§ The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your recent Question about any subsidies which privately run prisons receive towards the cost of electricity or gas.
§ No such subsidies are paid. The contractor who manages Blakenhurst prison pays these costs under the operating contract. This will also be the case at Doncaster when it opens in June. The position at Wolds prison is temporarily a little different, however, in that there the costs of gas and electricity are currently met directly by the Prison Service. This reflects the fact that Wolds' unique design made it impossible at the outset to set benchmark levels for consumption, and therefore cost, in the contract. They have, however, been included in the published total operating costs of the prison and in the published comparative cost analyses contained in the Prison Service Annual Report. Now that energy consumption levels are known, arrangements are in hand to amend the contract so that these costs become the contractor's responsibility.
§ The efficient use by contractors of public utilities is monitored by the Prison Service controllers who are assisted by the Prison Service Energy Management Group.