Lord A veburyasked Her Majesty's Government
What was the cost of the equipment used for the trayed meals system at Garth Prison; what. additional 31WA operating costs were incurred at the prison as a result of the trial of the system; what was the cost of tranferring the equipment to another prison when the experiment was judged unsuccessful; which other prison is now using the equipment, and what were the costs of its introduction there, and what is the opinion of staff and inmates at this prison of the benefits of the system.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers)Responsibility for the subject of this Question has been delegated to the Prison Service and its Director General, Mr. Derek Lewis. The Director General has therefore arranged for a response to the Question and the letter is given below.
Letter to Lord Avebury from the Director of Personnel and Services, HM Prison Service, Mr. A. J. Butler, dated 17 February 1994
Lord Ferrers has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question about the success, costs and current use of trayed meals equipment originally installed at Garth Prison.
The capital cost of the equipment was £ 134,500 and the total operating costs at Garth were approximately £ 8,000 over two months. The equipment is due to be transferred to HM Young Offenders institution Dover within four weeks. I regret that when I wrote on 27 January, I understood the transfer had already taken place. It is currently stored at Garth awaiting installation of electrical cabling in the kitchen at Dover. The cost of transferring the equipment is estimated at about £ 300 to £ 400. The cost of introducing the system at Dover will be approximately £ 2,000.
Despite the unsuitability of the system at Garth, its introduction in Scottish prisons and in the Health Service has demonstrated many merits, and staff at Dover hope that these advantages can be repeated there.