Publishing our investigations

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, complained that the prison were failing to provide him with adequate clean towels. He said that they have a duty to provide prisoners with suitable towels and toiletries necessary for health and hygiene. He said that there was an insufficient supply of towels at weekends, when the prison laundry is closed. Having considered his complaint, the prison concluded that providing two towels for weekend use was reasonable.

In bringing his complaint to us, Mr C noted that prisoners were issued with two clean towels every weekday evening. He indicated that he used a towel in the morning when he showered and again in the afternoon following use of the gym. He said that there were no facilities for drying towels and that he had no family who could send him in extra towels.

The prison told us that they considered two towels for weekend use to be reasonable. They advised that prisoners are allowed to purchase four extra towels (or have these handed in). The prison rules require them to provide facilities for showering on a daily basis or at least every other day where adequate arrangements cannot be made for daily provision. They advised that the latter would apply over the weekend when the prison laundry does not operate. We considered the level of towel provision reasonable, and in line with prison rules, and did not uphold the complaint.

Summary

Mr C complained that he was not allowed to purchase a music system with an inbuilt CD player and digital radio through the prison's mail ordering system, as he knew that other prisons allowed this type of item to be purchased.

Our investigation found that Rule 47(3) of the Prison Rules 2011 allows every prison governor the discretion to decide what items to permit in use in their prison. We also found that the prison had acted in accordance with national guidance and that they had followed their local procedure in refusing Mr C the music system. We were satisfied that the Scottish Prison Service recognise there is inconsistency about which electrical items prisoners are allowed to purchase across the prison sector, and that they are working to find a solution.

Summary

Mr C, who is a prisoner, had appeared before the Parole Board for Scotland, but they did not direct that Mr C should be released. He complained to them that they had not made their decision in line with the relevant rules, as it was based solely on risk assessment reports. The Parole Board advised that they had taken a wide range of information into account in reaching the decision, and gave examples of this.

Mr C was dissatisfied and raised his complaints with us. After investigating the matter, we decided that the Parole Board had reasonably followed the rules, and did not uphold Mr C's complaint about this. We did, however, uphold his complaint about how they had handled his complaint to them, as they had not included a reasonable level of detail in order to provide a clear explanation of their decision.

Recommendations

We recommended that the Parole Board:

• apologise to Mr C for not responding reasonably to his complaint; and
• review their complaints handling guidelines to ensure that complaint responses include a level of detail to ensure reasonably clear explanations of their decisions are provided.

Summary

Ms C complained to us that the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland had not reasonably handled her concerns about her detention under the Mental Health Act. We explained to Ms C that we could not look at the matter of her detention, but we did look at how they handled her concerns. We found that, following receipt of Ms C's original letter in which she outlined these concerns, the commission requested further information so that they could make a decision about whether and how to deal with the issues she had raised. Ms C told us that she did not receive this letter and so went on to send three follow-up letter, but received no acknowledgement or response to these.

The commission then wrote to Ms C to clarify what information was required, and she provided this in a letter. In it she made it clear that she was unhappy with the handling of her correspondence and said she could not understand whether her letters had been received and why they had not generated any acknowledgement or response. She asked for all her complaints to be looked at together by a senior manager. Ms C again received no reply, and wrote again a month later. The commission did then respond to the issues she had raised and apologised for their failure to reply. Ms C was advised of her right to complain about the handling of her correspondence. She exercised that right and the commission upheld her complaint.

Our investigation also upheld Ms C's complaint. We found that it should have been clear on receiving her three follow-up letters that she had not received the letter requesting further information; so three opportunities to set the record straight were missed. When Ms C wrote to provide the information requested she then had to prompt the commission again by sending a follow-up letter. We found this unacceptable. We also found that the commission could have recognised Ms C's dissatisfaction earlier and should have dealt with the issues about their handling of her correspondence at an earlier stage under their complaints handling procedure.

We noted that the commission have taken the positive step of developing written guidance for staff on dealing with incoming correspondence. They had also apologised to Ms C on three occasions, so in the circumstances we had no further recommendations to make.