Slopping out claims to hit £1m

OUTSTANDING compensation payments to prisoners for "slopping out" at Edinburgh's Saughton jail will cost taxpayers more than £1 million, it was claimed today.

There are a total of 385 pending cases of inmates or former inmates from the prison seeking cash pay-outs for what judges have ruled is a breach of their human rights.

Lothians Tory MSP Gavin Brown has calculated that is likely to add up to a bill of about 1,153,845.

• Should taxpayers be compensating prisoners for slopping out?

"People will be appalled by the scale of this figure," said Mr Brown. "The slopping out fiasco has already cost the taxpayer millions of pounds and looks set to grab yet more cash.

"Even if we weren't living in difficult economic times it would be unacceptable. How many of these cases will involve criminals on legal aid, further pushing up the taxpayers' bill?"

The flood of compensation claims for slopping out date back to 2004, when Robert Napier, a former inmate at Glasgow's Barlinnie prison, was awarded 2,450 after a judge ruled that his eczema had been made worse by the outdated toilet practice.

The resulting compensation payments to other ex-prisoners has already cost the Scottish Government 11m.

MSPs voted in June this year to close a legal loophole created by a House of Lords ruling which said the one-year time bar on compensation claims which applies in England and Wales had no force in Scotland.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said at the time the move would enable a line to be drawn under the potential liability of 67m and provide protection against "indefinite" exposure to future claims.

However, a parliamentary answer to Tory justice spokesman Bill Aitken last month revealed there were still 2,178 compensation cases pending against the Scottish Prison Service. Another answer to Mr Brown said there were 385 live claims relating to Saughton.

Mr Brown said he had calculated the cost of the live claims on the basis of figures given by Mr MacAskill in March.

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said the figure for individual claims was closer to 2,100 each. He said: "The SPS has made provision in its annual accounts over the years to settle these claims."