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Seòmar agus comataidhean

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 2 April 2025
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Displaying 1492 contributions

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Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

I am using that as example of new investment, new money, new build and the model that might accompany that scenario.

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

Natural termination is the direction of travel, at least in your directorate?

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

That would be helpful. I know that we said that the focus is on money but it is important to bear in mind that we are dealing with people.

My final question is about an issue that came up towards the end of last year. When Serco left the prison, did it take all the body-worn cameras away, or do the staff there at the moment still have them?

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

I will shrink my questions into two. Mr Rennick, you will be aware of the constraints on the Government’s capital investment. A number of infrastructure projects have been paused and there will be no investment in them. Much of that decision will have direct consequences for your portfolio and new schools and prisons, for example. Other portfolios across the health sector, housing and so on will feel the same.

In the scenario in which the Government is saying that it does not have the cash to build this stuff up front, is there now an expectation that a shift to a different financing model will be inevitable? In other words, the private sector will stump up the cash up front and the Government will simply pay them back over a very long period of time. I appreciate that might not be the political thing to do in terms of the ministerial direction of travel, but from a value for money point of view, should that be considered?

10:15  

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

Just to be clear, it was not a performance-related issue. There were no operational issues. It was solely, as you said, a policy decision. I will not use the word “political”, as that would not be fair on you, but it was certainly a ministerial decision that the Government wanted to go in that direction of travel, irrespective of the cost.

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

In your previous appearance before the committee, which I will not revisit, we talked quite extensively about the pressures on the prison population. Where is HMP Kilmarnock in that regard? Is it one of the ones in the red? Is it nearing capacity? Do we have any issues there?

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

You cannot go through a supermarket without being greeted by somebody with a body-worn camera. It seems odd that our prison staff do not have them.

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

We look forward to that.

My second question is about PFI contracts, where there is still a bit more digging to be done and other members might do that. I am still a bit confused about how many such contracts are coming to an end in the next couple of years and what the cost to the public purse will be. We may revisit that before we end this evidence session, but do you expect those contracts to come to a natural end or are ministers mooting an early contract termination on some of them? There is a difference there and I presume there is a cost.

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

My first question is to Teresa Medhurst. I appreciate that you may not want to answer this, but I will give it a try anyway. Did you want to take ownership of HMP Kilmarnock?

Public Audit Committee

Expiring Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Meeting date: 6 June 2024

Jamie Greene

Mr Rennick, you are next, I am afraid. Back in 2022, when I sat on the Justice Committee, I asked a similar question about the difference between privately run prisons and Government-run ones, and the response from His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons response was that HMP Kilmarnock

“is the cheapest prison in Scotland”—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 9 November 2022; c 8.]

to run. My initial question is: was the decision to move the prison into public ownership based on value for money or was it solely a policy decision?