Chamber and committees

Figures include long-term and life prisoners recalled from licence. For such prisoners, it is not possible to determine whether they have spent time in the open estate prior to their initial liberation.

Long-term and Life Sentence Prisoners Released from Custody: 2006-07 to 2008-09

Source: Scottish Government Justice Analytical Services.

The only figures available are for Open Estate that includes Noranside and Castle Huntly. Separate data is not available for HMP Noranside.

In the financial year 2009-10, the Open Estate has utilised 26 companies based in the DD7, DD8 and DD9 postcodes, which are local to Noranside, and utilised 69 companies in total throughout all DD postcodes in the same period.

The data provided is taken from the Spikes Cavell database. There may be other local suppliers paid by cheque or cash that are not included in this database.

Table 1 shows the average time between a report being received by the Procurator Fiscal and the date when a decision was taken to take Summary Court Proceedings against an accused, broken down by police force area.

Table 1: Average Days to Commence Proceedings

Notes:

1. The information for this question has been extracted from the COPFS'' Case Management Database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. The table reflects the information recorded on 9 December 2010.

2. Cases reported to procurators fiscal may contain more than one accused, and these accused may have decisions taken on the same date or on different dates. Only the earliest date has been used in the calculations.

3. The table includes only the original commencement of summary court proceedings (it excludes any where proceedings were re-raised). It also excludes accused persons if the initial decision was to proceed by way of petition, even if subsequent proceedings were taken in a summary court. The table excludes accused persons where a prosecution in a summary court followed a failure to accept a road traffic fixed penalty or a rejection of a direct measure such as a fiscal fine etc.

4. Commencement of a criminal case has a number of legal definitions depending on the nature and method of proceedings. Solemn proceedings may be commenced by way of a Petition for Warrant in terms of Section 34 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (the act) or the service of an Indictment in terms of section 64 of that act. Although in general most solemn proceedings are commenced by way of petition, it is entirely competent for an indictment to be served where there has been no previous petition procedure. Solemn proceedings have been excluded from the answer as the application for a petition does not necessarily result in proceedings in the sheriff court.

5. Summary proceedings in the sheriff, stipendiary magistrates and justice of the peace courts (formerly district courts pre Court Unification) may be commenced by the service of a complaint on an accused person in terms of s.138 of the act or when a warrant to apprehend or cite the accused is granted by the court under section 135.

6. In summary proceedings the COPFS case management database records when a warrant is sought by the prosecutor from the court, not when it is granted by the court. In relation to non-warrant cases, the database records when a complaint is sent for service on the accused in cited cases (that is when the accused is cited to appear at a future court hearing); however it does not record when a complaint is sent for service in cases where the accused appears from custody or by way of an undertaking from the police.

The Scottish Government is committed to replacing HMP Aberdeen and HMP Peterhead with HMP Grampian which is expected to open in 2014. The Scottish Prison Service is on schedule to meet this target. A planning application for the development has been submitted to Aberdeenshire Council and the Prior Information Notice has been published to make potential bidders aware of the intention to conduct a procurement process for the construction works for HMP Grampian.

Access to HMP Open Estate forms part of the progression system of integrated case management for all prisoners in Scotland. Prisoners access the Open Estate via Multi-disciplinary Progression Management Groups (MDPMG) held in each prison. The process of MDPMGs has been revised subsequent to the Spencer Report which investigated the abscond of Robert Foye. These groups require the governor to confirm that they have assessed the risk of community access for all prisoners being considered for transfer in a multi-disciplinary setting. Multi-disciplinary contributions include social work, psychology, prison intelligence, healthcare, prison management and police intelligence reviews. All prisoners transfer to HMP Open Estate, there is no differentiation between sites.

The Governor of HMP Open Estate determines the allocation of prisoners between sites subject to their sentence type.

Noranside Staff

Senior Staff at Castle Huntly with responsibility for Noranside

Table 1 shows the maximum number of days, broken down by police force area.

A total of 378,466 cases were included in these calculations, and 86 per cent were dealt with in 28 days from the date of receipt (the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) key target being 75% within 28 days in relation to prosecution decisions). Many of the cases that took the longest time to mark for proceedings required detailed further investigation prior to the commencement of proceedings; they included allegations of fraud, sexual offences and contraventions of Health and Safety legislation.

Table 1: Maximum Days to Commencement of Proceedings

Notes:

1. The information for this question has been extracted from COPFS'' Case Management Database. The database is a live, operational database used to manage the processing of reports submitted to procurators fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies. The table reflects the information recorded on 9 December 2010.

2. Cases reported to procurators fiscal may contain more than one accused, and these accused may have decisions taken on the same date or on different dates. Only the earliest date has been used in the calculations.

3. The table includes only the original commencement of summary court proceedings (it excludes any where proceedings were re-raised). It also excludes accused persons if the initial decision was to proceed by way of petition, even if subsequent proceedings were taken in a summary court.

4. The table excludes accused persons where a prosecution in a summary court followed a failure to accept a road traffic fixed penalty or a rejection of a direct measure such as a fiscal fine etc.

2008-09 - £706 per student week

2009-10 - £955 per student week

2010-11 - £831 per student week.