Decision report 201105501

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained that the prison unreasonably failed to provide him with meaningful work. In particular, he felt he had not been given a job because of his race. Mr C also complained that the prison failed to investigate and respond to his complaint appropriately.

In investigating Mr C's complaint, the prison told us Mr C had not applied for any jobs. Because of that, and in the absence of any supporting evidence from Mr C to show that he did apply for jobs, we did not uphold this part of his complaint. The prison also confirmed that when they received Mr C’s complaint, the race relations manager was asked to investigate his complaint because Mr C's complaint contained an allegation of racial discrimination. We were satisfied the prison took proper and appropriate steps to investigate. However, in replying to Mr C, the prison did not specifically respond to everything he complained about. We, therefore, upheld this aspect of his complaint. We had no recommendations to make as we were satisfied that the Scottish Prison Service were taking steps to improve complaints handling.