Chamber
Plenary, 05 Sep 2002
05 Sep 2002 · S1 · Plenary
Item of business
Prisons
Scotland needs prisons fit for the 21st century. We consulted on proposals to achieve that goal, we have listened to what people said and we have considered the issues carefully. I now set out our plans to modernise Scotland's prison system.
Our approach combines investment in existing and new prisons. It builds on the existing roles of both the private sector and the public sector. This morning, I shall announce the largest ever investment programme in publicly run prisons, which will set us on the path to ending slopping out. That will be a significant achievement not only for the Executive but for the Parliament. Such an achievement is possible because we faced up to hard facts and hard choices during the estates review. It has not been a time for wishful thinking or political opportunism.
I shall also set out our response to rising prisoner numbers, especially the dramatic increase in remand numbers. I will set out our commitment to openness, accountability and excellence in all the work that is done by and in prisons and with prisoners. I believe that we have made the right choices, which will be welcomed by those who share our commitment to modernising public services and to correctional excellence. Prisons must help make Scotland a safer place by reducing reoffending.
I turn first to the alternatives to prison. Where public safety or the seriousness of the offence demands a prison sentence, the prison place must exist. However, sometimes people go to prison for the lack of a better alternative. We are committed to providing the right mix of custodial and non-custodial sentences for the courts to use. At the time of the estates review, we were already committed to those alternatives. We are in the process of extending the availability of drug treatment and testing orders. We have opened drugs courts in Glasgow and Fife. We have achieved national roll-out of restriction of liberty orders—or tagging orders—and there are early signs of an encouraging rate of take-up by the courts.
We will go further still. I am considering extending the use of supervised attendance orders, which I believe offer the scope to end the use of imprisonment for fine default. That further progress should reduce the projected prisoner population by 700 places, which is a prison's worth of alternatives to custody. I shall also look closely at other proposals to offer the courts a more flexible mix of custodial and non-custodial disposals.
Even the most enthusiastic advocates of alternatives to prison recognise that new prison places are required to reduce overcrowding and to end slopping out. Some of our prisons are more than 100 years old. Most were built for locking people up, not for helping them confront and change their offending behaviour, and some were not even built as prisons. In the decades before the creation of the Parliament, all those prisons were starved of investment. The estates review threw into sharp relief the fact that the public sector has not built a prison for about 20 years and has fallen behind modern standards for the efficient management of prisons. That must end.
As well as building on the role of the private sector, we will invest to secure reforms in our publicly run prisons. All our prisons—public, private, existing and new—must provide an excellent service. The public has a right to expect that and to see the evidence of whether it is happening. We believe that there is more to do to ensure openness, transparency and excellence in all the work that is done in Scotland's prisons and with offenders in the community by the Scottish Prison Service and partner organisations.
The evidence of reform is beginning to come through. The Prison Service has reached a partnership agreement with the unions, which will be signed later this year. The agreement commits them to working together to making the public sector more competitive. That is in line with our commitment not only to excellence in public services but to valuing the staff who provide them. We believe that public services should become more competitive, including by adopting modern flexible working practices. We also believe that those who provide services to the public should be good employers.
We want to see further reforms in the public sector: first, of the way in which performance is managed; secondly, of our existing prison buildings; and, thirdly, in order to provide the new places that we need. In each of those areas, the public sector can learn from, and work in partnership with, the private sector. That is a big challenge for the public sector, but I want to see the public sector rise to that challenge. Above all, I want the Scottish public to have the best services at the best value, whether those come from the public or private sector.
The first area that I mentioned concerns performance management. The chief inspector of prisons has drawn attention to the focus and clarity that has been brought by contract management for private prisons. He has called on the Prison Service to introduce similar measures in the public sector. I have instructed the SPS to bring forward proposals to achieve that. I expect that to result in published performance agreements for publicly run prisons and full reporting of performance against those targets. The Parliament has a key role in holding ministers and the Prison Service to account for the performance of our prisons. I see an important role for the justice committees in that aspect of our proposals. I look forward to discussing that when I meet them in joint session later this month.
Secondly, I want to see our existing prisons transformed. We have set the SPS the challenge of saving £12.5 million out of current expenditure, which it is succeeding in doing. Today, in advance of our announcement of the outcome of the spending review, I confirm that every penny of those savings will go into investment in publicly run prisons. Furthermore, I confirm that we will roll forward the SPS's existing capital investment programme for the next three years. We will top that up with new money in the spending review. The result will be a prison modernisation fund of more than £110 million for the next three years, which is a massive investment in publicly run prisons—more than ever before.
The modernisation fund will be used to back the implementation of development plans, which will start at Edinburgh, Perth, Polmont and Glenochil. Those plans draw on the best of modern prison design and set out to recreate that in our existing prison estate. I hope that we will be able to go on from there to all other publicly run prisons. As we proposed in the estates review, we will continue the work that is now under way at Barlinnie to create a fully modernised 530-place prison. We are investing the equivalent of the cost of a new prison in the publicly run estate. Taken together with other plans and work that is already in hand, that will create the equivalent in modern places of two new prisons spread across the publicly run estate.
Our investment in publicly run prisons will transform the existing prison estate, but we cannot create enough spaces in existing prisons to respond to the current levels of overcrowding and likely future growth. Prisoner numbers are at record levels and are set to go higher still over the next few years. Remand numbers in particular have seen a step change: the remand population is 28 per cent higher now than it was in the same period last year.
We have decided to respond to that growth with two new 700-place prisons, which will be on sites in central Scotland that the SPS will identify in consultation with local authorities and others. I emphasise that a number of sites are still under consideration and that no decisions have been taken.
After careful consideration, we have decided that the first of those prisons should be privately built and privately run. That route brings the new capacity on stream as quickly as possible to respond to the rapid rise in numbers. I have already said that the remand numbers show the biggest increase. To secure value for money, we will procure fully flexible prison places, but our intention is to use those places to respond to the current rapid rise in remand numbers.
In tendering for the prison, we will seek innovative proposals to provide care and opportunities for those on remand, including needs assessment and detoxification services. Innovative proposals may also feature an appropriate role for voluntary and charitable not-for-profit organisations. As part of our commitment to openness and accountability, we will publish the contract for that prison just as we have done for Kilmarnock.
The second new prison is my challenge to the public sector. I want the Scottish Prison Service and the trades unions to have the chance to show that they can bridge the gap between the private and the public sector on competitiveness. If they can produce for me a robust and credible plan for the second new prison—a plan that is competitive, offers value for money and delivers the places that we need on time—I am prepared to take that project forward in the public sector or as a privately built, publicly operated prison. However, I repeat that I will have to be satisfied that the proposals offer value for money to the taxpayer, that they are affordable, and that they will deliver.
I turn now to the question of how we protect our communities by managing sex offenders. The debate has focused on Peterhead, but the issue goes much wider. Peterhead houses some 300 sex offenders and as many again are in other prisons. We have already responded to the MacLean committee's report with the measures that are in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. We are taking forward the recommendations of the Cosgrove committee. I am publishing today the report of an independent expert group of psychologists and psychiatrists, including specialists from Peterhead led by Alec Spencer of the Scottish Prison Service.
The focus of our efforts will now move on to proposals for comprehensive sex offender programmes across the prison estate, integrating existing work for long-term offenders with that for short-term prisoners and young offenders. We will welcome comments on the Spencer group's report before the end of the year. Thereafter, the SPS will hold discussions with partner agencies. Further proposals will be brought forward for the next session of Parliament.
We have listened to the consultation responses on Peterhead. We have heard how we might improve access to night sanitation, and we have heard from the families of offenders that some prefer to visit a prison where there are only sex offenders. We have always recognised the work of the staff at Peterhead as world class. We have always pledged that their work and the ethos that they have created will be protected. As our priority is to develop wider sex offender programmes, now is not the time to move the long-term programmes from Peterhead. Peterhead will therefore remain open and will continue to be the main centre for long-term sex offenders. The SPS will invest to improve the existing accommodation by installing electric power in cells. It is discussing the offer from the Prison Officers Association Scotland relating to prisoner access to night sanitation.
An important influence on our thinking has been the turnaround in the attitude of the local community—from initial, understandable, apprehension, to what is now committed support. I pay tribute to the dignified and effective campaign on behalf of Peterhead, in particular by the partners of the staff and by Aberdeenshire Council.
The decisions that we have reached combine alternatives to prison with investment in publicly run prisons and new prisons, in order to meet the rapid rise in prisoner numbers and to drive forward reforms in the public sector. Those measures meet the objectives that we set in the estates review. They show that we have listened. They are backed by our commitment to the principles of openness and democratic accountability that underpinned the creation of the Parliament. This programme of modernisation sets us on the path to ending slopping out, as the Parliament has long called on us to do. The measures are about more than buildings; they are a necessary further step in our work to modernise and reform the SPS and to sharpen its focus on correctional excellence. The measures have not been easy to shape, but I believe that they have benefited from the scrutiny that the Parliament is here to provide. In that spirit, I commend them to the Parliament.
Our approach combines investment in existing and new prisons. It builds on the existing roles of both the private sector and the public sector. This morning, I shall announce the largest ever investment programme in publicly run prisons, which will set us on the path to ending slopping out. That will be a significant achievement not only for the Executive but for the Parliament. Such an achievement is possible because we faced up to hard facts and hard choices during the estates review. It has not been a time for wishful thinking or political opportunism.
I shall also set out our response to rising prisoner numbers, especially the dramatic increase in remand numbers. I will set out our commitment to openness, accountability and excellence in all the work that is done by and in prisons and with prisoners. I believe that we have made the right choices, which will be welcomed by those who share our commitment to modernising public services and to correctional excellence. Prisons must help make Scotland a safer place by reducing reoffending.
I turn first to the alternatives to prison. Where public safety or the seriousness of the offence demands a prison sentence, the prison place must exist. However, sometimes people go to prison for the lack of a better alternative. We are committed to providing the right mix of custodial and non-custodial sentences for the courts to use. At the time of the estates review, we were already committed to those alternatives. We are in the process of extending the availability of drug treatment and testing orders. We have opened drugs courts in Glasgow and Fife. We have achieved national roll-out of restriction of liberty orders—or tagging orders—and there are early signs of an encouraging rate of take-up by the courts.
We will go further still. I am considering extending the use of supervised attendance orders, which I believe offer the scope to end the use of imprisonment for fine default. That further progress should reduce the projected prisoner population by 700 places, which is a prison's worth of alternatives to custody. I shall also look closely at other proposals to offer the courts a more flexible mix of custodial and non-custodial disposals.
Even the most enthusiastic advocates of alternatives to prison recognise that new prison places are required to reduce overcrowding and to end slopping out. Some of our prisons are more than 100 years old. Most were built for locking people up, not for helping them confront and change their offending behaviour, and some were not even built as prisons. In the decades before the creation of the Parliament, all those prisons were starved of investment. The estates review threw into sharp relief the fact that the public sector has not built a prison for about 20 years and has fallen behind modern standards for the efficient management of prisons. That must end.
As well as building on the role of the private sector, we will invest to secure reforms in our publicly run prisons. All our prisons—public, private, existing and new—must provide an excellent service. The public has a right to expect that and to see the evidence of whether it is happening. We believe that there is more to do to ensure openness, transparency and excellence in all the work that is done in Scotland's prisons and with offenders in the community by the Scottish Prison Service and partner organisations.
The evidence of reform is beginning to come through. The Prison Service has reached a partnership agreement with the unions, which will be signed later this year. The agreement commits them to working together to making the public sector more competitive. That is in line with our commitment not only to excellence in public services but to valuing the staff who provide them. We believe that public services should become more competitive, including by adopting modern flexible working practices. We also believe that those who provide services to the public should be good employers.
We want to see further reforms in the public sector: first, of the way in which performance is managed; secondly, of our existing prison buildings; and, thirdly, in order to provide the new places that we need. In each of those areas, the public sector can learn from, and work in partnership with, the private sector. That is a big challenge for the public sector, but I want to see the public sector rise to that challenge. Above all, I want the Scottish public to have the best services at the best value, whether those come from the public or private sector.
The first area that I mentioned concerns performance management. The chief inspector of prisons has drawn attention to the focus and clarity that has been brought by contract management for private prisons. He has called on the Prison Service to introduce similar measures in the public sector. I have instructed the SPS to bring forward proposals to achieve that. I expect that to result in published performance agreements for publicly run prisons and full reporting of performance against those targets. The Parliament has a key role in holding ministers and the Prison Service to account for the performance of our prisons. I see an important role for the justice committees in that aspect of our proposals. I look forward to discussing that when I meet them in joint session later this month.
Secondly, I want to see our existing prisons transformed. We have set the SPS the challenge of saving £12.5 million out of current expenditure, which it is succeeding in doing. Today, in advance of our announcement of the outcome of the spending review, I confirm that every penny of those savings will go into investment in publicly run prisons. Furthermore, I confirm that we will roll forward the SPS's existing capital investment programme for the next three years. We will top that up with new money in the spending review. The result will be a prison modernisation fund of more than £110 million for the next three years, which is a massive investment in publicly run prisons—more than ever before.
The modernisation fund will be used to back the implementation of development plans, which will start at Edinburgh, Perth, Polmont and Glenochil. Those plans draw on the best of modern prison design and set out to recreate that in our existing prison estate. I hope that we will be able to go on from there to all other publicly run prisons. As we proposed in the estates review, we will continue the work that is now under way at Barlinnie to create a fully modernised 530-place prison. We are investing the equivalent of the cost of a new prison in the publicly run estate. Taken together with other plans and work that is already in hand, that will create the equivalent in modern places of two new prisons spread across the publicly run estate.
Our investment in publicly run prisons will transform the existing prison estate, but we cannot create enough spaces in existing prisons to respond to the current levels of overcrowding and likely future growth. Prisoner numbers are at record levels and are set to go higher still over the next few years. Remand numbers in particular have seen a step change: the remand population is 28 per cent higher now than it was in the same period last year.
We have decided to respond to that growth with two new 700-place prisons, which will be on sites in central Scotland that the SPS will identify in consultation with local authorities and others. I emphasise that a number of sites are still under consideration and that no decisions have been taken.
After careful consideration, we have decided that the first of those prisons should be privately built and privately run. That route brings the new capacity on stream as quickly as possible to respond to the rapid rise in numbers. I have already said that the remand numbers show the biggest increase. To secure value for money, we will procure fully flexible prison places, but our intention is to use those places to respond to the current rapid rise in remand numbers.
In tendering for the prison, we will seek innovative proposals to provide care and opportunities for those on remand, including needs assessment and detoxification services. Innovative proposals may also feature an appropriate role for voluntary and charitable not-for-profit organisations. As part of our commitment to openness and accountability, we will publish the contract for that prison just as we have done for Kilmarnock.
The second new prison is my challenge to the public sector. I want the Scottish Prison Service and the trades unions to have the chance to show that they can bridge the gap between the private and the public sector on competitiveness. If they can produce for me a robust and credible plan for the second new prison—a plan that is competitive, offers value for money and delivers the places that we need on time—I am prepared to take that project forward in the public sector or as a privately built, publicly operated prison. However, I repeat that I will have to be satisfied that the proposals offer value for money to the taxpayer, that they are affordable, and that they will deliver.
I turn now to the question of how we protect our communities by managing sex offenders. The debate has focused on Peterhead, but the issue goes much wider. Peterhead houses some 300 sex offenders and as many again are in other prisons. We have already responded to the MacLean committee's report with the measures that are in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. We are taking forward the recommendations of the Cosgrove committee. I am publishing today the report of an independent expert group of psychologists and psychiatrists, including specialists from Peterhead led by Alec Spencer of the Scottish Prison Service.
The focus of our efforts will now move on to proposals for comprehensive sex offender programmes across the prison estate, integrating existing work for long-term offenders with that for short-term prisoners and young offenders. We will welcome comments on the Spencer group's report before the end of the year. Thereafter, the SPS will hold discussions with partner agencies. Further proposals will be brought forward for the next session of Parliament.
We have listened to the consultation responses on Peterhead. We have heard how we might improve access to night sanitation, and we have heard from the families of offenders that some prefer to visit a prison where there are only sex offenders. We have always recognised the work of the staff at Peterhead as world class. We have always pledged that their work and the ethos that they have created will be protected. As our priority is to develop wider sex offender programmes, now is not the time to move the long-term programmes from Peterhead. Peterhead will therefore remain open and will continue to be the main centre for long-term sex offenders. The SPS will invest to improve the existing accommodation by installing electric power in cells. It is discussing the offer from the Prison Officers Association Scotland relating to prisoner access to night sanitation.
An important influence on our thinking has been the turnaround in the attitude of the local community—from initial, understandable, apprehension, to what is now committed support. I pay tribute to the dignified and effective campaign on behalf of Peterhead, in particular by the partners of the staff and by Aberdeenshire Council.
The decisions that we have reached combine alternatives to prison with investment in publicly run prisons and new prisons, in order to meet the rapid rise in prisoner numbers and to drive forward reforms in the public sector. Those measures meet the objectives that we set in the estates review. They show that we have listened. They are backed by our commitment to the principles of openness and democratic accountability that underpinned the creation of the Parliament. This programme of modernisation sets us on the path to ending slopping out, as the Parliament has long called on us to do. The measures are about more than buildings; they are a necessary further step in our work to modernise and reform the SPS and to sharpen its focus on correctional excellence. The measures have not been easy to shape, but I believe that they have benefited from the scrutiny that the Parliament is here to provide. In that spirit, I commend them to the Parliament.
In the same item of business
The Presiding Officer (Sir David Steel):
NPA
We begin today with the ministerial statement on the prison estates review.
The Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice (Mr Jim Wallace):
LD
Scotland needs prisons fit for the 21st century. We consulted on proposals to achieve that goal, we have listened to what people said and we have considered ...
Roseanna Cunningham (Perth) (SNP):
SNP
We are now nearly three years into what has been one of the worst conducted parliamentary reviews I have ever seen. Three years of shambles is no credit to t...
Mr Wallace:
LD
I am grateful to Ms Cunningham for offering a welcome to the fact that Peterhead is not to close.As her questions went on, we saw clearly how bereft the SNP ...
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton (Lothians) (Con):
Con
I welcome the minister's decision on Peterhead, which is a victory for common sense. The STOP: Closure of Peterhead Prison Officers Partners committee has wr...
Mr Wallace:
LD
I am pleased that Lord James welcomes the announcements that I have made, particularly with regard to Peterhead. The way in which the consultation procedure ...
Pauline McNeill (Glasgow Kelvin) (Lab):
Lab
I am bound to welcome the £110 million investment in the public sector prisons and the modernisation of some of the draconian conditions that prisoners and s...
Mr Wallace:
LD
I recognise the concerns about terms and conditions that Pauline McNeill has raised on many occasions. She will recall that the contract establishing Kilmarn...
Donald Gorrie (Central Scotland) (LD):
LD
I welcome the minister's statement and the changes made since the prison estates review. They show that consultation with the general public and the views of...
Mr Wallace:
LD
I welcome the fact that Donald Gorrie welcomes the statement. Donald Gorrie referred to some media reports and I know that sometimes there are those who seek...
The Presiding Officer:
NPA
Unusually, the list of members wanting to ask questions goes off the bottom of my screen. I appeal for short exchanges in order to allow more members to speak.
Michael Matheson (Central Scotland) (SNP):
SNP
I want to raise two issues. The minister made great play of reducing the prison population by some 700, using alternatives to custody. Will the minister conf...
Mr Wallace:
LD
Current investment at Barlinnie and in new house blocks at Polmont and Edinburgh is not included in the £110 million. On what is included in the £110 million...
Michael Matheson:
SNP
So it is not new money.
Mr Wallace:
LD
It is money that has not previously been committed to capital investment. New money will come in the spending review—about £15 million.
Tommy Sheridan (Glasgow) (SSP):
SSP
Is that extra money or is it already in the system?
Mr Wallace:
LD
That is included in the £110 million; it is new money.We are rolling forward the £20 million capital investment that is currently in the baseline. That money...
Margaret Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab):
Lab
I welcome the minister's statement and in particular the recognition of the need to modernise the prison estate. Will the minister agree to meet me, Premier ...
Mr Wallace:
LD
I preface my answer by saying that I was careful to say that we are not making any announcements or decisions today about sites. However, I recognise—Margare...
Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP):
SNP
I welcome the statement on Peterhead as far as it goes. However, there is no commitment to new build there. The minister said that there is a saving of £12.5...
Mr Wallace:
LD
I suggest to Christine Grahame that she goes to Polmont and Edinburgh to see the new house blocks that are currently being built and will be completed within...
Maureen Macmillan (Highlands and Islands) (Lab):
Lab
The minister has talked about the partnership agreement with the unions in the prison service and there has been a lot of talk about flexible working conditi...
Mr Wallace:
LD
What I have said is clear. We want to take forward the chief inspector of prisons' recommendation that we examine ways in which to improve performance manage...
Bill Aitken (Glasgow) (Con):
Con
Does the minister agree that the frank admission in his statement and in his answer to Mr Matheson that prison numbers will rise is indicative of the fact th...
Mr Wallace:
LD
I welcome what is implied Conservative party support for alternatives to custody. That is encouraging. However, I cannot accept the premise of Mr Aitken's qu...
Phil Gallie (South of Scotland) (Con):
Con
We suggested tagging.
Mr Wallace:
LD
I indicated that in the first four months of the roll-out across Scotland of electronic tagging orders—which Mr Gallie properly points out were introduced by...
George Lyon (Argyll and Bute) (LD):
LD
I congratulate the minister on his statement. He has demonstrated a genuine willingness to listen and respond to consultation. As he said, the situation is n...
Mr Wallace:
LD
Having made the announcement today, I believe that it is only fair that the SPS management and the trade union side have a proper opportunity to work up prop...
Tommy Sheridan:
SSP
Does the minister agree that his statement was nothing more than a testimony of failure? There has been a failure to reduce prisoner numbers generally and a ...