PRISONS in England and Wales are to be judged in new league tables, the prime minister has announced.

The tables would collate measures such as reoffending rates, post-sentence employment, the numbers of prisoners released into permanent accommodation and levels of literacy and numeracy.

In a speech setting out the plans for prison reform David Cameron said he would create six new 'reform' prisons where proven governors would have total discretion over how they spent their budgets - on the model of academy schools.

Whitehall at present set national limits on the number of jigsaws, sheets of music and pairs of pants a prisoner could have in their cell, Mr Cameron added, saying the freedoms would eventually be extended across the prison system.

There would also be a new "financial incentive scheme" for high-performing staff, he said, and a boost given to schemes to attract good graduates to the profession.

At present the Government had "no idea" which institutions were doing the best because no "meaningful metrics" were collected.

It would be the biggest shake-up of prisons since the Victorian era, the prime minister suggested.

He said the reform prisons would pilot "co-commissioning" of mental health services between prison governors and NHS England to ensure services were better tailored to each institution.

If successful, the system would be introduced nationwide from 2017, he said.

Mr Cameron said ministers would accept in full the recommendations made in Dame Sally Coates' review of prison education, which will be published soon, including the end to regional contracts, and promised to protect the £130 million prison education budget.

Liberal Democrat former education minister David Laws will chair a new social enterprise and work with Dame Sally and organisations such as Teach First to develop a new scheme that will encourage graduates to work with offenders.

Mr Cameron said offenders often failed to find jobs after they had been released because they were forced to tick a box on application forms declaring their convictions, which meant they were discarded by potential employers before they had the chance to "state their case".

Whitehall is adopting an American-style "ban the box" style system for recruitment that would delay the declaration of convictions until further into the process, the Prime Minister said.

He also said police are to be given new powers to speed up the deportation of foreign offenders.

Mr Cameron said that the Government would also work with mobile phone network operators to block mobile signals to jails.