SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman) Not Upheld

Scottish Prison Service

201202302 · Prisons › behaviour related programmes (including access to) · Decision date: 01 December 2012

Full Decision

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained about a delay in getting on to a particular behaviour course in prison. He thought the delay might hold up his release from prison. From previous complaints, we were aware that the Scottish Prison Service were dealing with a temporary backlog of people waiting for courses since a new type of assessment of suitability for courses had been introduced. The new assessment was intended to benefit prisoners by combining various assessments into one.

From our investigation, we were satisfied that the prison were doing what they could to prioritise places fairly and improve the situation. For example, they had tried to arrange for some prisoners to attend a course at another prison. Therefore, although there were delays, we did not consider that the prison had acted unreasonably in relation to Mr C and we did not uphold the complaint.

Related reading

View Decision Report 201202302 as a PDF (11.12 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018