§ Mr. CoxTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what checks are made by his Department to ensure that in prisons in England and Wales there is a fair allocation of wing No. 1 jobs being given to inmates of ethnic minority origin.
§ Mr. Peter LloydResponsibility for this matter has been delegated to the director general of the prison service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Tom Cox, dated July 1993:
The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about what checks are made by the Home Department to ensure that in prisons in England and Wales there is a fair allocation of wing No. 1 jobs being given to inmates of ethnic minority origin.
The race relations policy of the Prison Service seeks to ensure that prisoners have equal access to all facilities provided in prison, including all types and grades of jobs. To check the fair allocation of work, ethnic monitoring is undertaken by all prisons. Monitoring will cover most areas of work, and should include wing No. 1 jobs where these exist.
The results of monitoring will be checked and acted upon by the prison's Race Relations Management Team, advised by the Race Relations Liaison Officer. The Team is also expected to undertake audits of the adequacy of its monitoring and to send a quarterly report detailing the results of monitoring to Area Managers and the national Prison Service Race Relations Group.