MEMBERS of the Scottish Parliament are doubtful about the claimed savings of the Scottish Executive's privatisation of prisoner escort and court custody duties.
Robert Black, the auditor- general for Scotland, told members of Holyrood's audit committee that the award of the (pounds) 126m contract to private security firm Reliance had been ''proper and robust''.
However, he conceded the estimate by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), which signed the deal, that it would save (pounds) 20m over the seven-year contract, was not guaranteed.
Mr Black also said it was ''too early'' to say if the contract would achieve the objective of freeing up police and prison staff for other duties.
Reliance, heavily criticised over a spate of accidental releases, escapes and court delays when it began its contract, was the cheapest of three bidders.
The auditor-general re-vealed last month that Reliance was at fault for 12 out of 23 prisoners released in error since it took over from police and SPS staff in the Strathclyde region in April.
Margaret Jamieson, Kilmarnock Labour MSP, ex-pressed ''concern'' that poor information about what resources the SPS and police had previously committed to escort and custody duties meant the (pounds) 20m savings might not be met.
Mr Black conceded this information - provided to Reliance and the two other bidders to help them know ''what they were taking on'' - was limited.
''That's where my concern lies,'' Ms Jamieson replied, saying that how could the savings be known when figures from the police and the prison service were not available to help make comparisons.
Mr Roberts said the SPS had used a ''public sector comparator'' to estimate that continuing to deliver escort and custody duties itself, along with police, would cost (pounds) 20m more than getting Reliance to do the job.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article