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I welcome Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons for Scotland, Mr Fairweather, to the committee again. We look forward to this afternoon's proceedings. I understand that members have received copies of the text of Mr Fairweather's opening statement, but I invite him to read the statement to us so that we can ensure that it is included in the Official Report. Mr Fairweather, perhaps you should start by introducing your colleagues.
The line-up is much the same as it was a year ago. On my left is my staff officer, Brian Henaghen, and on my right is my deputy, Eric Fairbairn.
Thank you, Mr Fairweather. You have made comments on a variety of subjects. I am interested in overcrowding. At one point you suggest that to some extent the prison system was simply lucky last year that prisoner numbers were not greater. You said that the steady prison population was "fortuitous", which is a posh way of saying lucky. Elsewhere, you refer to "underlying indications" that prisoner numbers will increase. Can you elaborate on what those indications might be? That could be particularly important in the coming years.
The report was published the day before the annual statistics were published by another department—I do not know whether the Parliament sees copies of those. However, one of the clear trends in the statistics showed that, in the most recent period that was examined, the number of prisoners serving sentences of 18 months and longer was increasing.
Will that have to be dealt with by way of new build?
Yes.
I will follow on from the convener's question on longer sentences. Because longer sentences will prevent some reoffending, will that mean fewer people in court and fewer people on remand?
Yes, I suppose that that is a possibility.
On page 43 of your report, you have listed items of best practice. Out of 13, 12 are at Kilmarnock. Would you comment on that?
The other one is at Dumfries. We found many examples of best practice at Kilmarnock—the largest number that we have come across. On the other hand—I do not want to go into the inspection that I am currently carrying out in too much detail—we are also finding items of best practice in Edinburgh. The number at Kilmarnock is unusually large. Not all the items are major, but we have listed a lot of tidy and innovative practices. We hope that the public sector prisons can now follow them.
We would welcome that. Obviously at Kilmarnock there is the opportunity of using new facilities, which gives an advantage.
We could be here for some time discussing costs; I may ask my deputy to comment. I would like to read out what we actually said on costs at Kilmarnock in our report. We said:
I am aware that the issue is a matter of considerable controversy, as the figures that have been produced are not unchallenged. I am not sure that we can go too far into the matter at this stage; the committee might want to come back and take evidence on the issue. I do not know whether Her Majesty's chief inspector is really in a position to shed light on the subject. However, there is controversy about the comparative figures.
I recognise that, convener, and I thought that it would be interesting to find out whether an inspector had a remit to investigate the issue. There are unfair comparisons within those figures.
I do not know whether that is possible. The prison, along with Penninghame and Longriggend, has been advertised for sale. However, I do not know whether there has been a buyer. Although it is never too late, one of the immediate problems would be finding the staff, who have been absorbed elsewhere.
I stand to be corrected, but I do not think that the SPS can move on the sale until 19 September, which means that there would be time if the inspector of prisons thought that keeping Dungavel open were a good idea. I will press you on that point.
I have said that Dungavel might yet prove to be one closure too many. However, that is still in the future.
As a matter of information, I think that the statutory instrument has been in force since 7 July.
Okay.
I think that we were slightly unhappy with the Executive about the time scale for introducing the instrument, which meant that it came into force about a week after we were asked to consider it.
Just for the record, convener, is it the case that, if the committee had not supported the negative instrument, it would have had to stand until 19 September and would have been debated in the chamber?
Yes, that is true.
Thanks.
Are you finished just now, Phil?
Yes, but I would like a second go at the next opportunity.
I always assume that, Phil.
I hope that you will assume the same with me, convener, in case I want another nibble. There is such a wealth of information and I have so many pink slips with all the questions that I want to raise.
I will ask my deputy to reply to that question, as he investigated that point. After making a comparison with an equivalent prison, which was Perth, we found that the number of misconduct reports was particularly high at Kilmarnock prison.
A misconduct report is made when a prisoner is alleged to have breached prison discipline, perhaps for testing positive for drugs, abusive language, fighting or disobeying a lawful order. It is a minor summary procedure. For the 12 months that Kilmarnock prison had been open, there were 3,000 such reports. As the chief inspector said, we compared that with Perth, which has similar numbers and a similar prison mix, and found that there were fewer than 1,500 reports at that prison. The situation is not too unusual in itself. When a new prison opens, people push the boundaries or explore what can or cannot happen. However, the figure for misconduct reports was significantly higher at Kilmarnock.
Your report says that
That could be a component, as well as the fact that they were operating in a new environment. The number of reports was dropping off. To start with, prison staff might not have known about or perhaps were not confident in pursuing alternatives—taking somebody to one side, explaining what the situation is and, in effect, giving an unofficial warning. There were signs that they were becoming more confident in saying, "That's not on. Go away and if you do it again you will be on report."
Was another component the fact that the staff to prisoner ratio in Kilmarnock is much lower than in other prisons? There is closed-circuit television, but the ratio of men to men is not so good.
The ratio was lower than in many other prisons because of things such as CCTV, different architecture and good sightlines—at Kilmarnock, you can see what is going on, so you do not need so may staff to control the environment.
I would challenge that. There are things that you can see on CCTV, but there could be things going on that you cannot see.
I will take the first part of that question. The main thing that came over to me and other members of the team was that the relationship between staff and prisoners was very different and, we thought, particularly good. All the prisoners who spoke to us said that the staff were much more approachable and treated them as individuals. The staff were very proud of that—it was obvious that they had been trained to take that approach. If there was one thing that I would want to take from Kilmarnock for the public sector—there are many things that I would not necessarily want to take away—it is that. That is not to say that that attitude does not exist in many public sector prisons, but it seemed to be more consistent at Kilmarnock. That is one positive thing that I can say about the staff-prisoner relationship.
Why did you say "possible exploitation"?
We would have said that even before we arrived at the prison. It is a new prison—it has been open for only a year—into which a whole lot of volunteer long-term prisoners have been put. It is our experience that there is a question of balance—how will things go in the first year? Ninety-one per cent of the staff had no previous prison experience. In the report, we are saying that the prison has not done badly after a year. However, there are manipulative individuals in the prison—as there are and always will be in prisons—and we hope that the prison can get further on top of things in the next year.
There were two serious assaults on staff at Kilmarnock, which is twice the number at Barlinnie. That gives me concern.
I am curious about the initial understanding that there were four serious assaults. In the report, you say in a footnote that the figure has been revised. Can you explain why you thought that there were four in the first place? Have two assaults been demoted in some way?
I apologise for the fact that the report has a footnote. When we were not far from going to print, we understood that there had been four serious assaults, which certainly would have made Kilmarnock the most violent prison in Scotland in terms of violence by prisoners on staff. My deputy will explain the detail but, at about the same time, the SPS had been revising some of the key performance indicator standards, and it turned out that two of the assaults were not classified as serious. We were told that they were at the time, but subsequently that changed.
Before we go on, does that mean that there were four assaults on prison staff —two of which were somehow reclassified as less serious?
Yes.
So there were four assaults on prison staff, two of which had their classification changed.
There was a range of assaults on staff, one of which involved somebody being hit with a chip. That was recorded as being technically an assault. Kilmarnock reported every such incident from no-injury assaults—for example, a prisoner pushing a prison officer—to somebody being punched in the face and receiving a broken tooth. All those incidents were reported to SPS headquarters, which classified the assaults separately according to whether they felt that an incident was a serious assault or not. The SPS then reported the figures to us as four serious assaults. We spoke to the SPS controller for Kilmarnock who said that there had been only one serious assault. We said that the controller should speak to prisons headquarters, because they told us that there were four. There was dialogue between Kilmarnock prison and prisons headquarters, after which we were told that the cases had been reviewed and that the number of serious assaults should be two, rather than four.
Nevertheless, the number of serious assaults was high there compared with elsewhere.
Presumably the number of reported incidents was more than four. How did the number of reported incidents compare with other establishments? Do you have information on that?
No, but it would appear that the number was significantly higher at Kilmarnock because it reports occasions on which somebody was pushed and jostled, whereas other prisons do not.
I would like to pursue another line of questioning.
That is okay. I wanted only to deal with Kilmarnock.
I know that other members have questions.
In previous reports we always said that remand prisoners were probably most at risk. I feel that they are—although I do not have evidence for that—because in many cases they do not know the outcome of their trials. There are many other factors that probably make remand prisoners more vulnerable and one such factor is that the throughput of remands is pretty high. All the factors indicate that remand prisoners are particularly at risk.
A short time ago I spoke to senior prison officers about the problem of remand suicides. One point that they made was that, although there is a warning on prison telephones indicating to prisoners that phone calls are monitored, mail is no longer monitored. The cause of suicide can often be a "Dear John" letter that prison officers do not know about. Would it be possible to examine the mail of prisoners who might be considered to be at risk?
Eric Fairbairn has considerable experience of that. I do not have all the details, but I think that two suicides were related to information that was received by letter.
There have been a number of "Dear Johns". Are committee members familiar with that term?
My clerk has just asked me what a "Dear John" letter is. It might be useful to explain that a "Dear John" letter is a euphemism for a letter from a girlfriend—or, occasionally, a boyfriend—to their partner, which tells them that they are now an ex-partner because the boyfriend or girlfriend has found somebody else while their partner was away. I suppose that that can be rather devastating.
I thought that the term "Dear John" letter was within judicial knowledge.
It turns out that it is not. Perhaps it is an outdated euphemism. We should probably say "Dear John" e-mail now.
When mail was censored and checked, "Dear John" letters and bad news generally would be picked up and dealt with. The hall would be notified and the individual would be told about the letter. That happens less often because mail is no longer censored, but merely checked to ensure that its content is appropriate and that things are not being smuggled in. That is the right course of action.
Are you saying that of the nine suicides in remand, two had received "Dear John" letters?
I was referring not solely to remand suicides, but to the 17 suicides in Scottish prisons last year, of which one is still an alleged suicide. I do not want to go into individual cases, but I think that two of those suicides had something to do with information from outside. I am not sure whether that information came by letter or by telephone.
My inclination is that we should intercept mail, as we do phone calls, if that would save a couple of lives.
We could talk about this for a long time. It would be equally, if not more, important that the family of an individual who was going to prison, who feared that that individual might be a suicide risk, were able to convey that information to the Prison Service in a more channelled way. I do not know whether there is such a system at present. One might argue that that is as important as opening mail.
That would, of course, raise privacy issues.
Monitoring of telephone calls also raises privacy issues.
My question follows on from what Christine Grahame said about vulnerable people on remand. Last autumn I was at Longriggend and saw the situation there. For example, there was a small unit there in which there were some very vulnerable young men, some of whom had learning difficulties. What provision has been made for them in the transfer from Longriggend?
I will deal first with people awaiting deportation. In our inspection of Greenock in 1995, we said that we did not think that prison was the right place in which to hold such people. At that time, we described the conditions for those people in Greenock—in A hall, I think—as raw and unfortunate. We also suggested that, if it were not possible to find somewhere that was run by the immigration service rather than by the Scottish Prison Service—that is what should happen, but the numbers of people that are involved are very small—somewhere more central and with better conditions should be found. The Prison Service reacted to that suggestion by moving those people to Longriggend. I do not think that anyone would have wanted Longriggend to remain open only for that purpose. We are all pleased to see it close, but a side-effect has been that people awaiting deportation have been returned to Greenock.
I am keen to ask about educational resources because I am impressed by what is happening.
We pay tribute in the report to the education unit at Longriggend—it was one of the prison's plus points.
There is a question whether that can continue at Barlinnie.
I am not sure, but I imagine that once the extra people from Longriggend are squeezed into an already overcrowded prison, and if those young remand prisoners are all right, someone else will be disadvantaged. It might take quite a while to set that balance right. Nevertheless, I still think that they are in the right place, rather than being at Longriggend.
I want to ask about three subjects: Kilmarnock, challenges to conditions under the European convention on human rights, and capacity. I welcome the opening statement, which is useful to members in looking ahead to see what sort of issues are of concern to the prison population. I am especially mindful of what was said about staff morale.
We went to Kilmarnock at an unfortunate time for that establishment. It had been open for only a year. Ideally, I would have liked to delay our inspection until at least two years—if not longer—had elapsed. That would have given prison staff, management and everyone else involved in the prison the time to get all the services up and running. I took that advice from my deputy and others when Shotts prison first opened under the SPS. Its first year was a nightmare for a variety of reasons.
The SPS has a drugs strategy that is to be deployed in every public sector prison. One of the benefits of Kilmarnock—which was put to us by members of the prison's board—was that it could address things afresh and do things differently. That was why that prison took a different approach to the management of drug misuse. It was not simply implementing SPS policy; it was developing new and fresh ways of doing things, which was one of the reasons for its existence.
In the light of what you say about the decency issues that exist at Kilmarnock, do you foresee any European convention on human rights challenges in relation to the conditions in Kilmarnock or in other prisons?
We mentioned that in our report on remand—"Punishment First Verdict Later"—which was published earlier in the year. In summary, there are two possible challenges ahead for remand, although they could be made by any sort of prisoner. The first concerns the decency of conditions and practices such as slopping out. We have referred to the possibility that that issue could be raised on 3 October. The second challenge from prisoners could come if the conditions that were configured in one way in one prison were not as good elsewhere. Someone might complain about slopping out in Barlinnie and make a further complaint that being held in Barlinnie did not compare to being held in Kilmarnock, where there is no slopping out. I do not have the legal answers to those challenges, but I am told—having consulted fairly widely—that those are possible future challenges. I think that there has already been one challenge this year over slopping out at Barlinnnie, but we do not know the outcome of that. Nobody knows whether there is a raft of challenges waiting to be made, or whether they will be successful.
The report makes it clear that you are concerned about capacity and you give us the figures for this year. I have worked out that there are only 11 spare places. Throughout its inquiry into prison closures, the committee has been concerned about the capacity of the Prison Service to deal with an upsurge in the prison population, or with an emergency. Can you comment on any concerns that you might have about prison capacity as it is and as it might be in the next year?
For now, we are managing, although Barlinnie is overcrowded because one hall is shut. I have been pressing for something to be done there. However, one feels that, up ahead, capacity will not match demand, especially if decisions continue to be made as to whether new builds are required. There is some concern about that. What was the second part of your question?
You have given the current figures, but I wondered whether you have thought about whether we will face difficulties with capacity next year.
Because the population has remained low, it is possible that the situation can be managed as of now. However, statistics indicate that the number of prisoners will creep up. No one knows the effects that the ECHR will have. It would be wise to think in the medium term about building. In the shorter term, however, we must deal with the question of the hall in Barlinnie.
In addition to capacity, there is the issue of putting the right prisoners in the right places. As was pointed out, the increase in the number of prisoners who are doing between 18 months and two years will cause overcrowding in local prisons—principally in Barlinnie and in places such as Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness, where prisons are between 12 per cent and 18 per cent overcrowded. However, there might be vacancies in long-term establishments. It is not simply a question of matching capacity with prison population.
We covered that aspect last year and talked about the fact that prison cells do not operate on the same lines as hotel rooms.
I want to ask about overcrowding and capacity. When the earlier closures were announced, the committee was advised that the closures would not lead to overcrowding—although it is fair to say that there was some scepticism about that—because the prison closures related to lower security clearance prisoners. We were advised also that overcrowding pressures were to do with the higher security categories. Does that remain a reasonable assessment? I ask in the light of your comments in this year's report. If, as I presume you are saying, further refurbishment is needed, where—in the current prison system—is the spare capacity for people to be decanted to while that takes place?
Overall, I do not think that the closures have led to overcrowding, but I do not think that they have helped the situation in places such as Barlinnie. The closure of Penninghame, for instance, is different. When it was closed, it was an open category D prison and the other open prisons were working at less than capacity. Therefore, I do not think that that closure has contributed to any difficulties. Dungavel was a category C prison and I think that there was spare capacity in the overall category C estate. Therefore it would also be fair to say that that closure has not created any problems of overcrowding. However, the closure of Longriggend will edge up the numbers in Barlinnie as the remand prisoners move in.
There are some 6,200 available cells in Scotland. A number of those are out of use pending refurbishment, such as part of A hall in Perth, and parts of Cornton Vale and Barlinnie. At the moment the available capacity matches total prison numbers. As the buildings are refurbished they will come on stream, which will allow other accommodation to be taken off stream for refurbishment.
That means that we will always be almost matching prisoner numbers with prisoner beds.
There will still be pockets of overcrowding. The possibilities for dealing with that are places such as Edinburgh, which is a local prison, and Shotts. However, I repeat what I said in my opening statement: Barlinnie, Scotland's largest prison, is sitting there with one hall empty and no plan for it.
I want to focus on two issues: Barlinnie and female prisoners. From Clive Fairweather's report, I understand that at present Barlinnie is overcrowded by some 25 per cent. Is that still the case? The refurbishment programme at Barlinnie also appears to have stopped. Has the Scottish Prison Service explained to you why that has happened and what its intentions are for the programme? Does it have any intentions to continue with the refurbishment of Barlinnie?
At the moment, Barlinnie is overcrowded by 17.5 per cent, which is not far off the figure that you cited. The original plan was that each of the halls at Barlinnie, starting with D hall—whose refurbishment took 18 months and cost £5.4 million—would be refurbished sequentially, with each refurbishment taking 18 months. Refurbishment means putting in WCs. That plan was put on hold. B hall was emptied, ready for remands; it was also kept empty for the millennium, for contingency reasons. It was hoped that the refurbishment programme would start this year, but the estates review that was announced this side of Christmas put that on hold, because the Prison Service was not prepared to spend any money until it knew whether refurbishing the four halls at Barlinnie was the right answer, or whether there were other options.
I have a question about the estates review. Originally it was supposed to be completed in May.
That is correct.
You completed your report in June and published it in August, but the review had still not appeared. There is, as yet, no word of when it will be published. It can be argued that that is not unreasonable, given what needs to be examined. Perhaps a few months here or there is not out of order. I invite you—although you may not want to take up the invitation—to speculate on what is holding up the review. If a three-month, four-month, five-month or six-month delay in the estates review is not unreasonable, given its importance, how was it possible for the Prison Service to come to a decision on closing prisons in three weeks? It did not regard that as unreasonable. There seems to be a contradiction in terms. Could you speculate on why the review is being held up and the perspective that that puts on the three-week decision on closures?
I do not think that there was any difficulty about reaching the decision on Longriggend—that had probably been on the cards for some time. Similarly, I suspect that Penninghame had been considered for closure for some time. I suspect that the original loss of savings brought that closure much further forward. A very quick exercise was carried out at Dungavel. However, bearing in mind what I have said about categories and so on, I can see how that decision was arrived at. The other actions were rationalisations—merging one prison into another and so on. I said at the time—and again in my report—that I was not sure what the effect of those rationalisations would be in the long term and whether the savings would materialise. I am still unsure about that.
The SPS has reduced seriously its margin for manoeuvrability and is only just beginning to realise that.
I have a question on the estates review. Mr Fairweather has twice referred to the role of categories in enabling closures. However, there is an inevitable knock-on effect. Why did he think that, as Dungavel had only one category of prisoners, that would not knock on to the other prisons?
It has not as far as category C is concerned.
What about overall?
Overall, that leads to a reduction in capacity. At the time—November—I had half an hour to comment on the closures, and considering the population, the figures just about balanced. As I said in my opening statement, with the benefit of hindsight I am not so sure—it might have been one closure too far.
You referred to the fact that the reason for the delay is the on-going prison estates review. Currently, there are more than 300 adult remand prisoners in Barlinnie who do not have integral sanitation facilities. Surely there would need to be a seismic shift in sentencing policy to reduce the demand for remand places in Barlinnie? Even after the estates review has taken place, there will be a similar demand for remand places.
Yes, there will be.
To all intents and purposes, the delay in the review is simply delaying an inevitable need to upgrade the facilities at Barlinnie.
Indeed. That is why I have said throughout my report that the SPS needs to address the situation at Barlinnie, especially in relation to remand provision. All sorts of other prisons have been talked about, as have other possibilities. However, things have stood still at Barlinnie for so long that I feel I must press that prison as the primary issue. Some of the other issues might be able to wait a bit longer.
The figures in the report show a high level of serious assaults at Barlinnie, although the number of such assaults has fallen in the past year. Although Barlinnie is the biggest prison, it seems to have a disproportionately high level of serious prisoner-on-prisoner assaults. What are the reasons for such assaults? I imagine that drug-related crime is one reason. Is overcrowding also a major contributory factor?
I shall get my deputy to say a little about overcrowding in a moment.
Another problem at Barlinnie is that the closure of a hall has limited the opportunities for dispersal. Barlinnie had five halls, which provided five options for the dispersal of gangs or individuals who have grievances against one another. The closure of B hall, and the fact that remand numbers at Barlinnie are running at 50 per cent of the remand population for Scotland, further limit dispersal options. Remand prisoners and convicted prisoners are kept apart, as far as possible, which means that there are fewer places for the dispersal of convicted prisoners who may have grievances against one another. Those prisoners tend to be brought together more often than any sensible prison manager would contemplate.
For reasons of safety and decency, there must be change. The problems at Barlinnie have gone on for long enough. In 1997, I wrote a formal report. I am sure that previous chief inspectors did the same, but conditions at the prison still have not changed. I keep returning to that point. There may be only a few months left until the results of the review are known, but at the end of those few months there should be changes.
Would it be fair to say that you do not expect a major change, with regard to remand places at Barlinnie, as a result of the estates review?
I honestly do not know. Remand places must be found somewhere else in Glasgow, if not at Barlinnie.
In your opening comments, you said that it was intended, by the end of this year, to halve the number of female prisoners. However, that number continues to rise—why is that? Is there a failing in the policy to reduce their number?
That subject is outside my remit, but I got involved with it originally when we examined the whole business of women offenders, suicide and the like. The female prison population could be edging up partly because more women are committing crimes—perhaps a small number of more serious crimes. Nobody really knows whether the higher figure also reflects sentencing policy. When I first inspected Cornton Vale, it had something like 180 female prisoners, but the number is now 207. I know that that increase does not sound much, but the percentage of female prisoners is rising all the time. We will have to wait until we can look back before we can establish how much of the increase is due to sentencing policy and how much is due to the fact that more women are committing offences, or some women are committing more serious offences.
After Lyndsay McIntosh asks a question, I will take Dorothy-Grace Elder, who I see has joined us. We will then have to bring this item to a close. I know that members want to ask further questions, but we must move on to other issues. It is entirely possible that we will return to many of these issues.
You spoke about assault figures, Mr Fairweather, and made comparisons between Bowhouse and other prisons. Is it true that some of the misconduct reports that were made at Bowhouse would not have been made at some other prisons, such as Perth? Is it the case that half of those things might not even have been reported in a more experienced environment, where staff were more in tune with the job?
As far as misconduct reports are concerned, the position may well change in future. I do not think that staff were experienced enough. We had cases of people being given the same misconduct report three or four times. I am sure that that will be sorted out and will settle down. That is not the same for statistics on assault.
I appreciate that, but I was particularly struck by the figures for misconduct reports.
No. A consequence of shutting Dungavel was that Friarton was to take on its role. Although it is a separate site, it has been merged with the main prison. To bring it up to standard—we hope that it will take over the drug-free mantle of Dungavel, which was Scotland's only drug-free prison—£2 million has had to be invested. I do not know the detail, but I understand that, since it was decided to close Dungavel and use Friarton instead, it has taken longer than had been planned to go from flash to bang. Although Dungavel closed on 3 July, there are probably only about 20 or 30 places available in Friarton. It will take some time before Friarton can be opened at full capacity, which I believe is about 90 prisoners. Eric Fairbairn may be more up to speed on the position.
So the Prison Service would not score highly here for forward planning?
The delay could be down to contractors and I do not know what else.
I wish to raise one more issue, which has not been raised by other members. Do you have any concerns about the dangers that are involved in moving prisoners between prisons?
I do not have figures in front of me, but I know that the SPS has a very good record on escapes from closed establishments—cases of prisoners getting over a fence or tunnelling out. Most escapes have occurred while individuals are being moved under escort, as that is when any system is at its most vulnerable. There was a famous case at the Peterhead unit, when someone managed to get out during an escort and was later found in London.
The last prison in which I was directly involved was Glenochil, which was a young offenders institution that had an average of 150 prisoners. Five of those convicted young offenders would go to court per day, to answer outstanding charges, or to go for pleading diets.
I have a final question on that: would it be unreasonable for the people who are doing escort duty to know the records of the prisoners they are transporting?
Generally, they are briefed as to who they are taking out, and why.
Generally.
Thank you, Mr Fairweather, for the usual honesty of your report. There have been destructive rumours about the possible closure of Barlinnie. Many of us would hope that those are just rumours—the prison's closure would be resisted in Glasgow.
At present, no. I cannot speak for every prison, but I do not think that it is necessarily those prisons that have the problem of slopping out that have low morale. There is very low morale at Barlinnie in general at the moment, more than I have seen elsewhere. Prison officers are extremely uncertain, no matter whether they have been told that their prison will not be closed, privatised or even considered for anything.
Is that a factor in the massive delays in renovating Barlinnie?
I would imagine that all options are being considered.
Do we really need to wait for the estates review to do what should have been done quite some time ago?
I think that it is right for all costs to be considered. We are talking about big sums of money for Barlinnie and elsewhere, and it is probably right to pause and consider them.
I thank you and your colleagues, Mr Fairweather. You will have seen notes being passed to me from around the table. They are all along the same lines, from members who wish to have you back before the committee to ask further questions. I know that many members have more questions to ask. The notes also included requests that we visit further prisons, including Barlinnie. I think that the committee can organise such a visit quite independently.
It still applies.
Members of the committee will want to take you up on that. We will try to organise it, now that the Parliament is back from recess. There is a feeling that Barlinnie might be an appropriate place for us to visit, in the circumstances.
We will be doing an intermediate inspection of Barlinnie in the not-too-distant future, and a formal inspection of Glenochil after the inspection of Edinburgh prison is complete.
Thank you very much. We will have a brief adjournment before we begin the next item.
Meeting adjourned.
On resuming—