Prisons

Summary

Mr C complained that he had been unreasonably denied unescorted day release from prison. We found that Mr C's community access plan which was in place at the time of his request did not allow for unescorted community access. Therefore, we concluded that the decision to reject his request was reasonable. We did not uphold the complaint.

Summary

Mr C said that other prisoners had given him items of property when they were leaving the prison, but that prison staff had taken the items from him and disposed of them. Mr C complained about this and said that this was, in effect, prison staff stealing his belongings.

We found that the prison rules gave prison staff the authority to search cells and seize unauthorised property. In the prison's view, the items found in Mr C's cell were unauthorised property, within the definition given in the prison rules, rather than authorised personal property. The prison rules also gave prison staff the authority to dispose of or destroy unauthorised property.

We determined that prison staff were acting appropriately within the discretion given to them by the prison rules in searching Mr C's cell, seizing unauthorised property, and disposing of it. We did not uphold Mr C's complaint.

Summary

Mr C complained that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) did their assessment of the programmes he was to complete in prison without considering all of the relevant information. He was also unhappy that they had cancelled some of his parent and child visits, which he felt had been unreasonable.

We considered the administrative handling of SPS's programmes assessment. That is because we are not a route for prisoners to appeal SPS's decisions about the programmes they are to complete. We looked at the evidence and it indicated that SPS had handled the matter in line with the relevant guidance. They had recorded the matters they had considered, the evidence reflected the information detailed in the guidance, and there was nothing to indicate that they had failed to consider relevant information. On that basis, we did not uphold Mr C's first complaint.

In terms of Mr C's visits, SPS confirmed that parent and child visits supplemented the visits he was entitled to receive under the prison rules. The paperwork indicated that several steps had to be taken before a prisoner was registered for the parent and child scheme. Mr C had wrongly been put on the scheme before those steps were complete, which was why his visit had been cancelled. SPS had acknowledged and apologised to Mr C for that error. By the time another visit was cancelled several months later, it was because all parent and child visits in a specific session were cancelled for operational reasons and it had not been Mr C's visit that was cancelled specifically on this occasion. We noted that Mr C remained registered for the scheme and could book future visits. Viewed as a whole, the evidence indicated that SPS had made decisions they were entitled to have made, that they explained their reasons to Mr C and that they had apologised for their initial error. We did not uphold this complaint.

Summary

Mr C complained about the way that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) handled a form on which he had submitted his comments on the record of discussions held during his integrated case management (ICM) case conference. He had submitted the form through his personal officer, in line with the ICM Practice Guidance Manual. According to the guidance, the form should then have been forwarded to relevant parties who had attended the case conference for their comments. Mr C did not hear anything further for several weeks and, after he followed matters up with the ICM co-ordinator, he was advised that the form had not been submitted within the required timescales and so there would be no action from the prison based social worker.

Mr C submitted a complaint to the SPS, and after escalation the complaint was heard by an ICC (Internal Complaints Committee). The ICC found that the form had been submitted within the timescale and as such it should be considered. They did not set a timescale within which this should happen, and when nothing further appeared to happen Mr C brought his complaint to us.

We found that there were several stages at which the process had broken down. First, there was a delay in the receipt of the form being acknowledged, then there was a failure of the ICM co-ordinator to oversee the process by which the form was sent out to relevant parties for comment. Despite Mr C having raised concerns with the SPS, and failings being identified by the ICC, the SPS missed the opportunity to resolve matters at an early stage.

As well as not having imposed a timescale for action to be taken, the ICC failed to confirm what they would recommend as a result of the failings identified in Mr C's case to ensure that the matter was resolved appropriately. We upheld the complaint. An apology had already been made to Mr C, but we made a number of other recommendations.

Recommendations

What we said should change to put things right in future:

• The ICM co-ordinator should ensure that comments from relevant parties are sought within a reasonable timeframe, following up where necessary, with a view to ensuring that an accurate record of the ICM case conference discussions is entered onto the relevant computer system as soon as reasonably practicable after the ICM case conference has taken place.
• Consideration should be given to imposing a set timeframe within which to acknowledge forms of the type that Mr C had submitted, and to obtain comments from relevant parties.

In relation to complaints handling, we recommended:

• If the ICC are recommending actions, where possible they should specify the timescale within which action is to be taken.
• Where failings are identified, the ICC should confirm in their response the steps to be taken to resolve the failings.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.

Summary

Mr C complained about the way that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) managed his prison sentence. Specifically, he complained about a delay in referring him back to the risk management team (RMT) to consider his suitability for progression to less secure conditions. Mr C was not referred back to the RMT until around two months after the planned date. The reason for this was that the RMT required his home leave report but this was not complete, as there had been a delay in the SPS sending it to social work for comment. The SPS explained that this was because Mr C's personal officer chose to wait on the outcome of Mr C's parole hearing, when in fact the home leave report should have been sent six weeks prior to completion of his management plan, which was completed ahead of his parole hearing. The SPS had already acknowledged and apologised for the inappropriate delay in referring Mr C back to the RMT. We agreed that this delay had potentially delayed Mr C's progression to less secure conditions by around two months. We upheld this aspect of the complaint.

Mr C also complained that the SPS failed to respond to his complaint within the timescales laid down in the prison rules. These allow 20 working days for a written response to be issued but, in Mr C's case, the response was delayed by over two weeks beyond this timeframe. We upheld this aspect of the complaint.

Mr C subsequently made an additional complaint directly to the prison governor, via the confidential complaints process. The governor did not investigate the matter as they did not consider the subject of the complaint to be confidential in nature. Mr C complained to us that the governor unreasonably refused to accept his confidential complaint. We noted that this was a matter for the governor's discretion. In any event, we considered that the governor had already arranged to have the subject of the complaint appropriately considered when it was brought to their attention via Mr C's previous (non-confidential) complaint. We did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise to Mr C for the delay in responding to his complaint.

What we said should change to put things right in future:

• Home leave reports should be submitted to social work in a timely manner.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.

Summary

Mr C complained that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) failed to appropriately handle his request to have his legal agent's phone number added to his prison phone account. He also complained that the SPS failed to respond appropriately to his complaint about this.

Mr C said that he submitted the appropriate form with details of his request but that the SPS did not have any record of having received it. The SPS said that they only became aware of Mr C's request after an officer, who received a complaint from Mr C, called the business support team to notify them. Mr C said the officer who responded to his complaint indicated that he could call his lawyer, and Mr C said he felt this response indicated that any calls made would be confidential. However, the business support team added Mr C's legal agent's phone number to his account, but because the details could not be verified in the normal way, the number was added as allowed but not private. This meant that any calls made by Mr C to his legal agent could be recorded. The SPS said that they told Mr C that the number would only be added as private when sufficient evidence was provided by him to confirm that the phone number was in fact for his legal agent.

We found that the SPS had handled Mr C's request appropriately and in line with the normal process. We were also satisfied that the SPS had responded appropriately to Mr C's complaint. Therefore, we did not uphold his complaints.

Summary

Mr C complained that the way the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) handled his sentence management was unreasonable. Mr C was particularly concerned that the final outcome of a disciplinary hearing was being reflected incorrectly in some of his paperwork. He was concerned that this was recorded as a guilty finding when it was overturned to not guilty after Mr C appealed. Mr C complained that this was impacting on his progression and that the SPS were wrongly saying in some of their communication that he had been downgraded when he had not been. Mr C was worried that inaccurate paperwork might eventually go to the parole board. We had no authority to decide how Mr C's sentence was managed. Nor could we decide whether or how he should progress. However, we found that some of the SPS's communication with Mr C about how he was progressing, and whether or not he had been downgraded, had been confusing and inconsistent. We also found that some of SPS's record-keeping was incomplete or inconsistent. As such, we upheld Mr C's complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise to Mr C for the communication failings and for the confusion and stress that this caused. This apology should comply with SPSO guidelines on making an apology, available at www.spso.org.uk/leaflets-and-guidance
• Ensure that all significant records note that Mr C was not downgraded, particularly those documents which will be included in submissions to the parole board.
• Share the findings of our investigation with the staff involved.

What we said should change to put things right in future:

• The SPS should reflect on how and why the original disciplinary hearing guilty finding was arrived at, so that any learning and improvement can be identified in a supportive way.
• Staff should be aware of the importance of good record-keeping.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.

Summary

Mr C complained that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) acted unreasonably by refusing his request for phone credit to allow him to call his partner, who was seriously ill. SPS said that Mr C's requests were declined because he refused to return to mainstream accommodation and that as a result he had been denied access to his personal cash account (an account containing money handed in by family and friends) and so could only make phone calls using the existing money in his wages account.

The evidence showed that Mr C was not entitled to access his personal cash account due to sanctions put in place because he had refused to comply with a lawful order from prison staff. However, given the exceptional circumstances detailed by Mr C, the SPS granted him access to a sum from his personal cash account to allow him to make phone calls regarding his family members' health. Mr C made 24 phone calls to family members (other than his partner) over a five-week period. Given the flexibility shown by the SPS in Mr C's case, on balance we did not consider it entirely unreasonable for them to decide that Mr C's requests for additional phone credit could no longer be accommodated. Therefore we did not uphold Mr C's complaint. However, we found a lack of documentary evidence relating to Mr C's case and made a recommendation to address this.

Recommendations

We recommended that the SPS:

• ensure that in future, prison staff record details of any alternative offers made to prisoners in response to phone top-up requests.

Summary

Mr C complained that he had regularly asked staff at his prison for a transfer to another prison, but this had not taken place. Mr C said that prison officers took other prisoners from their cells at night and gave them weapons with a view to letting them into his cell to assault him. Mr C said the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) unreasonably failed to appropriately investigate his allegations. Mr C also said that the SPS unreasonably failed to consider his complaints confidentially.

Whilst we appreciated that Mr C said that he requested a transfer on several occasions, there was no documentary evidence of his request until he made his complaint to the SPS. The SPS then appeared to have dealt with his transfer request in line with their normal procedure. On balance, we were unable to determine that there were unreasonable delays in the SPS's handling of Mr C's request to be transferred and we did not uphold his complaint.

In terms of Mr C's complaint that prison officers took other prisoners from their cells at night and gave them weapons with a view to letting them into his cell to assault him, whilst we appreciated Mr C's strong concerns about this issue, the CCTV and documentary evidence available suggested that the SPS did not unreasonably fail to appropriately investigate Mr C's serious allegations and there was no evidence to support his assertion. Therefore, we did not uphold this aspect of his complaint. However, we were very concerned that the SPS failed to make evidence in this case (CCTV footage of one of the dates in question) available to us and as a result we made two recommendations for action by the SPS regarding this matter.

We also found that the SPS did not unreasonably fail to consider Mr C's complaint confidentially and we did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise in writing to Mr C for failing to provide us with CCTV footage relating to a particular date.

In relation to complaints handling, we recommended:

• Staff must retain CCTV footage on complaints, in line with the SPS CCTV Code of Practice 2009.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.

Summary

Mr C complained that the SPS had inappropriately failed to pay him the correct wage. He said his wage had been cut from £13 to £7.

The information available confirmed that Mr C had been receiving a weekly wage of £13 for working full time in the kitchen. However, he then transferred to another prison. He was returned from that prison a few weeks later because of poor behaviour and he was assigned a part-time role in the kitchen and he received a payment of £7 per week. Mr C was also able to supplement his wage through attending education.

We were satisfied the Mr C was being paid appropriately by the SPS in line with their wage earning policy and we did not uphold the complaint.