Select Committee on Home Affairs Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 6

Further supplementary note by HM Prison Service

REPLY BY THE PRISON SERVICE TO A LETTER FROM THE CLERK OF THE COMMITTEE

  I am responding to your letter of 1 November.

CHECK OF KEY REGISTER

  We are agreed that we are talking about the gate book. I am afraid I cannot confirm whether irregularities were found—Mr Shipton is on holiday in India. However, given the detailed nature of the interview replies he gave to the investigation into the conduct of the search, I think it is reasonable to conclude that he would have mentioned any irregularities, Nor, I am afraid, can we wholly guarantee your assumption that this means that the keys had all been handed in by staff as they left the prison. If the system was operating correctly, then that should have been the case. We know of one member of staff who subsequently admitted to having taken his keys home.

HEALTHCARE CENTRE

  The balance of our evidence is that the Health Centre was not opened to check a prisoner's medical records. You point to section 7.4 of the report of the inquiry into the conduct of the search. That inquiry was based on the attached record of drug tests[5], where you will see that there was an apparently positive reading of a prisoner for morphine. Although it would have been usual practice for a prisoner's medical records to be checked, which led the inquiry team to, quite naturally, ask whether this had been done, we have now established with the Area Drugs Co-ordinator that he deliberately adopted a low key approach, and accepted the prisoner's word that he was taking Sudafed, which is known to give a false positive for morphine. The inquiry team were not in possession of this information when they said: "It is not clear where the evidence of the prescribed medication was obtained, as the Healthcare Advisor was not asked for advice."

ESCAPES/ABSCONDS

  Figures for Blantyre House from 1992 onwards are:


Escapes
Absconds

1992
3
12
1993
0
4
1994
2
7
1995
0
3
1996
1
7
1997
0
2
1998
0
1
1999
0
0
2000
1
7

TEMPORARY RELEASES

  You also asked for figures relating to temporary releases since May. There have been 8,625, which would give a projected indicative figure of 17,250 for 2000-01.

RECONVICTION RATES

  We have been able to update the figures for another year, which does show 1995 as a "blip" year.


1996

Reconviction rate (Blantyre House)
7%
Sample size (Blantyre House)
27
Reconviction rate (closed Cat C's)
55%
Sample size (closed Cat C's)
7,743
Reconviction rate (Prison Service)
57%
Sample size (Prison Service)
31,491

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

  As I tried to explain over the telephone, comparisons between Blantyre House's performance against KPIs and Prison Service KPIs as a whole is virtually meaningless. Bespoke targets are agreed for each prison on each indicator to reflect the kind of prison, the nature of its population and other factors. I attach a chart with figures for the current year to end September 2000 which sets Blantyre House's performance against three other similar prisons, as well as overall performance, which is a more meaningful comparison. I will follow this, on Monday, with a chart for 1999-2000. I am afraid that we cannot provide staff sickness reflected in percentages, since we express this measure as an average number of working days lost.

KPT ON TEMPORARY LICENCE FAILURES

  Although prisons have measured failures of release on temporary licence, this has only been a Key Performance Target since April 2000. Unlike Key Performance Indicators, there is no overall Prison Service target (temporary release probably applies in only about 50 per cent of prisons).

  Performance is measured as a whole, but only in establishments that operate release on temporary licence. It is usual to measure this as a failure rate percentage, rather than as successful releases.


Blantyre House 2000-01 (to September):
0.1%
Blantyre House 1999-2000:
0.0%
Kirklevington 2000-01 (to September):
0.0%
Kirklevington 1999-2000:
0.3%
Latchmere House 2000-01 (to September):
0.0%
Latchmere House 1999-2000:
0.0%
Send 2000-01 (to September):
0.1%
Send 1999-2000:
0.1%
Prisons operating ROTL 2000-01 (to September):
0.1%
Prisons operating ROTL 1999-2000:
0.2%


Clare Checksfield
3 November 2000



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