§ Mr. George HowarthTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will establish an independent audit of the performance of the Prison Service against its key performance indicators for each six-month period of 1995–96 and 1996–97; and if he will make a statement about the accuracy of the information relating to the indicators. [2941]
§ Miss WiddecombeThe Prison Service's performance against its key performance indicators—KPIs—for 1996–97 and previous years were published in its corporate plan 1996 to 1999, and I understand that the Director General has written to you with details of performance in the first six months of 1996–97.
I am satisfied that the overall quality of the KPI data is good. As you know, the definition of the KPIs is agreed with Ministers, and the Prison Service has detailed instructions setting out how the data are to be collected. The Prison Service's own standards audit team is currently auditing data collection for KPIs in individual establishments. Preliminary results confirm that overall quality is good, while suggesting ways in which data definitions could be further tightened so as to improve quality further.
It is important that there is independent validation of the Prison Service's data, and the Home Office internal audit unit is about to commence an audit which will be external to the agency.