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Kingston Prison

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) pursuant to the answer of 28 April 2003, Official Report, column 606W, on prisons, when the action plan for Kingston Prison was drawn up following the visit by HM Inspector of Prisons

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on 12–16 February 2003; if he will list its action points and the dates by which the action points were to be implemented; and if he will make a statement; [114155]

(2) pursuant to the answer of 28 April 2003, Official Report, column 606W, on prisons, if he will list recommendations made by HM Inspector of Prisons that were not accepted by the Prison Service following the visit to Kingston Prison on 12–16 February 2003, and the reasons for rejection; and if he will make a statement. [114154]

Paul Goggins: The report on Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons' inspection of Kingston prison carried out between 12 and 16 February 2001, was published in September 2001. The Director General of the Prison Service sent an action plan to the Chief Inspector in November 2001, which responded to each of the recommendations made in the report. In accordance with the agreed protocol the action plan was updated in July 2002. I will send the hon. Member a copy of this document, which sets out the information he requires.

Medway Secure Training Centre

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his answer of 11 April, Official Report, column 452W, on secure training centres, if he will list the reasons for each financial penalty imposed at Medway Secure Training Centre. [113432]

Paul Goggins: In its five years of operation Medway has incurred performance penalties of £844,356 for non-availability of places and £66,518 for failure to deliver specified services. Most were incurred in the first year following a major disturbance two months after the centre opened. The service penalties covered trainees possessing prohibited items, mainly cigarettes; incidents of concerted indiscipline; failure to ensure a trainee saw a doctor on arrival at the Secure Training Centre; failure to comply with cleaning schedule; an escape; compromise of key and lock; failure to deliver 25 hours of taught education and/or training per week; assaults on staff and trainees; failure to provide a training plan; failure to deliver specific programmes for tackling offending behaviour; paperwork for trainees' release being unavailable; and failure to report performance to the monitor.

Offender Resettlement

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the number of prisons in the UK which employ link workers to help resettle offenders after custodial sentences have been served. [113746]

Paul Goggins: The Prison Service in England and Wales does not maintain a central record of establishments with link workers helping to resettle prisoners on release. The Prison Service works in partnership with the National Probation Service, youth offending teams, Connexions, Jobcentre Plus, housing authorities and voluntary sector organisations, which provide a range of resettlement support for released prisoners. The Prison Service Custody to Work initiative, with an additional £14.5 million a year from April 2003, is supporting the development of these

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partnerships, geared to improving employment, training and accommodation outcomes for released prisoners.

Prisons in Scotland and Northern Ireland are the responsibility of the Scottish Executive and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland respectively.

Parliamentary Questions

Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to the Question tabled by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak for answer on 1 May, ref 111005. [114873]

Mr. Blunkett: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 15 May 2003, Official Report, column 433W.

Mr. Greg Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to the question tabled by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire for answer on 14 January 2003, ref 89433. [115447]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth [holding answer 22 May 2003]: I refer the right hon. Member to the reply I gave on 21 May 2003, Official Report, column 869W.

Prince's Trust

Mr. Hendry: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much his Department has spent on schemes operated by the Prince's Trust in each of the last 10 years. [109729]

Mr. Blunkett: Our records show the following payments to the Prince's Trust in the last 10 years:

	Payments (£)
1999–2000	193,156
2000–01	150,298
2001–02	171,355
2002–03	44,212

Prisons

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what process is used to measure the performance of private sector prisons; and what changes are being made to that process following the introduction of a new system for (a) assessing and (b) publicising the performance of public sector prisons. [113424]

Paul Goggins: The performance of private sector prisons is measured through contractual performance measures and Prison Service Standards and Key Performance Targets. The Commissioner for Correctional Services will assess privately managed prisons using the same performance framework as used by the Prison Service for benchmarking public sector prisons. The results will be published at the same time.

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his answer of 1 May, Official Report, columns 529–30, on prisons, what proportion of the prison population in England and Wales is housed in (i) houseblocks, (ii) ready to use units and (iii) modular temporary units. [113425]

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Paul Goggins: The information requested is not available in the format requested as the occupancy of individual buildings is not recorded centrally.

The previous response to the hon Member outlined the number of additional accommodation places opened at Prison Service establishments between 1 April 2001 and 31 March 2003. Of that accommodation, shown as a proportion of the current total useable operational capacity of the Prison Service estate, houseblocks represent 0.9 per cent; ready to use units 0.8 per cent and modular temporary units one per cent.

John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average cost per day of prison is for (a) an adult and (b) a juvenile. [114780]

Paul Goggins: [holding answer 21 May 2003]: The average cost per day of each prisoner during the financial year 2002–03, for each category of prison is shown in the table.

Category	Cost per prisoner (£)
Male local	61
High Security	118
Category B	57
Category C	53
Male open	56
Male remand centre	71
Male closed young offender institution	79
Male open young offender institution	50
Male juvenile	100
Female local	95
Female closed	87
Female open	67
Semi open	64

These figures are establishment costs only, expressed in resource terms and exclude any share of Headquarters overheads. Establishment cost per prisoner figures cannot be compared with the overall Prison Service cost per prisoner, which includes all expenditure.

The Prison Service does not collect the cost of adult and juvenile prisoners. These figures show the average cost of keeping a prisoner in each category of establishment, where establishments are categorised under their main function. This data is provisional and subject to final end of year adjustments.

Mr. Stinchcombe: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners are being held over (a) 50 miles and (b) 100 miles from their home town. [113695]

Paul Goggins: I shall write to my hon. Friend.

Re-offending

Mr. Dhanda: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is taking to (a) support offenders and (b) ensure that offenders do not re-offend after custodial sentences have been served. [113750]

Paul Goggins: The National Probation Service (NPS) and the Prison Service work closely to meet the needs of offenders during and after custody to help ensure their effective reintegration into the community on release. A

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wide range of programmes and interventions has been introduced for offenders both in custody and under supervision in the community.

In 2002–03 the provisional outturn figures show that 50,700 prisoners received detoxification for drugs dependency, 4,808 benefited from treatment on rehabilitation programmes and 51,802 received an initial assessment for the Counselling, Assessment, Referral, Advice and Throughcare Services (CARATs) scheme. 6,000 offenders on a Drug Treatment Testing Order (DTTO) received treatment for drugs and offending behaviour. More than 11,000 offenders have taken part in one or more accredited offending behaviour programmes either in custody or in the community since January 2001 and around 30,000 offenders gained a basic literacy or numeracy qualification in the past year.

The Prison Service in England and Wales does not maintain a central record of establishments with link workers helping to resettle prisoners on release. The Prison Service works in partnership with the National Probation Service, Youth Offending Teams, Connexions, Jobcentre Plus, housing authorities and voluntary sector organisations, which provide a range of resettlement support for released prisoners. The Prison Service Custody To Work initiative, with an additional £14.5 million a year from April 2003, is supporting the development of these partnerships, geared to improving employment, training and accommodation outcomes for released prisoners.

Two recent reports "Reducing Re-offending by ex-prisoners" and "Through the Prison Gate" have reinforced the importance of joining up the contributions of a wide range of agencies to maintain the work of the Prison and Probation Services in supporting offenders to break the cycle of reoffending. The Home Office's Adult Offenders and Rehabilitation Unit has recently held meetings attended by a number of different agencies, Departments and voluntary sector partners to address the issues raised in these reports. The outcome of these meetings will be the formulation of an action plan to promote wider joined-up working to deal effectively with the wide ranging needs of offenders.

The National Probation Directorate provides strategic funding to several voluntary sector organisations including core funding for the Society of Voluntary Associates (SOVA) and MACRO, to deliver services supporting offender resettlement including drugs, accommodation, employment and training.

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