12. VISITING COMMITTEE

12.1. Since our last inspection, a separate Longriggend Visiting Committee (VC) had been established - previously a sub-committee of the VC for HMP Barlinnie had served the Institution. The new VC, which had eight members, had been formed in November 1996 and as part of our inspection, we met with the Chairman and Secretary. The Committee had devised a rota which ensured that at least one member was visiting parts of the Institution on at least a fortnightly basis, though it was recognised that the ideal arrangement would be weekly visits.

12.2. The main observations raised by the Committee representatives included the following:-

12.2.1 Relations with Management and staff were said to be good.

12.2.2 Relationships between staff and remands/prisoners were also said to be above average; nevertheless, the major issue which the VC said they encountered was that staffing levels were inadequate, though that situation was possibly being exacerbated by the number of long term sick absences.

12.2.3 There had been a lack of investment in the Institution over the years.

12.2.4 Recreation rooms were particularly shabby and drab.

12.2.5 Longriggend was considered by the VC as a site which could usefully be developed in the future for the housing of PADs.

12.3. Separately, the Chairman raised the matter of the difficulties he had been encountering in the training of his Committee members; this had proved to be haphazard with little in place by way of formal arrangements. Equally, he felt strongly that members who were dealing with young remands ought to have specialist training - for example, over drug and suicide awareness - an observation which we fully support.