Decision Report 201305134

Summary

Mr C complained because he had concerns about the safety of the area that he and other prisoners worked in and he did not think the prison had addressed these properly. He also complained that he was not being paid weekly, and because he felt that the prison had not considered his circumstances appropriately when allocating work to him.

In his complaint to the prison, Mr C said he had not received appropriate inductions and he made a number of observations about the work being carried out. He also raised concerns about an incident that had taken in place in which another prisoner was injured. In response, the prison confirmed that all reported accidents were fully investigated and records kept. They told Mr C that he was required to work. We considered that the prison appropriately addressed his concerns about the incident involving the other prisoner. We also considered that it was unreasonable for Mr C to complain about not receiving the appropriate inductions, because he had refused to attend work. However, the prison did not respond at all to his observations of the work being carried out and we felt they should have, so we upheld this aspect of his complaint and made a recommendation.

Prison rules require prisoners to work. However, Mr C had made it clear to the prison that he was not prepared to attend work. The prison provided evidence to show us the steps they had taken to consider Mr C's circumstances before allocating work to him and we found these to have been appropriate. We, therefore, did not uphold Mr C's complaints about this.

Recommendations

We recommended that the Scottish Prison Service:

• apologise for not responding fully to the concerns Mr C raised in his complaint.