Failed company Carillion has been labelled a “total disaster” in a damning report on Elmley Prison.

The Independent Monitoring Board described the Eastchurch prison’s outsourcing of maintenance contracts to the firm as a “catastrophic blunder”.

The report pulls no punches and pleads with justice secretary, David Gauke, to allow the Church Road site to take the work back in-house.

It complains it took:

• Three months to repair a leak which lost thousands of gallons of water

• Three months to replace three plastic bolts on toilet doors

• Several weeks to repair damaged cells and broken windows.

The report stresses: “It is not as if the staff are not willing [to do the work themselves]. It is the mountains of bureaucracy which is the problem. It is a serious situation.”

It adds: “This has been a catastrophic blunder. The board would commend to the minister that works services are restored to in-house staff so establishments can be properly maintained.”

It reveals Elmley had 113 outstanding claims from prisoners for alleged falls from beds and lost property with a potential liability of £1 million.

The report’s author places some of the blame on overstretched officers too busy to fill in mountains of paperwork.

But it adds there had been a “marked improvement” since 2014, and the prison was now a “safer, more stable and healthy establishment” with reduced levels of violence and self-harm.

It adds there is still too much violence, mainly fuelled by smuggled supplies of the drug ‘spice’.

It has called for more than one “drugs dog” and praised the “cohesiveness, motivation and comradeship” of Elmley staff.

The prison was built in February 1992, and last year celebrated its 25th anniversary.

It holds 1,252 prisoners including many on remand from Kent courts.

It looks after young offenders, vulnerable prisoners, foreign nationals, lifers, drug addicts and some very old and ill prisoners, which partly explains some of the 13 deaths in jail between November 2016 and October 2017.

During that year, security staff uncovered 110 stashes of drugs, 80 mobile phones, 45 litres of illegally distilled hooch and 28 home-made weapons.