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National Objectives for Social Work Services in the Criminal Justice System: Standards - Throughcare
CHAPTER 10 : DISCLOSURE OF SOCIAL WORK RECORDS
300.The Secretary of State intends, as a matter of policy, that all reports prepared in connection with parole and life prisoner reviews, should be disclosed to the prisoner. The detailed requirements are set out in Statutory Instruments made under the Prisons (Scotland) Act 1989 and the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993.
RULES
301.The Parole Board (Scotland) Rules 1993 and 1995 (SI 1993 No. 2225 (S.235) and 1995 No. 1273 (S.99)) require the Secretary of State to send a copy of the dossier to the prisoner at the same time as it is sent to the Parole Board. In effect the Rules institute a system of 'open reporting' in relation to parole.
302.Rule 6(1) applies where the Secretary of State consider that any written information or document contained in a dossier referred to the Board should not be disclosed to the prisoner because its disclosure would be likely to be damaging on one of a number of grounds. These grounds are that the information:
302.1would be likely adversely to affect the health, welfare or safety of the prisoner or any other person;
302.2would be likely to result in the commission of an offence;
302.3would be likely to facilitate the escape from legal custody or prejudice the safekeeping of persons in legal custody;
302.4would be likely to impede the prevention or detection of offences or the apprehension or prosecution of suspected offenders; or
302.5would be likely otherwise to damage the public interest.
All such information is referred to in the rules as "damaging information".
303.Where Rule 6(1) is applied in any case the Secretary of State is not required to send a copy of the damaging information to the prisoner although this information may still be taken into account by the Parole Board. The Secretary of State must, however, inform the prisoner, in writing, that certain information supplied to the Parole Board has not been made available to the prisoner, and must indicate to the prisoner the nature of this information, " only so far as is practicable without prejudicing the purposes for which the information is not disclosed". The Secretary of State must also advise the prisoner (in accordance with Rule 6(2)(c)(iii)) that he/she may make representation to the Secretary of State and to the Parole Board about his/her case, including the non-disclosure of information.
304.There are no powers to withhold 'damaging information' in respect of any case involving a discretionary life sentence.
IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
305.The Parole Board (Scotland) Rules establish a presumption in favour of disclosing information to prisoners in all parole and life prisoner review cases including recall. The Secretary of State has a discretion to withhold from the prisoner information but as can be seen from paragraph 303 above, if he does so, the prisoner will become aware that information has been withheld from him/her and may become aware of the gist of that information.
306.Social workers must bear this in mind when preparing reports for parole reviews and in relation to possible recalls, and must always make clear to third parties that any information they supply to assist the social worker to prepare a report for the purpose of parole or life licence review is likely to be made known to the prisoner.
307.If a social worker preparing a report for a parole review obtains information which he/she believes could be 'damaging information' in terms of Rule 6(1), the matter must be discussed with the worker's line manager. The social worker or line manager may also contact the Parole Lifer Review Branch of SOHD to discuss the matter informally.
308.It is expected that the relevant procedures in relation to damaging information will be invoked only in exceptional circumstances. If, however, following discussion, it is considered that the information is damaging in terms of Rule 6(1), the worker must complete Form PR3 (supplied with the original request for a report), and attach a note of the damaging information, both of which must be placed in a sealed envelope marked "For the attention of the Parole and Lifer Review Branch: Not for disclosure to the prisoner".
309.In order to ensure that the establishment can provide a complete dossier on the prisoner, the report writer should also prepare a report as requested by the establishment containing all relevant disclosable information. This should be provided to the establishment which requested the report, and a copy should be sent to the Parole and Lifer Review Branch of SOHD with the sealed envelope containing form PR3 and the non-disclosable information.
310.On receipt of information covered by a form PR3, along with the copy of the disclosable report, SOHD may contact the report writer to discuss the handling of the non-disclosable information. This discussion may involve attempting to identify an agreed way in which the use of Rule 6 may be avoided. If the conclusion is that the use of Rule 6 is unavoidable, then SOHD will be obliged to prepare a notice as described in paragraph 303 above.
311.On receipt of a notice from SOHD as described at paragraph 303 above, it is likely that the prisoner may seek to discuss the matter with the social worker. Under these circumstances the social worker must advise the prisoner that he/she cannot discuss the contents of the damaging information since to do so could prejudice the reason for non-disclosure. The social worker should always remind the prisoner of his/her right to make representations to the Secretary of State and the Parole Board, under the terms of Rule 6(2)(c)(iii).
312.In such circumstances, non-disclosure may itself become a focus of work between the social worker and prisoner or between the social worker and the third party, or, indeed between all three.
Note:
The guidance which currently applies to the ownership, confidentially and disclosure of prison social work records is set out in Chapter 8 of "Continuity Through Co-operation". This has been reproduced in Annex E to these Standards, for each of reference.
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