Decision Report 201502781

Summary

Mr C lost an item of property. Although the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) had admitted responsibility for losing the item, Mr C was unhappy with the amount that had been offered in compensation. We asked the SPS about this and they confirmed that the valuation of Mr C's lost property had been made using an inappropriate method. They agreed to re-visit the claim. They also agreed to ensure that more appropriate methods were used in future. As such, we upheld the complaint but made no further recommendations.

Mr C then complained again following this reassessment, as he remained unhappy with the way it had been carried out. On further investigation, we found that the relevant staff were unaware of the procedure they were supposed to follow and there had been a number of procedural errors as a result, affecting the investigation of Mr C's claim. As such, we upheld the complaint, this time making recommendations.

Recommendations

We recommended that the SPS:

• apologise to Mr C for the failings identified;
• repeat their compensation offer to Mr C for his lost item of property; and
• provide us with details of the outcome of the stated reviews being carried out to the SPS' processes for the recording of prisoner property and assessing claims of lost property, taking account of the failings identified.