1.15 At the time of our fieldwork, the Prison Service had just taken control of Ashfield from the contractor, Premier Prison Services. In May 2002, the Director General put in a team led by a public sector Governor. This decision followed a period of nine months during which the Prison Service expressed increasing concerns to Premier regarding the conditions at Ashfield13. The Prison Service returned the prison to Premier in October 2002. More detailed information concerning the background to these events can be found in Appendix 2.
1.16 During 2002 Ashfield accrued 6,362 performance penalty points against a baseline threshold of 2,848 points. Against contract this translates into a financial deduction of £331,12114 (3 per cent of the annual payment) (Figure 9). The performance points were mainly for assaults and failures to maintain agreed staffing levels.
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13 During this period, seven letters were sent to Premier noting concerns over such matters as high staff turnover, staffing levels and the levels of adjudications. There were also two formal contractual notices issued to Premier by the Central Procurement Unit (CPU) regarding a failure to meet contracted hours out of cell and insufficient staff to meet Tornado commitments (officers trained to deal with riot situations). See paragraph 3.12 for an explanation of the CPU's role.
14 The financial deduction figures given are exclusive of VAT.