Prisons 'making impossible claims'

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Publicly-run jails have misreported that they met the 10 hours a day "unlock" time required under Government targets, the Chief Inspector of Prisons said.

Anne Owers' report added that privately-run prisons - whose owners face cash penalties for not meeting targets - have also "significantly overestimated" the hours spent out of cells each day.

The figures have serious implications for the amount of rehabilitation work offenders can undertake while in jail.

Public sector jails claimed the average unlock time for June 2007 was 10.08 hours per inmate, and contracted-out jails said their figure was 11.3 hours.

But a survey of 6,500 inmates by the chief inspector's team found, in "stark contrast" to the official figures, only 12% of prisoners in the public sector jails said they were out for 10 hours or more on a weekday.

In the private sector jails, the figure was 25%. Overall, a fifth said they were unlocked for less than two hours a day.

A separate detailed survey of 17 jails showed only three met the 10 hours a day target for employed prisoners, and none met the benchmark for inmates without jobs.

"These figures make clear that it was impossible for the Prison Service to be providing the average of 10 hours out of cell it was claiming," said Ms Owers.

Director-general of the National Offender Management Service, Phil Wheatley, said: "A new system of recording time out of cell has been implemented which is more transparent and auditable. This will improve the accuracy of the time-unlocked data in future."