Scottish Prison Service ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR 2000-01 Presented to the Scottish Parliament in pursuance of the Prisons (Scotland) Act 1989 Laid before the Scottish Parliament by the Scottish Ministers December 2001 SE/2001/280 CONTENTS Previous Reports Vision and Mission Statement Prison Board Chief Executive’s Foreword Performance against Key Targets Honours and Commendations Custody and Order Care and Opportunity Human Resources Estates Finance Appendices 1. Location of establishments 2. Description of establishments 3. Prisoner numbers by establishment 4. Average daily prisoner population 5. Total number of receptions to establishments 6. Escapes and absconds from custody 7. Prison discipline: offences and punishments 8. Prison industries 9. Prisoners’ complaints 10. Staff numbers and recruitment 11. Staff training 12. Parliamentary accountability 13. Accounts PREVIOUS REPORTS 1970 Cmnd 4809 1971 Cmnd 4999 1972 Cmnd 5349 1973 Cmnd 5735 1974 Cmnd 6350 1975 Cmnd 6546 1976 Cmnd 7162 1977 Cmnd 7391 1978 Cmnd 7749 1979 Cmnd 8037 1980 Cmnd 8421 1981 Cmnd 8618 1982 Cmnd 8980 1983 Cmnd 9400 1984 Cmnd 9670 1985 Cm 1 1986 Cm 223 1987 Cm 551 1988 – Cm 998 1989 Cm 1499 1989 – Cm 1663 1990 Cm 2143 1990 – Cm 2323 1991 HC 515 1991 – HC 593 1992 HC 508 1992 – HC 18 1993 HC 808 1993 – HC 638 1994 HC 619 - 1994 – SE/2000/1 1995 1995 – 1996 1996 – 1997 1997 – 1998 1998 – 1999 1999 – 2000 SPS VISION CORRECTIONAL EXCELLENCE We will be recognised as the leader in prisons’ correctional work which helps reduce recidivism and thereby offers value for money for the taxpayer. MISSION We will maintain secure custody and good order; and we will care for prisoners with humanity and provide them with appropriate opportunities. ACTION We will aim to ensure that: Scotland’s prisons can fairly be viewed as the leaders in correctional services, delivering effective prisoner opportunities which help reduce recidivism; the prison estate is fit for the 21st century; Scotland’s prisons are acknowledged as providing the highest standards of service delivery across their full range of activities; Scottish prisons’ staff will be respected by the nation for their professionalism, their wide range of skills and the difficult job they do on behalf of society; and in the necessary pursuit of demonstrating value for money to the taxpayer, public sector costs will be competitive with those of alternative providers. MISSION STATEMENT The Mission of the Scottish Prison Service is: to keep in custody those committed by the courts; to maintain good order in each prison; to care for prisoners with humanity; and to provide prisoners with a range of opportunities to exercise personal responsibility and to prepare for release. THE SCOTTISH PRISON SERVICE BOARD Tony Cameron (Chief Executive) Christine Carlin Mike Duffy John Durno (Director, Estates Review) (Operations Director, (Director of Custody until South and West) October 2000 then Director of Strategy & Business Performance) Jinny Hutchison Willie Pretswell Peter Russell (Director of Strategy and (Director of Finance and (Director of Corporate Affairs until August 2000) Business Systems) Human Resources) Pete Withers Malcolm Wishart Alasdair MacIntyre (Operations Director, (Non-Executive Director) (Non–Executive Director) North and East) FOREWORD I began my foreword last year by referring to the need for continuous improvement within the Scottish Prison Service. I am happy to say that that process of improvement has continued during 2000-2001 and I am confident that with the agreement and implementation of the new Staff Attendance System in 2001-02 we will make considerable progress towards becoming more competitive. Last year saw the launch of a new Vision for the Prison Service focusing on the key themes of “Protecting the Public” and “Reducing Reoffending”. This new Vision concentrates on the concept of correctional excellence and the SPS’s desire to be recognised as the leader in prisons’ correctional work, helping to reduce recidivism and thereby offering better value for money for the taxpayer. The delivery of this Vision is predicated on a number of other actions. We must ensure that the prison estate is fit for the 21st century. We must ensure that Scotland’s prisons are acknowledged as providing high standards of service delivery across all of our activities. Our prison staff should be respected by the nation for their professionalism and their skills. We must continue with our determination to ensure value for money for the taxpayer and for the costs of the public sector provision to be competitive with those of alternative service providers. The Estates Review continued during the year and at the time of writing nears completion. Figures produced by the Scottish Prison Service in the Review are being independently audited prior to a programme of public consultation. The resolution of issues surrounding the prison estate will pave the way for us to develop our vision for the future. As is reflected in this Report the performance of the Scottish Prison Service against a series of increasingly challenging targets continues to show improvement. However the key challenge for the Prison Service in the years ahead is to fulfil its role by contributing to the Executive’s commitment of a safer Scotland. This has been reflected in the change of key performance indicators given by Ministers to the Scottish Prison Service which are more reflective of the correctional nature of the work undertaken by the Prison Service. Another important initiative of last year was the re-launch and revision of the SPS’s race relations policy. This included the appointment of a Race Relations Manager within each establishment and improved race relations training and racial awareness training for all staff. We have also introduced a racial incident reporting system to underline our commitment to effective race relations. I regret to report that in August 2000 some of our staff saw fit to take unlawful industrial action. This did little to enhance the reputation of the Scottish Prison Service and was counter-productive to our goal of enhancing the image of our staff in the public mind. The Scottish Executive’s 21st Century Government Action Plan presents a formidable challenge to the SPS as one of its targets is that -“Who provides public services is not important: what matters is that they should be delivered by the best supplier at the best price”. We therefore face the challenge of competition and have a commitment to reduce the gap between the costs of SPS and those of our competitors. We are not concerned only with providing value for money but also with correctional excellence. Over the next few years I believe that with this commitment to best value and the delivery of quality service the SPS can secure its place as service provider of choice. This will create even greater challenges for us. In our intervention and work with prisoners we must not only be effective in changing behaviour, we also have to be able to evidence this by means of reduced rates of reoffending. Both the Executive and the Scottish public look to prisons to play an active role in making our society a safer place. The Executive have made an extra £50 million available to us over the next 3 years to help in the modernisation of the estate. In turn we have to show that we are committed to quality, cost effectiveness and efficiency. T CAMERON Chief Executive PERFORMANCE AGAINST KEY TARGETS As an Executive Agency of the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Prison Service is set key targets annually by the Justice Minister. The targets cover the four arms of the SPS Mission Statement (custody, good order, care and opportunities) as well as cost per prisoner place. Setting targets for a prison service is difficult. The public rightly expect prisoners to be kept in secure custody, but maintaining good order in prisons and preparing prisoners for reintegration into society depend on balancing security requirements with the provision of a range of measures to help prisoners to address their offending behaviour and prepare for release. For example, security so high as to eliminate any possibility of an escape - if such were attainable - would conflict with the need to deliver programmes aimed at reducing re-offending and would severely restrict the need for prisoners to have access to purposeful activity of various kinds. The tightest security and supervision is therefore focused on those prisoners who are assessed as being of greatest danger to the public, with lesser security and supervision for prisoners who pose little or no threat to public safety. Average prisoner numbers declined slightly for the second year running from the all time peak of 1997-98, but the trend at the end of the year was again upward. So far as SPS performance in 2000-01 was concerned, it was a good year. The custody targets were fully met, and indeed performance was significantly better than the targets. The significant fall in the number of serious assaults by prisoners on other prisoners (69) bettered the target of 91 as well as being the lowest for 5 years. Gratifyingly the target for serious assaults on staff (14) was met. The significant shortfall in delivery of prisoner programmes was disappointing, as was the fact that we exceeded the target for the number of injuries reportable to the Health and Safety Executive. The average cost per prisoner place was actually slightly below that of 1999-2000, and substantially below target. The Service’s performance in previous years has shown a continuing improvement against a series of progressively more challenging targets. However, those targets did not fully reflect the full range of SPS’s work nor its contribution to the Executive’s plan to create a safer Scotland, which includes the rehabilitation of offenders.