2.2 Some of the individual performance measures applied to PFI prisons are directly comparable to Prison Service KPTs. For example, PFI prisons receive penalty points for each proven assault and public prisons have an almost identical KPT. Similarly, PFI prisons have a contractual requirement to ensure that certain prisoners are unlocked from their cells for a number of hours each day. This is also a Prison Service KPT.
2.3 There are a number of other areas where the details of the measures are slightly different or where different measures are used to assess performance against the same standard. For example, PFI prisons generally have a performance measure which penalises the contractor for each incident of self-harm by a prisoner. There is no equivalent KPT but public prisons do have a target to achieve at least an 'acceptable' rating from the Standards Audit Unit for its self-harm procedures. Even where contractual measures are the same as KPTs, performance against those measures does not always appear in Prison Service KPT data. This is because they are measured under different systems, designed to monitor performance against contract rather than to provide information for Prison Service KPTs.
2.4 The Prison Service is developing a quarterly system of ranking prisons, known as the weighted scorecard. It scores an individual prison's performance against its targets, its previous performance and the performance of other prisons in the same category. Individual targets are then weighted according to the type of prison. For example, escapes are weighted more heavily in a maximum security prison than in an open prison. It is a system designed to compare performance between prisons but it can equally be used as a management tool for monitoring change. PFI prisons are not ranked accurately in the weighted scorecard because the data they submit to the Prison Service is not as comprehensive as that submitted by public sector prisons. Not all KPTs apply to private prisons. For example, each public prison has a KPT on staff sickness rates; in private prisons this is primarily an issue for the contractor rather than the Prison Service. However, the Prison Service has been able to draw on private sector practice in its own initiatives to reduce the high sickness absence rate.