I move on to agenda item 4. I welcome Alec Spencer, who is director of rehabilitation and care at the Scottish Prison Service. He has spoken to the committee before.
As you know, the Executive's estates review proposals contained the comment that perhaps HM Prison Peterhead should close and that sex offenders should be moved elsewhere. I was invited to establish a group with external representation to work out what that might mean for the Scottish Prison Service; whether it is possible to transfer such programmes; what the future environment might look like; and how we might manage sex offenders in the future.
I am looking at page 2 of your report, which details membership of the review group. Stuart Campbell and you are listed.
Yes. Stuart Campbell is from Peterhead and has given evidence to the committee.
He is the prisoner programmes manager there.
Yes.
Donald Findlater is deputy director of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. What is that?
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation is an organisation that is devoted to working with sexual abusers and dealing with those issues.
Professor Roisin Hall is head of psychological services at the SPS. David McKay is care and opportunity training manager at the SPS. Jane Martin is service manager of criminal justice services at Fife Council. Professor Kevin Power is professor of clinical psychology at the University of Stirling and head of clinical psychology at Tayside NHS Board. Rona Sweeney is deputy governor of HMP Barlinnie.
Yes.
Did anyone in the review group have experience of working with such offenders?
David Coghill has experience of working with adolescent sex offenders.
What about women sex offenders?
There was nobody who had direct experience of working with women sex offenders, but quite a number of the people who work with sex offenders understand the issues that relate to women sex offenders. At the moment, there are very few people with direct experience of working with women sex offenders in the Scottish prison system. We were aware of the issues.
I suspect that different issues arise in respect of women sex offenders, as there are small numbers of them.
The committee will see that our recommendations are different for female sex offenders.
The review group suggested two options for the holding of long-term adult male sex offenders. One option was to utilise Glenochil, with the former young offenders institution rebuilt to provide accommodation and appropriate supporting facilities for short-term sex offenders. The other option was for a new-build prison. As Mr Spencer knows, the Minister for Justice announced to the Parliament that Peterhead would
Let us take that part first.
As I represent the minister, the question is slightly awkward for me because I cannot give an alternative to the view that Jim Wallace expressed to the Parliament. We can move on to consider the Peterhead situation and the consequences of the ministerial announcement, but the issue for the review group was that we were invited to start afresh.
Would it be fair to say that, in the long term, the Prison Service has not ruled out a replacement prison on the public sector land adjacent to Peterhead prison? I recognise that that might take many years because of the rolling programme of development for other Prison Service institutions.
That decision has been deferred; it has not been ruled out.
Will a certain amount be done to eliminate slopping out and to provide electricity to cells?
Yes.
Will that include the provision of hot and cold water?
I am not sure about that. I think that that comes with the sanitation proposals, which are quite expensive and difficult to implement.
As everything is under consideration, are you saying that you are not considering demolishing buildings and creating new buildings at the moment?
The minister was quite clear about the decision that has been taken. He said that Peterhead will remain for the foreseeable future. No decision has been taken to demolish Peterhead. The SPS board is considering how best to improve accommodation at the prison.
Chapter 7 of the review group's report sets out the group's consideration of the delivery of throughcare to sex offenders. It concluded that the optimal location would be as close to the home areas of offenders as can be organised within the requirement to provide a single-purpose prison. Given your findings, how do you envisage the development of throughcare at Peterhead prison? Do you agree with Peter McKinlay that a number of prisoners from the central belt could be seen by one social worker at the same time?
We have to consider the best ways to do that. We could introduce videoconferencing or organise visits in the most economic way—for example, the cases of two or three prisoners could be discussed at the same time.
But you do not see those problems as insurmountable?
They are not insurmountable, but they create additional cost and there are time and travel implications for those involved.
You mentioned Glenochil. What are the current proposals for Glenochil?
As far as I am aware, the development plan for Glenochil is being formulated at present. The plan involves some rebuilding of the existing adult accommodation to bring it up to standard. The young offenders accommodation is not appropriate. Once the new house block at Polmont is completed, which we hope will be in the late spring, we plan to decant the young offenders from Glenochil to Polmont. The young offenders institution at Glenochil will close. We plan to demolish the accommodation and put up some better accommodation at a future stage.
Has a decision been taken about what kind of prisoners will be put into the new accommodation?
No. We have to take account of the Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice's more recent statements.
I have a few questions about Peterhead. From what you said, I understand that, about 10 years down the road, a decision will be taken to replace Peterhead with a new-build prison either at Peterhead or, as would seem to be the review group's preference, in the central belt. Is my reading of what you said correct?
Yes. I am not sure of the time scale, but a decision will have to be taken at a future stage about where the best place is to locate sex offenders. A case has been made for that facility to be maintained at Peterhead.
You said that one of the key aspects about the location of throughcare at Peterhead was that the committee's report showed that we were not convinced about that. I take it that you disagree with us on throughcare when we say in our report that
Well, nothing is insurmountable—if we are prepared to throw money, time and resources at it. If the view is that sex offender work should remain at Peterhead for ever, we will have to ensure that, when case conferences are held there, organisations such as the police, social work agencies and child protection agencies are resourced to travel there.
The issue was not in the remit of your review group, but we found that the prison fitted into the community. That is a huge plus. We will not have the opportunity today to discuss the likely risk of disruption during any transfer, but I see that you have now assessed that risk. What you say gives me cause for concern. Your report mentions the risks that staff will "disengage" from programmes, that there will be a "lessening" of programmes, and that there will be "prisoner anxiety". It also says that such a transfer would take three years.
Any plan would take time to evolve and to be implemented. However, the point about prisoner anxiety was that prisoners might think that they were going to a prison that was not for sex offenders only—a prison where they would feel physically at risk. If it was made clear that any future prison would be a single-purpose prison for sex offenders, prisoners and their visitors would not feel anxious.
I am talking about the transfer. Three years is a long period.
You have quoted the first three words of the response but they were followed by a comma.
Yes—the response was:
I think that people were prepared to have prisoners working outside the prison, under the supervision of staff, to maintain grounds and so on. The parameters were very closely defined. The issue may have to be tested in future, but I do not think that people were willing to have sex offenders working in their midst or were prepared to have the families of sex offenders settling in Peterhead. If a prison is located far from where families live, some people will prefer to move nearer to their family member, rather than have the hassle of travelling.
It is my recollection—although other committee members will no doubt disagree—that travelling did not seem to be a big problem. Quite a few of the offenders were in Peterhead because of offences against family members in the first place.
In his submission to the committee, Andrew Coyle talked about the historical reasons for the bond between the prison and the community. The issue for the SPS and for Scotland to consider is this: because something is in one particular place at one particular time, it does not mean that it should be in that place for ever more.
That is not what I am saying.
If we are contemplating future work with sex offenders, we should ask where the best place for that work would be. However, that such work will remain at Peterhead is certainly fairly settled for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps for the coming decade?
Perhaps. I do not know at what point ministers will want to start thinking about that again, but you are absolutely right to say that it will not be for the foreseeable future.
Based on your assumptions, if there were a single prison to deal with long-term sex offenders and a unit within it to deal with short-term sex offenders, there would have to be between 450 and 600 places for long-term sex offenders and 150 places for short-term sex offenders.
I think that the numbers would be slightly lower than that. The assumptions were that there would be about 450 to 500 long-term prisoners and up to 150 short-term prisoners, so there would be between 600 and 650 prisoners in total.
Yes, but there would be 450 to 500 long-term sex offender places—hence the reason for choosing somewhere such as Glenochil, which I presume would be able to accommodate those numbers.
That is right.
Is that how many we have in the system at present?
You will see from the report that we can identify between 450 and 470 people in the system, but that is mainly based on index offence. You will also see from our reception statistics that the index offence numbers are fairly low, and that there were no life or indeterminate prisoners admitted in 2000 for sexual offences. There were some such prisoners admitted, but if they are in for murder with a sexual offence, the index offence does not show that. There are more people in prison for sexual offences than the index offence shows, and there are those in prison who have had previous sentences or previous convictions for sex offending, but the current figure does not show that.
Do you believe that the optimum way of dealing with those offenders is in a single-site prison?
The review group's view was that that is the best way.
If we require between 450 and 500 long-term sex offender places, the only single-site option that we have at the moment is at Peterhead. Is that correct?
That is the current position.
How many long-term places are available at Peterhead?
About 300.
So we are at least 150 long-term places down at Peterhead?
I would like to clarify a point. Michael, are you talking about adult male sex offenders or about long-term adult male sex offenders?
We are dealing with long-term prisoners—those serving sentences of more than four years.
You are absolutely right that that figure was the total figure. Of course, there are smaller numbers of young offenders; we estimate that there are 20 or so in the system.
I return to the issue. You have stated that we require 450 to 500 long-term places for sex offenders.
That is the expected demand.
Is your preferred option for a single site?
Yes.
The only single-site option that we have at the moment is Peterhead. From your assumptions, Peterhead has at least 150 fewer places than you would recommend are required.
For the long term, yes.
For long-term prisoners?
For the long term, because we have not identified all those prisoners at the moment.
I am working on the basis of the assumption that you based your report on. We need another 150 places and the only single-site option that we have at present is Peterhead. It could be another 10 years before anything is done at Peterhead.
I do not know the time scale.
Why did you not consider what interim arrangements should be made for the 150 long-term places that are not available at present?
We gave an option, but our politicians did not choose it. You will be aware that Jim Wallace announced that there will be a consultation period. I shall be writing to various parties, including your committee, asking for comments. We must now consider the future management of sex offenders in Scotland with the current state of affairs as it is.
If Peterhead is going to be around for at least the next 10 years, if we are to have a single-site option and if we are already 150 places down for long-term prisoners, does it not make sense to you, as director of rehabilitation for the SPS, that we should provide those places at Peterhead?
That is one of the things that we will have to examine. The point is that we then start talking about new—
I am asking you whether you think it would make sense to do that.
Well, we then have to consider new build, because of the number that Peterhead can house. If we consider new build, we must consider either the redevelopment of Peterhead or another option for housing sex offenders. It is not a simple matter of bolting on 150 places—those 150 places would be new build. New accommodation would mean that the prison's life expectancy would become longer than that of the current buildings at Peterhead. The lifetime of the whole of Peterhead prison would be prolonged for, say, another 50 or 60 years. We must make some hard decisions about where sex offenders should be located and about where new build should take place.
As the director of rehabilitation in the SPS, who is recommending a single-site option, how long are you prepared to go without a single-site option that has available the necessary number of places for long-term offenders?
You will see from the review group's report that not all those people have been identified. As the registration of sex offenders kicks in, as we know more about people, as our assessments improve and as previously convicted people come back to prison, the number of long-term offenders will rise. That is not an immediate, pressing problem, but it is a growing problem, and we will have to decide where we are going to provide the places.
In your expert opinion, what do you think the time frame for arriving at decisions will have to be?
The consultation phase will last for the next two months, after which we will have to arrive at some sort of decision as to how we will manage the offenders. I guess that that decision would be taken six months following the consultation. I suppose that, by next summer, we would hope to have some view.
Some view on? Just to finish off the sentence: some view on where the new build should be located?
No, on how we should organise the sex offender population. Offenders would have to be located at certain places—we would have to decide where they are to be located and how they are to be managed.
So we will have some direction by the summer of next year.
I cannot give a hard and fast guarantee—I will have to discuss the matter with the Prison Service board. We need to move forward and have a clear view as to how we manage sex offenders in the future.
Exactly. We have had instability in the SPS, particularly among the officers and families at Peterhead, for a considerable time now. We wish that situation to be resolved, one way or another, without hanging about for the next seven or eight years. We therefore look forward to something happening in the summer.
This is a fairly simple question, and you have already touched on it in your answer to James Douglas-Hamilton. What progress has been made with regard to having an outpost for young sex offenders at Polmont and for the very small number of female sex offenders at Cornton Vale? I am aware of what you have decided, but is anything happening in administrative or bricks-and-mortar terms?
We are having discussions with the governor of Polmont as to how best to manage that small group of offenders. At the moment there are very few sex offenders at Cornton Vale, but we are about to discuss with the Home Office and HM Prison Service their programme for female sex offenders, which is not carried out on a group basis, but on a one-to-one basis. We will try to import something from south of the border and ascertain whether it is suitable for use with female sex offenders here.
We received evidence that showed strongly that sex offenders and their families take a lot of flak when they are in what might be called a mixed prison. Might not young sex offenders at Polmont take a lot of flak from other young offenders?
We spent some time considering whether it would be better to have young offenders with a general sex offender population, if that were possible, but we thought it wrong that they should mix with adults. Our experts on adolescent sexual offending and the development of adolescents felt that it was better that they were managed in a young offender population than in any other population. Our view is that the unit for young sex offenders should be in a young offenders institution.
Will the unit be discrete?
We are having talks about that with the governor of Polmont. He has several locations in which such individuals could be housed. It is a matter of working out the best regime and how that might impact on support and on visits.
Your report says that there are only two or three female sex offenders at Cornton Vale. Are any programmes run for them?
No specific programmes are run.
You recommend that individualised programmes, such as those at HMP Styal, should be introduced. When do you hope that they will be implemented? There is nothing for female sex offenders at the moment.
I do not know when such a programme would be implemented. We are starting to talk to HM Prison Service in England and I have no doubt that we will send people to find out about such a programme. We are involved with the English Prison Service on other sex offender programmes. We undertake joint training with England for some programmes and we have separate training for other bits of our work. We need to make progress on that with some speed.
For how long have programmes for female sex offenders been provided in England?
The programme for female sex offenders is a fairly recent development.
Are you telling me that there is nothing for female sex offenders in Scotland?
There is just the individual work that social workers and others undertake with female sex offenders. Programmes such as that on cognitive skills are important in supporting the sex offender programme suite. Such work is undertaken with female sex offenders.
Your report says that sex offenders should not share cells, for obvious reasons. Do female sex offenders at Cornton Vale share cells?
I do not know.
Do you think that those people should share shells? I am trying to say "share cells", but words such as "seashells" and whatnot want to come out of my mouth.
Our general policy is that prisoners do not share cells.
We will have to find out about that, because there is overcrowding at Cornton Vale. It is important to know whether the prisoners share cells there.
I will try to find that out for the committee, but I am afraid that I do not know the answer at present.
That would be helpful.
The report advocates greater use of community interventions in working with short-term sex offenders. Will you outline the programmes that are available in the form of community interventions for short-term sex offenders?
I am not involved in that. As the committee knows, I am involved in managing programmes and interventions for the Prison Service. Our advice, from review group members and from external sources, is that although some programmes are available, they are not available in every social work area. That needs to be addressed. It is not for the SPS to do that, but for criminal justice social work to consider. I presume that that is a resource issue for criminal justice social work.
You merely flag that up as a gap in the service.
Yes. We tried to suggest that not much benefit—except if it is punishment, for protection or for victims—is to be gained from locking up sex offenders for short periods. We cannot achieve much in a matter of months, and in our view, it would be better for such people to have a consistent alternative disposal in the community. However, that means that the community must be able to offer proper programmes.
I will be as quick as I can. I move to the rehabilitation agenda. I do not know if we can complete the topic in ten minutes, but I will be as clear as I can.
I apologise if the publication date is not on the back of the document. We produced it last month, and it was intended for our partners conference, which we are holding later this month. We are bringing together some of the other agencies, including social work, the voluntary sector and employment to talk about the way forward. That is our first approach.
It does. Other committee members might wish to ask similar questions because we all share a sense of the importance of empirically sound data. The area is bedevilled by a lack of information. My concern is—let me put it bluntly—that at the end of 2000, the Scottish Prison Service board launched its new vision for being leaders in prison correctional work. If "Making a difference" was published last month—20 months on from the launch of that vision—all it does is identify that we still do not have data on the number of people who have had applied interventions, on what has been delivered or on outcome data. The document says that
Those are important questions. To reassure you in one sense—no jurisdiction has good enough information and most jurisdictions are at the start of a journey towards the evaluation and outcomes of programmes. Much more work has been done on programmes and their efficacy in North America. We are examining what we are delivering and whether it makes an impact.
I would like to press you on that. None of us underestimates the difficulty of assessing outcomes. That is not the question. Why is the Scottish Prison Service not deeply ashamed of the fact that it does not have the most basic input data?
We have input data.
Let me give you an example from "Making a difference". There has been political will to deal with the issue of drug misuse in prisons. The previous Administration led on the data that are available. However, the leaflet on social care states:
The member has asked a number of questions, which I will attempt to tackle. We have some statistics. The throughcare centre in Edinburgh has indicated that, for example, 61 prisoners established rent arrears payment plans, 47 prisoners had their evictions stopped and 195 prisoners made applications for housing. I can give the committee data on the number of programmes that we deliver in every prison and the projected number of prisoners involved in approved activities in every prison. We have input data. The issue that concerns all of us is the impact that input measures are having on offending rates.
The data are patchy. At a joint meeting of the justice committees on the budget, we asked the Minister for Justice what information he had on success rates in dealing with recidivism. The Executive is paying for courses and investing money in measures to prevent reoffending. We asked how success in combating recidivism was measured and were told that it could not be and had not been measured.
We are doing a number of things. The return-to-custody rates indicate broadly how many prisoners return to custody. Our computer system will be improved next year. Currently we are using it to track those who have engaged in programmes against the return-to-custody data. I provided information about cognitive skills programmes. We are starting to establish the effect of those programmes, which is quite good. I recommend the report "Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners" by the social exclusion unit, which was commissioned in England. The unit assumes that up to 14 per cent benefit will be achieved by running programmes.
I accept the fact that IT systems are important, but this issue is at the heart of the correctional vision. It is about more than IT; it is about managerial objectives. The what-works unit has three objectives: to identify how many prisoners require interventions; to establish what is being delivered; and to consider outcome data for prisoners. What timetable do you envisage for reaching each of those objectives? When can we expect to know the number of prisoners who require interventions; when can we have full data on what is being delivered; and when can we expect to have reasonably robust outcome data of the kind that you want?
We need IT to support the first of those objectives, as we are talking about a prison population of more than 6,000. Our plan is to roll out implementation of the computer system by the end of next year. We are developing a pilot system for the assessment of short-term offenders. That should be ready by the spring and we hope to roll it out over the following year so that, by the end of 2003-04, we will be undertaking assessments of all short-term prisoners as well as long-term prisoners.
Why is it taking so long? The Parliament has been in existence for more than three years, but you are talking as though we have just arrived. What has the SPS been doing all these years?
We have been undertaking programmes and doing a number of things—
But you have not got any data. You cannot provide information about fairly basic issues. A lot of money is wasted when people reoffend after a short time and return to prison because we are not running our prisons properly and effectively, we are not able to run the programmes properly and we do not know the outcomes of the programmes.
That is extremely unfair. Our staff are undertaking a lot of good work in prisons. We have a target—
I am not criticising the prison staff; I am talking about the management, which is not providing the committee with information.
We have a target of more than 700 programmes and 400 approved activities this year. I can tell you exactly how many of those will involve cognitive skills, drug relapse work, anger management, sex offender work, and so on. We know the inputs—they are not the issue. The issue is the outputs and their eventual impact on offending behaviour. It will take a little longer to find that out.
My final question is on a philosophical issue that is distinct from the one about the speed at which the data—even on the inputs—will be made available. The issue is not the existence of a programme, but what percentage of the prison population has benefited from that programme and may do so in the future. The specific issue is the delivery of the holistic approach. The introduction to "Making a difference" says:
Our preference is to utilise the large number of staff that we employ in a positive way. Many staff have skills that can be used. Staff who have become involved in the delivery of sex offender, anger management or cognitive skills programmes find those tasks rewarding. Although that is our preference, we understand that we will not have all the skills and specialisms. Some work is done using only staff and some work is done using staff who are accompanied by outside people with appropriate professional skills. Eventually, some work will be delivered by outside people who come in purely to do that. We do not have a problem with that mixed-economy view of the delivery of programmes.
On our visits, we have seen some excellent work and rehabilitation schemes, in which people were well motivated to participate. Such schemes were successful—they would probably lead to a job for participants when they left prison. Other schemes, although they did not involve sewing mailbags, were not intellectually demanding and would probably not lead to any useful outcome when participants left jail. What is the position on that in relation to sex offenders?
First, I will discuss work generally. We are examining our industries, in which a large number of staff and a big capital investment are involved. The industries provide an occupation for prisoners and our focus must be on whether the occupations that are provided have an impact on prisoners' chances of success after release. It might be important to have certain workshops that help with the normalisation of work, but to have textile workshops, for example, is not helpful.
It appeared that the contract at Kilmarnock prison laid great emphasis on work, but there was the suggestion that the work that was provided was work for the sake of work. No attention was paid to any benefits that might accrue to the prisoner. There were complaints that people were taken off education, which might have been more useful, because the prison had to fulfil its quota for people working. Is that an accurate representation or have I misrepresented the situation at Kilmarnock?
You might have represented the position, but that might be partly our fault. At Kilmarnock, the education department has a target of 34,500 learning hours and there is a target of 103 programmes and approved activities. I talked to the director recently and we are considering how he might change one of the workshops into a throughcare centre. Kilmarnock prison is well aware that it is part of the Prison Service and it wants to play its part.
In evidence, the Prison Officers Association Scotland told us that the Kilmarnock contract
I cannot comment on the wages side of things, because I just do not know the answer. However, I know that the management has committed itself to delivering a number of programmes.
All that I am saying is that one of the work programmes at Kilmarnock prison is stripping and recovering metal from cables.
No, I am not talking about work programmes. Just like other governors in SPS prisons, the management has committed itself to targets for delivering programmes on anger management, thinking skills, drugs and alternatives to violence. I have seen that it is delivering those programmes, which are in addition to whatever other work and education programmes are going on. I want to disabuse you of the notion that the management is not providing rehabilitative work.
For my last thrust at this issue, I will quote Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, who said:
That might have been the case some years ago. All that I can tell you is that Kilmarnock Prison Services now wants to contribute to the rehabilitation of offenders. It is quite content to deliver as many programmes as its public sector comparators and to consider a throughcare centre such as the one at Edinburgh prison. I see no difference from other SPS prisons in Kilmarnock's approach to wanting to make an impact on prisoners.
So what I have described is not the case anymore.
I do not know what happened in the past.
I quoted evidence that was given to us just this summer.
Last year, Kilmarnock prison delivered 116 programmes.
I am just asking whether what I have described is no longer the case.
I do not know where your people got their information.
It was evidence from the chief inspector of prisons.
Let me give you a fact. Compared with Edinburgh prison, which delivered 26 and a quarter hours for 43 per cent of its population, Kilmarnock prison delivered 35 hours out-of-cell time for 92 per cent of its population.
But the question is what the prisoners are doing when they are out of their cells.
At least the management is getting them out of the cells and into workshops.
Even if they are painting gnomes.
Just a minute, Michael. I will let you in in a moment.
The management is delivering programmes. Indeed, it is committed to delivering 103 programmes and other activities this year.
Apparently, the prisoners at Kilmarnock really enjoyed painting the gnomes. For some of them, it was the third time round.
You asked me several questions, but first may I thank you for the positive comment about Polmont? I think that it was the first positive thing that anybody has said about the Scottish Prison Service and I would like to record the fact that we do a lot of very good work.
In this committee, we say very positive things about the front-line staff.
Thank you.
Perhaps you could answer the substantive point now.
You spoke about young offenders being in workshops but playing cards, and about problems with contracts. For some time, we have not had a stable number of staff available to supervise prisoners. That situation has been caused partly by our escorts problem, especially in a young offenders institution where there are lots of people with outstanding charges. We hope that the new contract—which is being established jointly by SPS and the police—for the provision of escorts will lead to greater stability in prisons.
May I intervene? The reason that no work was taking place was that the contract had ended and no one at SPS headquarters, with the responsibility for procuring such contracts, had been able to find a replacement contract.
The difficulty in getting contracts comes when you cannot guarantee the reliability of the delivery. Part of the problem with the reliability of delivery from prisons is that, if staff are called away for escorts and if workshops are shut, it is very difficult to get new—
I am sorry, but that is wrong. If you—
Just a minute.
Can I say—
Let Mr Spencer finish his point.
You asked me to come here as a witness—
But what you said is wrong, and the reason it is wrong—
But, in any case—
Gentlemen, I want Mr Spencer to finish his point, after which I will allow Michael Matheson to respond, but I do not want you to talk over each other.
In any case, the governor of Polmont, when asked how things would shape up in the future, foresaw not industrial work but a training environment.
I will let Michael Matheson in with a quick supplementary, then I want to give Maureen Macmillan the opportunity to ask a question. We are running over time.
I have to correct you, Mr Spencer. You are simply wrong about Polmont and I am surprised that a person in your position could get it so badly wrong. In Polmont, the heavy workshops make the frames for road signs; the vast majority of road signs across the United Kingdom have been made there. The reason the contract has ended is that thousands of signs have been stockpiled. No more are required. The contract did not end because officers who are normally in the heavy workshops are off doing escorts; it ended because it was a pointless contract in the first place. Thousands of frames have been acquired and no one has considered introducing a new, meaningful contract. I would have thought that you, as director of rehabilitation at SPS, would have been aware of that.
I do not think that this is the time for throwing stones at each other.
But it is a fact, I am afraid.
If Mr Spencer cannot answer the question just now, he could write to the committee.
I thought that I had explained to Michael Matheson that we did not think that such industrial production was the most appropriate thing for young offenders. In a sense, Mr Matheson is right to say that it was pointless, because such work is not what best meets young offenders' needs for training, education and social inclusion. It is therefore right that the contract has stopped. I do not know what has happened to all those signs but, to get alternative contracts, we need to demonstrate the reliability of our delivery. We hope that that problem can be resolved through changes in our escort arrangements.
We will leave that one for just now. I ask Maureen Macmillan to make her question short.
When I visited prisons, I heard that one of the prisoners' complaints was that they had no qualifications with which to leave prison, such as Scottish vocational qualifications. Have you any idea which prison workplaces have what you would call a training environment? Do any prison workplaces deliver anything like that?
I do not have that information to hand, but I know that we delivered about 3,000 Scottish Qualification Authority units last year. You are right to point out that we undertake vocational training in areas such as bricklaying, catering, industrial cleaning and painting and decorating. That training attracts vocational qualifications, but we want to move the thrust towards our being able to evidence in many of our workshops the skills that employers are looking for.
How far along that road are you? In what proportion of prisons is that happening?
I do not have that information, but I will let you know.
I am trying to get an idea of what needs to be done between now and 2005 and how you propose to do it.
Can we write to you with that information?
You should write to the clerks, so that the papers are available to the committee.
Meeting continued in private until 16:55.
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