PRIVATELY run prisons are performing worse than their counterparts in the state sector, according to a leaked document.

An internal league table produced by the prison service ranks all 132 jails in England and Wales according to six measures.

The report places 10 of the 11 private jails in the bottom quarter and shows they are consistently worse than their publicly run equivalents.

The private prisons score particularly badly on maintaining order and security.

Peterborough prison in Cambridgeshire, which has been privately managed for three years, came bottom with a poor record for organisational effectiveness, decency and reducing re-offending.

The report will re-ignite the debate about whether the private sector should be involved in running prisons at a time when private companies are bidding to fund and manage a series of new jails.

Last month, the government announced plans to build three new “super-prisons” each with space for around 2,500 inmates to help tackle over-crowding.

Prison governors now want the government to re-consider proposals to expand private management of prisons.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said privately run and state sector prisons were difficult to compare. “Direct comparisons between public and private sector establishments are not appropriate because some data are counted differently in private prison contracts,” he said.

The government said it was working to develop a “consistent basis” for comparing prisons in both sectors.

Privately-managed prisons were introduced in the 1990s and are monitored by the prisons inspectorate in the same way as public sector jails.

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