Decision Report 201402870

Summary

Mr and Mrs C tried to collect their son's property from a prison but were unable to do so. They complained that the prison failed to take appropriate steps to ensure that they could collect the property and did not respond appropriately to their complaint.

In response, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) had told Mr and Mrs C that they could not collect the property because staff had not taken it to the correct collection area. However, in responding to our enquiries, they confirmed that the prison's actions in handling the property were in fact correct. They explained that the problem occurred because, when Mr and Mrs C tried to collect the property, the member of staff in the collection area was unaware that it was there. Although the SPS confirmed that the prison were reviewing the process, we upheld Mr and Mrs C's complaint and made a recommendation.

In considering whether the prison responded appropriately to their complaint, we identified that the response contained a number of inaccuracies and because of that, we also upheld this part of Mr and Mrs C's complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the SPS:

• tell us what steps the prison took to review the relevant procedure and confirm what changes, if any, have been implemented; and
• apologise to Mr and Mrs C for the inaccuracies in their response to the complaint.