Chamber and committees

Maybe you can comment on the fact that—

Who has that option?

I believe that the contract actually ends in January 2027, and tendering is expected to start in 2024. That seems an awful long way in advance, but perhaps that is how long it takes. I presume that you have seen nothing yet on what the approach will be.

Yes.

That is available, but is the Prison Service actually going to avail itself of that facility?

References to savings being made by reducing maintenance is slightly historical, in that that refers to several years ago. Is that still the case now? You can have any sort of budget, but if you are going to make savings out of that by cutting the maintenance—

Auditor General, I initially want to cover staffing levels and so on, which we have touched on already. Let us look at paragraphs 20 to 22. Paragraph 22 discusses

“a decrease of between 20 and 25 per cent on required levels.”

There is also a comment about “comparatively low pay” and you have made a comparison with supermarkets. It seems to me that there are only three possible reasons for that. Either there are no staff to recruit, with a shortage of staff in the market and difficulties with retention; the staff levels have been dropped in order to make the contract financially sustainable for the company, as deliberate policy; or, leading off from the possibility that staff levels were cut by the company to make the contract sustainable, and linked into that, there has been a deliberate suppression of salary levels. Later in the report, you mention increased salary levels being offered in order to recruit staff. Why was that not done earlier?

What, in your opinion, is behind the decrease in staffing levels? Was it deliberate? Is it the market? What is it?

Will you be in a position to monitor the contract and the bidding process as that work goes forward?

What support is the Scottish Government providing with regard to that process?

I will move on to the final couple of questions. In paragraph 37, reference is made to the greater number of older prisoners in the system. At last week’s evidence session on NHS Forth Valley, comment was made about the ageing prison population and the increased pressure on the NHS as a result of that. What is the impact of a greater number of older prisoners? What level of support is required? There seems to be an implication that we should have a care facility in prisons. A number of reasons, such as sentencing and historical sex abuse cases, have been put forward to explain why the prison population is so much older. How is that impacting on the NHS and the SPS?