§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on progress towards the Public Service Agreement target for low level escapes from prison and Prison Service escorts. [17072]
§ Beverley HughesThe Public Service Agreement target on escapes was published in "Public Services for the Future: Modernisation, Reform, Accountability". The 357W target was to maintain existing performance of no escapes by high risk (category A) prisoners; and the overall rate of escapes from prison to be no higher than 0.17 per cent. of average prison population; and to establish a baseline for the rate of escapes from prison escorts and set a target for contracted-out escorts by April 1999.
Performance on escapes from prison and Prison Service escorts for the period 1999–02 is listed in the table.
1999–2000 2000–01 12001–02 Escapes from prisons and Prison Service escorts expressed as a proportion of the average population (percentage) 0.06 0.03 0.02 Number of escapes from prisons and Prison Service escorts 38 19 14 1 Performance for the year 2001–02 is for the period April 2001 to October 2001. These data are provisional and subject to change.