Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether her Department imposes fines on private prisoner escort contractors for delays in journeys longer than 100 miles.

Financial penalties, known as “service credits,” are applied to Prisoner Escort and Custody Service (PECS) suppliers on any occasion where a courtroom delay has occurred because of failure by the contractor.

Some individual journeys where the straight-line distance is more than 100 miles may be regulated by an ‘agreed time protocol’, agreed in advance. These protocols are an explicit agreement between the PECS supplier, the court and the prison that the prisoner will be delivered by a specified time, instead of by the usual time of 10am. If the supplier delivers the prisoner in compliance with the protocol, no service credits are applied.

Where there is no agreed time protocol, the supplier will be liable to pay service credits if there is evidence that it was responsible for a failure to deliver on time.