Prison transport contractor accused of breaching human rights

Scotland’s Chief Inspector of Prisons has accused the firm tasked with transporting inmates of breaching their human rights.

GEOAmey has long been criticised for its handling of the contract to transport people between court, prison and non-court appointments such as medical visits, with Justice Secretary Angela Constance saying in January their work was “utterly unacceptable”.

The firm’s performance has been inconsistent in recent years, with the quarterly number of missed appointments varying wildly between November 2021 and September 2023, according to a letter from the Scottish Healthcare in Custody Oversight Board.

Between November 2021 and January 2022, 690 appointments were missed, a figure which dropped to just 53 and 42 in the following two quarters, before spiking to 356 and 819 in the two quarters between August 2022 and January 2023.

Again, the figure dropped dramatically to 88 and 209 respectively in the following two quarters, rising again to 826 in the three months up to September last year.

Three of those visits, according to the Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, included an inmate with stage four cancer who missed a trio of “critical” appointments, leaving her “deeply shocked”.

“Over my tenure there have been issues with fluctuations in the prisoner transport provider with, in my opinion, unacceptable drops in performance leading to human rights breaches that I have repeatedly raised with the prison service and at times with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice,” she said before the Public Audit Committee on Thursday.

The chief inspector raised concerns every year between 2020 and this year relating to how the contract was being carried out.

“In 2023, I raised the issue twice and I have never seen such poor performance as by the end of 2023 – it was truly shocking,” she said.

“You had appointments in some prisons that were more routinely cancelled than they were met and you had real problems.”

She added: “As a result, I think it’s a significant challenge to human rights, a financial risk, I worry that it might be another ‘slopping out’ case, it doesn’t give me, as chief inspector, any confidence at all, given the history, of continued and sustained improvement.”

In 2011, three former inmates at HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow successfully sued the Scottish Government after having to “slop out” during their sentences, meaning they used a chamber pot or other container as a toilet, which they argued breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

The contract, Ms Sinclair-Geiben said, has not worked “since inception”.

“It hasn’t provided the service to the court and non-court appointments that you would want to see,” she said.

“So therefore, there must be a flaw either in the commissioning of the contract, or the contract itself or the management of the contract – there just must be, otherwise it would have been resolved and worked.”

The chief inspector acknowledged that GEOAmey was doing well in other jurisdictions but told the committee the contract in Scotland was very different to elsewhere.

A spokesman for the contractor said: “GEOAmey is committed to providing a reliable, trusted and effective service to our justice sector partners and those in our care.

“The Audit Scotland report stated clearly that the GEOAmey contract was run to acceptable levels until the Covid pandemic changed the operating model and severely impacted our ability to recruit.

“Whilst we accept that performance dropped in the post-pandemic period, in December 2023 the contract was recalibrated in partnership with the Scottish Government and this, together with a recent improved pay award for employees, has led to an encouraging level of new interest in joining our team.

“We are already seeing improvement in service delivery and remain confident that through time, these improvements will be sustained.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said: “We are determined to deliver a prisoner transport contract that meets the needs of those in our care, the Scottish justice system, and the country as a whole.

“We have worked with GEOAmey, with support from Scottish Government, to recalibrate our contract with them and, while it is still early days, we are seeing positive indications.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “It is clear that the performance of the GeoAmey contract has not been working how it should, causing disruption for courts, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) and others.

“We have provided additional funding to support SPS and other partners in delivering an improvement in the GEOAmey contract which has resulted in early positive signs, with a slowdown in staff attrition and improved staff numbers.

“SPS is continuing to monitor the performance of the contract carefully to ensure target thresholds are met and we see a level of service which properly meets the needs we expect.”