners who leave the UK under this scheme from coming back, including taking of fingerprints, details flagged on the Warnings Index and individuals notified to visa-issuing posts.”

He defended the decision to increase the package without announcing it publicly to the public or to MPs. “This is not a new scheme, but a time-limited enhancement of a programme which is already up and running.”

Last month the Home Office announced that failed asylum-seekers were being offered an increased support package worth up to £4,000 to persuade them to go home early, compared with the existing £1,500. The package can include help towards school and university fees plus help with housing, childcare and setting up a business. They also receive £500 at the airport as they leave.

In a separate move to ease overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice has eased the rules under which offenders can be freed 18 days early under the end-of-custody licence scheme introduced in June. Under old rules, an offender on a treatment programme could be freed early only if the treatment started during the 18-day early-release period. Prisoners can now be freed early even if the treatment begins later.

Times Recommends

• The Times obituary: Tomaz Humar
• Too proud to claim my Jaffa Cakes on expenses
• Leaders say sorry to transported children