Decision report 201204576

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained because he said that two of his requests to have items of mail sent by recorded delivery were unreasonably delayed because of the process that was in place at the prison.

The prison explained that if a prisoner wants to have an item of mail sent by recorded deliver, the cash office must receive their request by 16.00 on a Wednesday. This allows the cashier enough time to process the request and have the item of mail ready for posting on the Friday. Another member of staff then takes such items of mail to the post office on the Friday.

During our investigation, we asked the prison why requests could not be dealt with more than once a week. The prison explained that because the process involved a member of staff leaving the prison to go to the post office, it was time consuming and impacted on staff resourcing. They were satisfied that doing this once a week was enough. In light of this information, we were satisfied that Mr C's requests to have items of mail sent by recorded delivery were dealt with appropriately by the prison in line with the procedure in place.