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The Chief Inspector will be responsible for the appointment of the monitors. Monitors will be paid and the duration of their appointment will be for four years, but with flexibility for an extension when appropriate.

Yes, the monitors will notify the governor and the Chief Inspector of any circumstances relating to the condition of the prison or treatment of any prisoner or group of prisoners.

The current annual budget of the prison visiting committee system is £70,000. This budget currently sits under the Scottish Prison Service. This budget will be returned to central government to fund the new monitoring service along with an estimated additional cost of approximately £55,556.

The monitors will report directly to the Chief Inspector who has a duty to report annually to the Scottish Parliament. The annual report will include a separate section on monitoring. The Chief Inspector also meets regularly with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and officials in the Community Justice Division.

The Chief Inspector will recruit and select the monitors based on applicants' experience, skills and knowledge. The appointments will be made by fair and open competition and recruitment will be conducted by the Scottish Government.

Under the new monitoring service the monitors will visit their allocated prisons no less than once every three weeks.

Applicants are likely to have a background in working in a prison environment, possibly within a prison service, but people with experience in other sectors will not be excluded from applying.

I wrote to the Chair of the National Preventative Mechanism (NPM), Nick Hardwick on 24 May outlining the proposal for independent monitoring. Officials are liaising with NPM officials on the proposals.

The monitors will access any prison either unannounced or by appointment, at any time. In most cases it will be unannounced.

The monitors will speak to prisoners as they carry out their monitoring duties. Should a prisoner raise a complaint with the monitor the monitor will take the appropriate action depending on the scale of the complaint. This action will range from resolving the issue locally with prison staff or referring the prisoner to the Prisoner Support Service.