§ Lord Harris of Greenwichasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why the report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons on HM Young Offender Institution, Portland, submitted to Ministers in October 1992, was not published until 21st April 1993.
Earl FerrersResponsibility for the subject of this question has been delegated to the Prison Service Agency and its director general Mr. Derek Lewis. The agency has therefore responded to the question and its letter is given below.
Letter from Mr. Ian Dunbar, CB, Director of Inmate Administration, to the Lord Harris of Greenwich, dated April 1993.
35WAIn the temporary absence of Mr. Lewis, the Director General, the Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question asking why the report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons on HMYOI Portland was not published until 21 April 1993.
On receipt of a report by the Chief Inspector, the Prison Service has to decide how it can best respond to the Chief Inspector's recommendations, and advise the Home Secretary accordingly. When Ministers are content with the Service's response, they will agree to publication of the report. In the case of HMYOI Portland, the consultation period within the Service, together with time spent on the preparation of advice for Ministers, was 14 weeks. After Ministerial approval, a further 6 weeks elapsed while the Inspectorate arranged printing and publication.
We believe it is important that the Service's response to Judge Tumim's reports should be thorough and properly considered. There are complex financial, practical and policy implications in many of his recommendations, and a rushed response would not do justice to the careful thought which goes into the Chief Inspector's reports. However, we do believe that we can speed up our response time, and the Director General has taken steps to see that in future we play our part in reducing the length of time between the submission and publication of these reports.