18 Jul 2017

The number of prisoners disciplined for taking drugs in jail has now hit an eight-year high, figures have revealed.

Official statistics show 1164 inmates were caught either taking drugs or administering them to others last year, the equivalent of more than three a day.

This comes 6 months after the Scottish Conservatives highlighted the worrying upward trend of substance abuse in prisons.

Today’s figures are nearly double the 634 caught four years ago.

The Scottish Conservatives have said the ever-increasing use of illegal substances in the country’s prisons is undermining any attempts being made to rehabilitate criminals and cut reoffending rates.

And these figures don’t include those convicts who have taken drugs and managed to get away with it.

In recent years the Scottish Government has introduced measures such as signal jamming trials to reduce the illegal use of mobile phones inside.

But no such progress has been made on drug-taking, with last year’s the highest number of incidents since 2008-09, when 1257 were caught.

Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Liam Kerr said:

“Yet again, we see offenders continuing their criminality within prison walls, an environment which is supposed to be completely secure.

“For the second year running, more than three inmates are being caught using drugs every day, and these figures indicate it’s getting worse year after year.

“Detecting and recording these incidents isn’t enough – it’s crucial the SPS cracks down on this problem and stops these substances slipping through the net.

“All political parties agree that rehabilitation of offenders is critical if we want to reduce stubbornly high reoffending rates.

“But how can this be expected to take place while drug-taking remains so prevalent in prisons?”

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• 1164 prisoners were caught ‘Administering, or allowing to be administered, a controlled drug to oneself’ in 2016-17. It’s the highest drug use has been at since 2008-09. (Scottish Prison Service Annual Report and Accounts 2016-2017, Appendix 5, p76, link; previous annual reports are available at link).

Below are the numbers for prisoners disciplined for taking drugs in the last nine years: 2008-09 – 1257 2009-10 – 863 2010-11 – 664 2011-12 – 638 2012-13 – 634 2013-14 – 869 2014-15 – 1003 2015-16 – 1133 2016/17 – 1164 All previous reports can be found here: http://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Publications/Publications.aspx

18 Jul 2017

The SNP want to water-down the requirement for playing fields for new schools, it has emerged.

At the moment, playing fields have to be a minimum size.

A consultation document published yesterday by the Scottish Government proposes changing the regulations, with new rules for synthetic pitches.

These plans would allow synthetic pitches which are much smaller than grass pitches – up to half the size:

• The average secondary school of 850 pupils, for example, currently has to provide 3.2 hectares of grass pitches – but in the new rules, would have to provide just 1.7 hectares of synthetic area.
• A primary school of 450 pupils would only have to provide 0.3 hectares of synthetic area, compared to 0.6 hectares of grass.

The proposed rules would also allow new schools to ignore the minimum size for grass pitches, if they are developing mixed grass and synthetic pitches.   The consultation refers to guidance from SportScotland to support this change – but almost all of the new regulations for secondary schools would allow playing fields smaller than the SportScotland guidance.   A secondary school of 1200 pupils is recommended by SportScotland to need 3.9 hectares of mixed pitches, for example – but under the new regulations, would be allowed to go below the existing minimum of 3.6 hectares.   In practice, the regulations mean that most new school playing fields will be smaller than under the previous guidance, and many will be smaller than recommended.

Scottish Conservative shadow education secretary Liz Smith said:

“Safety is paramount, but before any decisions are taken, the Scottish Government must pay attention to the Sport Scotland recommendations – and there must be no attempt use this consultation to diminish the playing space available.

“The cross-party Sport committee at Holyrood and the Health and Sport Committee have both heard evidence that points to the diminished number of playing fields available across Scotland.

“That comes at the same time as there is rising obesity and worrying signs of poor health amongst too many of our young people.

“This consultation is an opportunity to review matters properly, and ensure that all our schools are safe and have campuses fit for the 21st century.”

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The consultation can be found here.   The difference between the existing and proposed regulations is as follows:   Primary

Size	Existing regulations	New regulations (grass only, hectares)	New regulations (synthetic only, hectares)
60 or less	¼ acre = .1ha	0.1	0.1
61-140	½ acre = .2ha	0.2	0.3
141-215	¾ acre = .3ha	0.3	0.3
316-450	1 acre = .4ha	0.4	0.3
451 or more	1 ½ acres = .6ha	0.6	0.3

Secondary

Size	Existing regulations	New regulations (grass only, hectares)	New regulations (synthetic only, hectares)	SportScotland recommendation (typical mix of pitches, hectares)
320-500	4 acres = 1.6 ha	1.6	1.7	2.5 ( for 500 pupils)
501-750	6 acres = 2.48 ha	2.4	1.7	2.5 (700)
751-1000	8 acres = 3.2 ha	3.2	1.7	3.2 (1000)
1001-1200	3.6	3.6	2.5	3.9 (1200)
1201-1400	4	4	2.5	3.9 (1400)
1401-1600	4.4	4.4	3.2	4.5 (1600)
1601-1800	4.8	4.8	3.2	–
1801-2000	5.2	5.2	3.2	–

SportScotland guidance calculates the area required for an average mixture of activities and timetabling for schools of different size, with typical mixes of grass and synthetic pitches.