Fewer full-time staff were working at West Devon prison last year, new figures show.

It comes as the prison workforce across England and Wales hit an all-time high.

But a union raised concerns over the prison workforce's resignation rate, warning of problems with keeping staff in their roles.

New HM Prison and Probation Service figures show there were 234 full-time equivalent staff members in post at Dartmoor prison as of December.

It was down from 271 the year before.

Meanwhile, there were 38,439 FTE staff members working at Prison Service and Youth Custody Service establishments across England and Wales at the end of last year.

It was up slightly from 38,359 a year earlier, and the highest figure since records began in 2013.

Of those, 22,682 were FTE band 3-5 prison officers, which was down from 22,876 the year before but the second highest figure since 2013.

Gavin Miller from Community, a trade union that represents prison workers, welcomed the increasing number of prison staff, saying "the more members of staff you have, the safer institutions are".

But he raised concerns over the prison workforce resignation rate.

He said: "retention of good staff is a constant problem" and said "a lot of work has to go in to keep those people employed".

Mr Miller added the prison workforce's pay "isn't really where it should be", and called for better pay condition for prison workers.

The figures show there was an 8.5% resignation rate across the entire prison and youth custody workforce in December.

It was slightly down from 8.7% the year before.

Rob Preece, communications manager at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "Prisons have been asked to do too much, with too little, for too long, so it is encouraging to see that workforce levels are rising again after the loss of many experienced staff in recent years.

"With fewer staff shortages, we hope to see governors doing more to get people out of their cells and involved in exercise, education, work and training.

"This would save lives and, ultimately, reduce crime."

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "Staffing levels across jails are currently near record levels. We want to attract and retain the very best prison officers which is why we have raised officers’ starting salaries to over £34,000.

"Being a prison officer is a challenging but fulfilling job that performs a vital role in society and we’re actively recruiting as we create 14,000 more prison places."