1.7 The Prison Service told us that there had been significant problems when Parc first opened but the prison was now performing better against contract. In the first few months of operation as an adult local prison, there were control problems culminating in a major disturbance in February 1998, which was attended by Prison Service staff from other prisons in the area. From March 1998 the prison also started to take Young Offenders from Feltham who had been held in overcrowded and inferior accommodation. Securicor told us that Young Offenders were sent to Parc because the Prison Service was not able to fill the available prisoner places for which it was paying. This brought extra pressure to bear on a relatively inexperienced staff, particularly as a result of tensions between black Young Offenders from the London area and the predominantly white prison population from the local area that had not been anticipated either by the Prison Service or the contractor. During this period the prison experienced problems in ensuring adequate staff cover which had to be eased by the contractor temporarily bringing in additional staff employed in its London court escort contract. At about the same time, Securicor decided that a fresh management approach was needed and appointed a new director and deputy director. The prison continued to experience relatively high numbers of assaults and there was another disturbance
1.8 The Prison Service made a financial deduction of £750,000 (about 3 per cent of the annual payment) at the end of the first year of operation. This was a negotiated settlement to take into account early problems with contract monitoring8. The level of financial deductions fell in the second and third years and there have been no escapes since the prison opened. In his second report on Parc in 2000, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons (HMCIP) noted the problems that occurred when the prison opened and attributed these, in part, to the introduction of new technology and specifically an electronic locking system which slowed movement around the prison. HMCIP went on to note that, since opening, Parc had 'matured and progressed'9.
1.9 During 2002, Parc accrued 6,157 performance penalty points against a baseline threshold of 6,443 points (Figure 9). The single largest source of these performance points was a failure to provide the required number of hours of positive regimes such as vocational training. Parc also accrued penalty points for assaults, positive drug tests and incidents of self-harm resulting in medical treatment. This performance and the operation of the baseline needs to be understood in terms of similar measures in other prisons. For example, over the period 1998/99 to 2001/02, in terms of the first three of these measures, Parc has performed reasonably in terms of the targets set for all prisons, including those with more easily-managed populations, such as open and Category C prisons.
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8 The negotiation of financial deductions is discussed in paragraphs 1.22 and 1.27.
9 HMCIP, Short unannounced inspection of HMP & YOI Parc, 5-7 September 2000, para. 2.21.