Question reference: S6W-25460
- Date lodged: 9 February 2024
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Current status: Answered by Angela Constance on 26 February 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6T-01780 by Angela Constance on 6 February 2024, what evidence was used to support its decision not to retender the contract for HMP Kilmarnock, and whether the current operator's reported offer to construct a new 240-bed wing at no public cost was considered as part of this process.
Answer
The 25-year contract for HMP Kilmarnock under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) for a privately constructed and operationally managed prison expires on 16 March 2024. The decision to bring HMP Kilmarnock into public management and ownership and not to tender for a new private contract was taken in 2021. This decision was based on the Scottish Government policy, which has been in place since 2007, that prisons should be owned and managed by the public sector and public safety, rehabilitation and wellbeing should not be driven by private profit.
Procurement regulations mean that it was not possible to extend the existing contract. Scottish Government would have had to tender for the management of the prison, and for any expansion in capacity, if that had been the preferred option.
At no stage was there an offer of building a new houseblock at no cost to the public purse.