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Chamber and committees

Question reference: S6W-19932

  • Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
  • Date lodged: 13 July 2023
  • Current status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 August 2023

Question

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-08446 by Keith Brown on 20 May 2022, whether it plans to take HMP Kilmarnock back into public ownership regardless of the cost consultation exercise that it is carrying out.


Answer

The 25-year contract for HMP Kilmarnock under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) for a privately constructed and operationally managed prison expires on 16 March 2024. The decision to bring HMP Kilmarnock into public management and ownership and not to tender for a new private contract was taken in 2021. This is in line with Scottish Government policy that prisons should be owned and managed by the public sector, which has been in place since 2007.