SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman) Not Upheld

Scottish Prison Service

201103664 · Prisons › progression · Decision date: 01 September 2012

Full Decision

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained that the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) had unreasonably delayed in assessing him for offending behaviour programmes. He said that this would have a negative impact on his progression (movement through the prison system to less supervised conditions).

When we investigated the complaint, we found that there had been some confusion in the SPS’s responses to Mr C as to whether he would have to complete a behavioural programme for which he had previously been assessed. The SPS confirmed that Mr C would have to complete the programme and could do so the following year. They also said that he would be assessed for other programmes this year to allow him to complete any work before the earliest date on which he could progress. The SPS said, however, that they would first have to assess other prisoners who were due to progress before Mr C. We took the view that this was reasonable in the circumstances and we did not uphold the complaint.

Related reading

View Decision Report 201103664 as a PDF (11.16 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018