|
The Committee previously reported on prison catering in 1998. Since then the Prison Service had made good progress in reducing catering costs and improving the quality of catering. There remained concerns however, that two of the Committee's previous recommendations, on reducing the time interval between meals and serving food within 45 minutes of preparation, had still not been fully implemented.
The Prison Service has placed a high priority on providing prisoners with a decent diet and the opportunity to exercise. These factors help maintain well ordered prisons, which allow prisoners to participate in other activities and prisons themselves to cope with other pressures.
The Prison Service needs to take further steps to meet the requirements to provide correct food appropriately prepared for religious diets. It also needs to reassure religious prisoners that the food is in fact appropriate.
Although the Prison Service has succeeded in providing a diet that is broadly in line with the government's nutritional recommendations, there were some important exceptions; for example meals contained too much salt. Important follow up research on the link between nutrition and behaviour has not yet been started.
The Prison Service ought to carry out benchmarking between prisons and against other organisations. Benchmarking would help it to reduce costs further and to improve the quality of catering and provision of exercise.
Some 40% of prisoners took part in physical education activities across the Prison Service. Prisons could do more, however, to increase participation both by female prisoners and those prisoners who could most benefit from exercise.
On the basis of a Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General,[1] the Committee examined the Prison Service's progress on catering since it last reported in 1998 and how prisoners' access to nutritious food and exercise could be improved.
| 
