Chamber and committees

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The number of assaults on staff in HMP Inverness in the last 5 years are as follows:

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The needs and welfare of all those in our care remains a key priority for SPS as we continue to manage our highly complex population with a person-centred approach.

SPS continually assess risk, including that presented by an increasing population. Establishment specific indicators are analysed and assessed with identified risks mitigated where possible, this includes but is not limited to the utilisation of our existing estate.

The Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Government are committed to the replacement of HMP Inverness with HMP Highland to create better environments for people to live and work, to aid rehabilitation, reduce the risk of reoffending, and support safer communities.

The SPS engaged the services of legal advisers, cost consultants, insurance brokers and geo-technical consultants to advise on cost controls within the contract. It would not be appropriate for SPS to publish this advice as it is commercially sensitive information, however SPS will publish a summary of their Business Case on their website.

SPS are unable to publish the full breakdown of costs as disclosure would be commercially prejudicial to the management of the contract, and to the contractor.

SPS can confirm that the contract contains liquidated damages for any delays.

This was a 2-stage procurement process, and 4 contractors bid at the 1st stage Pre-construction phase of the process. These bidders were Balfour Beatty Group, Graham Construction, Kier Construction and Laing O'Rourke.

The Scottish Government are progressing a range of actions to support a sustainable reduction in the prison population, including:

• The passage of the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025, which changes the point of release for most prisoners serving short-term sentences of under four years from following 50% of their sentence, to following 40% of their sentence.
• Increasing community justice funding by £14m this year to a total of £148m to further strengthen alternatives to custody.
• Introducing regulations that enable GPS technology to be used to monitor individuals being released on Home Detention Curfew (HDC).
• SPS continue to optimise the appropriate use of HDC which allows certain prisoners who have met the requirements of a risk assessment to spend up to 180 days in the community.
• We intend to bring forward secondary legislation to amend the use of HDC with the intention of increasing the period of time individuals can spend on release under licence conditions.
• We have increased the use of electronically monitored bail which is now available in every local authority and its use is at record levels.
• The establishment of an independent review of sentencing and penal policy which will focus on reducing reoffending and ensuring custody is used at the right time, for the right individuals.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The number of assaults on staff in HMP Barlinnie in the last 5 years are as follows:

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS will publish information on the early release under the changes to sentencing for short-term prisoners on our website, and we have previously published information on releases under the emergency release legislation again on their website.

SPS seek to be as open and transparent as possible, whilst continuing to meet our statutory obligation to ensure that those in our care have their personal information protected; as such we cannot publish a breakdown of establishments as some of the data could relate to a small group of individuals, which may lead to their inadvertent identification.

The Scottish Government has received regular updates from the Scottish Prison Service on HMP Glasgow in line with updates to the Infrastructure Investment Plan since 2014:

• In March 2014 the Scottish Government was updated that there was an on-going site search and completion dates for the project remained uncertain.
• In March 2016 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2022.
• In September 2016 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2023.
• In April 2019 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2024.
• In November 2020 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2026.
• In May 2023 the Scottish Government was updated that the project time-line was uncertain.
• In July 2023 the Scottish Government was updated that the most likely time-scale for construction completion was 2027 but there were risks associated with this.
• In May 2024 the Scottish Government was updated that the most likely time-scale for construction completion was 2028.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The needs and welfare of all those who live and work in our prisons remains a key priority for SPS, as we continue to manage our highly complex population with a person-centred approach.

Supported centrally by SPS Headquarters, establishments have specific arrangements in place to manage their regime during periods of a high prison population. These arrangements include additional staff on shift to support both operations and residential areas and the application of local staff shortage protocols if there are insufficient staff to run a full regime safely.