Audit Committee,

Meeting date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Official Report 182KB pdf

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“Managing increasing prisoner numbers in Scotland”

For item 3, I invite the Auditor General for Scotland to give us a briefing.

Good morning. "Managing increasing prisoner numbers in Scotland" was published last week. Rising prisoner numbers and prison overcrowding have been commented on many times by Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons in various reports, and they have been of concern to the Parliament and the Scottish Government and the subject of comment in the media. The report looks at the overall picture of how prison numbers are managed and at the main issues that arise from the pressures of overcrowding.

As I am sure the committee is aware, the number of prisoners has increased—by more than 20 per cent since 2000. In April this year, the number reached its highest level—about 7,700. Scotland has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in western Europe and the number of prisoners is projected to increase by just short of a further 20 per cent by about 2016.

Several factors contribute to the increase. First, changes have occurred in sentencing patterns, including more use of remand—the number of remand prisoners increased by 80 per cent in the six years to 2006. Secondly, a large increase has taken place in the numbers who are returned to prison after they have breached arrangements such as supervised early release. In recent years, the number of released prisoners who may be recalled to prison has increased by more than 250 per cent. Thirdly, there has been a 70 per cent increase in the number of female prisoners, although we have to acknowledge that the total number is much smaller than the number of male prisoners. Finally, there have been changes in the legislation, including the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences for some offences and extensions to certain maximum sentences.

Exhibit 3 on page 7 of the report gives a breakdown of the size of the increase in different categories. It is quite interesting to note from that that there was no increase in the number of long-term prisoners between 2000 and 2006. The increases are all in the other categories, which are mentioned briefly.

The Scottish Prison Service must, of course, take everyone who is sent to it by the courts. It spends around £280 million each year on the 14 prisons in Scotland. Although numbers increased over the six years to 2006, the Prison Service's budget did not increase in real terms during that period. One consequence of that rise in numbers is that, in February this year, 11 of Scotland's 14 prisons held more prisoners than they were designed for. Our analysis shows that overcrowding affects large numbers of prisoners, with just under half of prisoners sharing cells. It is worth emphasising that more than a fifth of prisoners are sharing cells that are designed for one person. In the three most overcrowded prisons, more than half of the prisoners are sharing accommodation that was designed as single-cell accommodation.

There are at least four significant effects of overcrowding. The first impact is on rehabilitation work. Currently, about two thirds of prisoners are reconvicted within two years of release, but overcrowding restricts prisoners' access to activities such as education and employment training that aim to help to reduce reoffending. Secondly, prisoners consider cell sharing to be one of the worst aspects of overcrowding, and mixing different categories of prisoner—for example, untried and sentenced prisoners—in the same accommodation can lead to increased tension among prisoners. Thirdly, as members will be aware, many prisoners have significant health and addiction problems. A growing prison population puts pressure on services and can lead to increases in waiting times for access to health care. Finally, it is worth noting that remand and short-term prisoners are most affected by overcrowding. They are more likely to share cells and spend longer periods locked up in their cells due to lack of access to activities.

A consequence of the rise in numbers is that there were more prisoners per prison officer in 2006 than there were in 2000. That may add to the problems of giving prisoners access to rehabilitation activities. On the other hand, it is worth emphasising, as we do in the report, that relations between prisoners and prison officers are generally good.

The Prison Service has provided temporary house blocks at two prisons to help to accommodate the increase in the number of prisoners, at a cost of about £7 million. Those facilities can be built relatively cheaply and more quickly than permanent house blocks, but they will last only up to about 25 years and are suitable only for low-security prisoners.

I mentioned that the average number of prisoners increased by about 20 per cent in the six years up to 2006. Over that period, the number of prisoners being admitted to prison increased by a half. That is because many prisoners are admitted on remand or on short-term sentences. That means that the Prison Service has incurred rising costs that are associated with admitting, accommodating and transferring prisoners, although the budget has not increased in real terms.

In 2002, it was decided that more than 3,000 new places would be required by 2010-11, both to increase capacity and, equally important, to replace unfit accommodation. In the past six years, around £280 million has been spent on improving the condition of the prison estate. Around 90 per cent of that money has been spent on developing four prisons, and other prisons have benefited from smaller-scale funding to make them more fit for purpose.

In recent years, I have presented three section 22 reports to the Audit Committee on the Prison Service's possible liability for compensating prisoners following legal challenges over slopping out. As members of the committee will be well aware, those risks came to pass. Recent improvements in prison conditions have all but ended that, reducing the likelihood of successful legal challenges along those lines in future. However, it is not impossible that continuing overcrowding may leave the Prison Service and the Scottish Government open to a different sort of legal challenge in future.

New house blocks have provided around 2,700 prisoner places, but those have largely replaced outdated accommodation. As a result, the overall design capacity has increased by fewer than 200 places and is currently around 1,000 below the number of prisoners held. There are plans to increase prison capacity by around 1,900 places in the next six years, including by building three new prisons. However, it is not clear whether current plans will be sufficient to accommodate projected prisoner numbers in the long term. The projections may not be accurate and new legislation, such as the Custodial Sentences and Weapons (Scotland) Act 2007, may add to the upward pressure in the system.

My report reviewed the use of community sentences that may be used as alternatives to prison, such as probation or community service. In the six years to 2006-07, the use of such sentences increased by more than a half and spending on them rose by 80 per cent. However, their use may still be restricted by the unavailability of programmes in parts of Scotland and delays in starting community sentences. There is currently limited evidence of their effectiveness in reducing reoffending, and on what services and support need to be in place in the community to ensure that as many people as possible who are serving community sentences do not reoffend. In November 2007, the Scottish Government published an action plan to increase the understanding and use of community sentences. The new community justice authorities are developing performance measures for the community sentences delivered by councils in their areas.

I remind the committee of the work of the Scottish Prisons Commission, which is chaired by former First Minister Henry McLeish. The commission is considering the purpose and impact of imprisonment in Scotland and how that fits with the Scottish Government's wider strategic objectives and it is due to report to ministers in June. I hope that the information in my report may help the commission in its work.

My colleagues and I will endeavour to answer the committee's questions.

I have heard it alleged that 70 per cent of crimes are drug related, and that it is easier to get drugs inside prison than outside it. Is there a drug correlation with the fairly large increase in reoffending?

We did not consider that issue in any detail. However, we did comment on the high percentage of prisoners in Scotland with drug addiction problems. There is an exhibit in the main report that shows a rapid rise in addiction to certain drugs. Methadone is used extensively to manage drug addiction in Scottish prisons. Since December 2004, the number of methadone prescriptions dispensed in our prisons has increased at a faster rate than the prison population. That in turn is putting pressure on the health care service. There is some high-level information that confirms that there are serious issues there. Phil Grigor, who managed the project, may be able to provide further detail.

Access to rehabilitation activities, including drug treatment programmes, is one of the issues that we highlighted. If the numbers keep going up and staff levels and facilities stay static, access to those activities will be limited, which could impact on the effect of prisons in treating prisoners for their drug addiction, which in turn could affect reoffending.

My concern is that people may be reoffending to get back into the culture in which they can access the drugs. If we keep building more space rather than considering the solution to the problem, we might have a self-perpetuating problem.

That point confirms how important it is that the community justice authorities seriously consider the services that are available in the community to support prisoners who are released and prisoners who are on community sentences. There are some interesting projects around in that area. It is important that the community justice authorities understand those and share what seems to work best.

I will ask about prison capacity, about which you have quite a lot to say in the report. You talk about the problem of overcrowding in prisons. It seems as if we are facing a double whammy. We have to deal with existing overcrowding, but we have the additional problem of a projected increase in the prison population, which will exacerbate the problem because even more places will have to be provided. I see from exhibit 16 on page 31, which has figures about the projected future build, that we are expecting Addiewell to open later this year and the new prison at Bishopbriggs to open in 2011 or 2012. However, the narrative seems to say that, even the new prisons being constructed might not be enough to deal with the problem of overcrowding and the projected rise in numbers. Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct. There is a degree of uncertainty over the projections of the prison population to 2016, but there is a risk that there might be insufficient capacity at that time. It will depend on a range of factors, not least the alternatives to prison being operated effectively and the speed with which extra places can be brought into the system.

Do you know whether ministers have plans to provide any other places?

There are no other plans of which we are aware. I think that it is fair to say that at this point.

The three new prisons, plus the two house blocks at Polmont and Edinburgh, are the only ones planned to add capacity. They will go a long way to meeting the projected increase in prisoner numbers, but there could be a shortfall, depending on a range of factors.

Can you clarify that? The minister said that he has commissioned three new prisons. You are saying that two of them are Addiewell and Low Moss.

There is Addiewell, the new prison at Bishopbriggs on the site of Low Moss, and a new prison in the north-east to replace Peterhead and Aberdeen prisons.

Yes, but the first two new prisons were planned and put in place before May 2007, so if the minister has commissioned three new prisons, they must be additional to those two, or is the minister mistaken?

The three prisons that he is talking about are the three that I have mentioned, and they include the two that were planned before May 2007.

I want to pick up on that point.

I will just let Murdo Fraser finish his questions.

I have a related point, but let George Foulkes pursue his point and then come back to me, convener.

I, too, am confused. Your report says that there will be a further 1,900 places, but I had a parliamentary answer from Kenny MacAskill on 24 April, which is not very long ago, about the number of places and whether new contracts had been provided. He said

"I have asked Mike Ewart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

There have been no new contracts for the provision of prison places since 3 May 2007, however, the contract with Addiewell Prison Services Ltd signed in June 2006 will provide 700 new prison places and in August 2007 the Scottish Government announced that two new prisons will be built to meet the demand for prison places. These will be privately designed and constructed but publicly operated and will provide over 1,000 prisoner places."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 24 April 2008; S3W-11612.]

That comes to only 1,700 new places, not 1,900—that would be inadequate anyway, but 1,700 will be even less adequate. I am not clear about how those places will be funded. Perhaps Mr Black or Mr Grigor can tell me. Under what scheme or arrangement will those two new prisons be funded?

Our report talks about plans for new prisons. The Addiewell contract has been signed and the prison will open later this year. There are also plans to open a prison at Bishopbriggs, which the SPS says will have 700 places.

How will that prison be funded?

It will be publicly run but privately built.

But how will it be funded? Where is the money coming from to build it? There has to be money to pay the contractor to build it. Where is that money coming from?

Money was set aside in this year's budget.

In the capital budget?

Yes.

So it will be paid for out of the capital budget.

Yes.

And the second one?

The SPS is still in the early stages of planning for the prison in the north-east to replace Aberdeen and Peterhead prisons. We assumed that the average size of a new prison would be 700 places. Mike Ewart seems to estimate that it will be 500 places, so that is where the 200-place gap comes in.

How will that prison be funded?

In the same way. The Administration announced last year that new prisons would be publicly run, but a decision was to be made on the funding arrangements for building it.

I would be grateful if you could chase up the issue on our behalf, as it is not clear how the prisons will be funded. We are continually told that the so-called Scottish futures trust will fund public buildings, but nothing has been said about it. In fact, when Derek Brownlee asked the First Minister a question about it, it was made clear that it will be a private company, rather than public funding. It would be helpful to us if you could clarify the matter. As Murdo Fraser said, it seems that demand will increase inexorably but there is uncertainty about the funding of prison capacity.

As ever, we will help the committee in any way that we can, but it might be quicker and more efficient for the committee to seek that information from the accountable officer.

That is a good idea.

We will deal with the matter at the end of the meeting.

Paragraph 97 of the report mentions the estates review and states:

"Scottish ministers approved the building of only two new prisons as they expected that an increased use of community sentences would reduce the projected prisoner population by 700 places."

The paragraph refers to decisions that were taken in 2002. Has there been such a reduction in the prison population due to community sentencing?

There has been no reduction in the prison population. Since 2002, the use of community sentences has increased by more than a half, but the assumption that that would limit the increase in prisoner numbers has not been realised. Both figures have gone up.

A reasonable conclusion is that, had the number of community sentences not increased significantly, the prison population might be higher than it is now.

However, you cannot say whether the figure of 700 has been achieved.

It has not been achieved. In 2002, the prison population was 6,200; it is now 7,700. The number of prisoners has increased by 1,500.

I want to clarify the point that you are making. Mr Black said that the prison population would be commensurately higher if more people had not been given community sentences. Are we to draw the conclusion that more people are being given prison sentences?

We must look at the statistics for imprisonment rates and the use of community sentences across the board. Overall, the use of community sentences has increased by about a third. The number of prison sentences has increased by only 2 per cent, but that has affected the size of the prison population by more than that. The use of fines has also increased by about 12 per cent. Judges and sheriffs are using a mixture of sentences, but the 2 per cent increase in the number of prison sentences has resulted in a 20 per cent increase in the size of the prison population.

The big factor is the use of remand. That is not included in the statistics that Angela Cullen cited, which refer to people who are sentenced to imprisonment in court.

My question is about prison sentences. Paragraph 17 of the report states:

"the average prisoner population increased by 37 per cent between 1992 and 2006/07,"

although

"there was no overall increase in the level of crime reported".

Did you determine whether the increase in the size of the prison population is the result of certain people committing more crimes or of new legislation specifying imprisonment for certain types of crime, which Hugh Henry mentioned? There is no correlation between the number of people being sent to jail, which is increasing, and the number of crimes, which is decreasing.

The report examined only the management of the prison population—it did not look directly at sentencing policy. However, we were able to look at prisoner categories, which are shown in exhibit 3 on page 7. The committee can see that there has been tremendous growth in the number of remand prisoners, a significant rise in the number of short-term prisoners and a big increase in the number of recalled prisoners. Those increases are a consequence, at least in part, of changes in sentencing policy, but we did not consider sentencing policy directly.

The issue of the increase in prisoner numbers relative to crime rate is a difficult one. Researchers have found no link, either in this country or in other countries, between the two factors. As has been said, the numbers are largely down to sentencing policy and public policy.

The report says that the Finnish reforms, which resulted in the imprisonment rate falling from

"around 200 prisoners per 100,000 of the population in the 1960s to around 60 per 100,000 in the 1990s",

were aided by the consensus among politicians and support from the media and sentencers. What help did the media and the sentencers give the Government? Was a group set up in which everyone could speak?

I am not sure that it was a formal coming-together. The approach was much more consensual than the adversarial approach that can exist here. The way in which the Finnish politicians, sentencers, media and public came together behind the aim of reducing the prison population by using more community sentences, changing legislation and finding alternative ways of using prison was almost unique. The commission might pick up on that when it examines what happened in Finland.

Earlier, you were talking about the huge increase in the number of prisoners on remand. The situation is exacerbated by the increase in the number of recalled prisoners, which represents by far the biggest increase, in percentage terms, although not in numerical terms. Did you determine how many of those remand prisoners are ultimately given a jail sentence?

We did not do systematic work on that, but I think that it is about 50 per cent of the total.

Although the various funding models are of interest to the committee and the Parliament, the public will be concerned about the high degree of reoffending, with two thirds of those who are released being reconvicted within two years. I am interested in that and in the work that might be going on to tackle reoffending.

One of the clearest messages that I got from meeting staff at Bowhouse in Kilmarnock and the south-west Scotland CJA was about the importance that the families place on maintaining high levels of contact with their partners or husbands while they are in prison. I was particularly struck by the fact, which is mentioned on page 20, that inmates in Kilmarnock are offered up to 10 hours of contact a month with their families but that—because of staff shortages, I think—inmates in Barlinnie are offered only two hours of contact a month with their families. It is worrying that there is such a variance in contact time. I am certain that, if the CJAs are working on the issue, something positive will come out of their report in due course.

One of the key issues for the Prison Service is to reduce reoffending, and I think that the issue that I have mentioned might be the key to it. Do you have anything further to say about that?

The Prison Service recognises that it is important to consider the whole system in order to manage prisoner release back into the community effectively. The Prison Service has made a commitment to that.

As we mentioned in the report, despite the pressures that are building up in the system, there is a sustained commitment to rehabilitation activities for prisoners.

We would absolutely agree with Mr Coffey's point about the key role that the community justice authorities have to play in this effort. I hope that the analysis in our report will be of value to them and will help them get their minds round some of the issues, and to the Scottish Prisons Commission, as it formulates its policy. The issues that are involved in this area are of prison policy rather than being ones that we could address in this report.

As a new member of the Parliament, I was surprised to discover that the importance of maintaining or increasing family contact with prisoners has not seriously been considered or studied. I am a bit worried that it will be difficult to track the effect on family contact of moving high numbers of prisoners around Scottish prisons. I presume that it would be difficult to maintain family contact for prisoners who are moved, say, from Kilmarnock to Peterhead. I hope that that kind of issue remains uppermost in the minds of those in the SPS who are considering how to reduce reoffending.

We share that concern. We comment in part of the report on not only the issue of family contact but the growing extent to which prisoners are moved between prisons as part of managing the overcrowding. For example, it must be much more difficult to maintain a family support network for prisoners who are moved from Inverness down to the central belt than should be the case.

I am trying to get my head round the remand increase variable. You are obviously worried about the projections and about whether the planned increases in capacity will be sufficient. Of course, increased use of alternative-to-custody disposals does not address the problem of remand because the court takes a view on remand before conviction and subsequent sentencing. How can the authorities get a handle on the remand trend, which I presume partly reflects public concerns about whether people who are accused of serious and violent crimes should be at liberty pending their conviction?

That is an extremely important question, but it is essentially for those who are in charge of sentencing policy. I am not sure whether we can help.

We spoke to the statisticians who do the projections for the Government and the SPS, who told us that they include remand as a factor and consider past sentencing trends and project them. It is difficult to say what the trend will be from now on because sentencers are independent and must consider issues such as the offence, the offender, his or her history and public safety. The media culture obviously has an effect, too.

It may be prudent to assume that the trend for increased use of remand will continue.

It could be, but we cannot say for sure.

If we do not make that assumption, we could in the future get caught out through having inadequate capacity.

That is possible.

Your report is alarming in its description of what is happening in the Scottish Prison Service. Superficially, it appears that we should build more prisons, but there has been no increase in numbers of long-term prisoners, so surely the focus should be on short-term prisoners, two thirds of whom are reconvicted within a year of release. In fact, the reconviction rates show that there is a failure to address the problem of reoffending. The real focus must be on how to deal with short-term prisoners. Is that an accurate assessment?

That is one of the most significant issues to come out of the report.

It is clear that, in order to deal with overcrowded prisons, short-term measures such as the use of temporary accommodation are adopted. However, £280 million has been spent in the past six years to improve conditions rather than to increase the number of available prisoner places. That leads me to ask what prisons are for. That fundamental philosophical question must be addressed. Further, given that we may be asking too much of the prison service, do community sentences work? We have a complex situation involving the courts, sentencing policy and so on. We are considering the symptoms, which are pretty bad. Is that reasonably accurate?

Yes. The Scottish Prisons Commission, which Henry McLeish leads, is considering the question of what prisons are for and its report should give us an answer to that question.

I hope that the report answers it, and that the people in charge of the system respond to that.

Another issue that we could consider—before or after the McLeish report is published, depending on the committee's work—is how effective the community justice authorities are in rehabilitating prisoners and addressing their offending behaviour. We need at some point to look back to see how well those bodies are doing in order to contribute to a debate about the future. We can return to the issue later in the meeting.

We are talking about prisons, but the problem is a wider societal one.

I want to ask about community service and alternative sentences. The Equal Opportunities Committee, of which I am a member, received a report that says that it is difficult for women to undertake alternative forms of sentence, such as community service, because such sentences are geared towards male offenders. Sometimes there is one woman among five or six men doing community service, which makes it harder for the woman. I do not see anything about that in the Audit Scotland report. Did you consider that aspect?

No, we did not. Our study looked at management of prisoner numbers in prisons. Do we have any information on the issue that Sandra White raises?

We did not look at the breakdown across community sentences. We could do that in the future when we come to look at reoffending, for example. The study was an overview of the situation with the use of prisons and spending and evidence about effectiveness. We did not drill down into particular groups.

There has been a 70 per cent increase in female prisoners, but prison services seem to be geared more towards men than women. Perhaps the committee could consider that in the future.

I am sure that Sandra White is aware that one striking feature of women prisoners is that a high proportion of them have mental health problems and drug addictions, which makes it particularly challenging to develop packages of activity that can support them in getting back into the community.

I agree with Sandra White, who has put her finger on the problem. Andrew McLellan has paid 44 visits to prisons in the past year. He must get very frustrated, because he makes recommendations, but nothing gets done.

I refer to paragraph 119 on page 36 of the report, which sets out costs. In 2004-05, a six-month prison sentence cost nearly £16,000—it must be more than that by now. You could send offenders to Fettes for less than that, although I do not know whether it would do much good. They could become Prime Minister—I had not thought of that. It is an astonishing cost. The Auditor General's main purpose is to consider value for money. Given the cost of the orders, there must be an argument for following the Finnish example—if only we could persuade The Sun and the Daily Record to stop printing statements such as "Cage this vicious thug" all the time, which is why we end up with so many in prison. Instead of caging a vicious thug, perhaps it would be better to provide him with training for work.

I think that it is beyond the remit of the Auditor General to comment on that.

The Auditor General has not considered the effect on prison officers. I received an answer to a parliamentary question that showed that 40,000 working days were lost in prisons last year—that is an average of 10 working days per prison officer. I am not saying that they are just swinging the lead—the pressure on prison officers from overcrowding and being asked to perform impossible tasks must be very great. Did the inquiry examine that?

I will help the committee by responding to both Lord Foulkes's points. On costs, it is difficult to provide a simple overall answer to the value-for-money question. However, there is no doubt that the significant investment that has been made in the prison estate has markedly improved the quality of the prisons where that investment was made. Andrew McLellan commented on the improvement in conditions as a result of that investment.

The Scottish Prison Service has delivered efficiency savings. It had money taken out of its budget a few years ago. As we comment in the report, there has not been a significant real-terms increase in resources for the Scottish Prison Service during the period of increase in prisoner numbers. The result is that the number of prisoners per prison officer is noticeably higher now than it was a few years ago. We also comment on the evidence that, generally speaking, prisoners consider that they have good relationships with prison staff. There are positive aspects.

Phil Grigor has considered the relationship between overcrowding and sickness absence, so I ask him to answer George Foulkes's second question.

We have tried to pick up on that in our visits to prisons: we asked various staff about the effects of prisoner numbers on staff absences. It is an issue, but other factors also come into play, such as the type of prisoner whom officers look after: for example, Cornton Vale has a demanding population and Polmont has volatile, high-maintenance young offenders. Other factors include local management practices and human resources functions, which vary. Prisoner numbers are an issue, but we did not find it to be significant. We carried out a mapping exercise of overcrowding levels at individual prisons against staff absence rates and found no relationship between the two. Overcrowding could be a factor, but we did not find it to be the only one.

That is interesting. The figures bear out what you say, as Cornton Vale and Glenochil had the highest sickness levels.

Yes. Polmont and Cornton Vale are not among the most overcrowded, so they do not show the relationship.

I thank the Audit Scotland team for contributing to the discussion.