Swinney to be quizzed over soaring costs of Scots prisons to taxpayer

He is due to be interrogated over the government's record in dealing with the crisis in Scotland's prisons as the building of new jails to end overcrowding has skyrocketed while projects to try to end the crisis have been delayed by at least five years.

Six years ago inspectors warned the Scottish Government that it needed to  "creatively address the overcrowding situation in Scotland’s prisons as a priority" including bring forward the construction of a replacement for Scotland's largest prison which has been delayed and won't now be complete till 2028 at the earliest.

Katy Clark, Scottish Labour's spokesman for community safety is to ask Mr Swinney on Thursday over whether the soaring costs represent good value for public money.

She said The Herald investigation had confirmed the crisis in the prisons system and that the Scottish Government had presided over "two decades of policy failure".

"The Scottish Government focuses on trying to drive controversial legislation through rather than focusing on driving the real change that is needed in our justice system to help both reduce offending and deal with the crisis in our overcrowded prisons," she said.

"The Herald's research shows we can not carry on with this policy failure. We need to invest in alternatives to custody, which are not soft options but help reduce crime and ensure funding to community sentences across Scotland."

It comes as it further emerged that the cost of replacing Scotland's largest prison Barlinnie with a bigger one will now cost £2.79m per extra prisoner place.

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The cost of the prison service as a whole has rocketed from £332m in 2015/16 which is an estimated £43,000 per prisoner with the budget for the next financial year of 2025/26 set at £648.3m - which works out at an estimated £77,500+ per prison place.  

John Swinney (Image: PA)The average taxpayer price per prison place in Scotland has shot up by nearly a third since the pandemic from £35,601 in 2018/19 to £47,140 in 2023/24.  

"Serious overcrowding" concerns at two prisons currently being replaced - Barlinnie and Inverness - were highlighted as far back as 2000/01 when the prisons inspectorate noted that Barlinnie was 36% and Inverness was 25% over capacity.

And in 2005/16 the inspectors 20 years ago pointed to "the nine evils of overcrowding” a stark description of the harms caused that it has told ministers "remains disappointingly relevant" now.

The costs to the taxpayer have been strongly criticised by some who say that is the price of the Scottish Government's 'failure' to properly manage the nation's prisons.

The capital cost of modernising the prison estate alone - including major projects to build two new prisons in Glasgow and Highland will soar five-fold in the space of just three years.

While in 2022/23 the Scottish Prison Services capital budget was at £72m in 2025/26 it is now set at £335m. Financial statements seen by The Herald show that the extra costs in recent years is down to the soaring costs of the new Barlinnie also known as HMP Glasgow and the HMP Inverness replacement HMP Highland.

The price of  the new Barlinnie has soared six-fold since the estimates from 2018 when it was costed at just £170m for a prison with a capacity of around 1500 and is at least five years late.

It has been confirmed that the cost of the 1,344-capacity HMP Glasgow is at £998.4m to provide 357 more prison places than the original Barlinnie.

But there are fears that the price will go even higher because of delays in completing the project.

Three years before work on the project began in 2021, it was expected to be operational in October 2023. Now completion is scheduled for 2028.

Ms Clark added: "The Scottish Government policy is to support non custodial disposals where possible.

"However, they have not made that possible by ensuring that those sentencing options are available across Scotland. Even when a community sentence is ordered by the court, it often doesn’t happen.

"There are offences where prison is the only option, and we have to ensure that those individuals are held securely in custody.

"At the moment, there is considerable scope for more community disposals, which, for many crimes - the evidence shows -  are the most effective way to stop reoffending.

"Rehabilitation programmes are simply not available for a significant number of offenders in many parts of Scotland. "

The same outline business case had the prison open in the Spring of 2021, which was pushed back to February, 2024 and the latest forecast is for the summer of next year.

But the widespread problem of overcrowding in Scotland's jails has exploded in the last ten years especially.

Scotland's prison population was at 8350 as of February. That's 445 more than the current design capacity for all Scottish Prison Service's establishments, which was at 7905.

Ten years ago the average prison population was at 7731 but that was 432 below the design capacity of 8163.

And going back to 2000/21 there were just 5868 in Scotland's jails when it could actually hold 6167.

Last month, up to 390 prisoners were being released early in an attempt to ease overcrowding.

Emergency legislation was passed last year which allows eligible inmates sentenced to less than four years to be freed after 40% of their term, rather than 50%.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We remain committed to modernising and improving the prison estate, to ensure it is fit for purpose and safe for those that live and work in prisons, and to support the rehabilitation of people living there.  Clearly there will always be a need for prisons to deal with offenders who pose the highest risk to public safety – and to have a prison system that is equipped to help them rehabilitate themselves.

“However, we know that community-based interventions and sentences help ensure justice is done and can be more effective in reducing reoffending and assisting with rehabilitation than short term custodial sentences, leading to fewer victims and safer communities."