The last few years have been challenging for all of us in the Scottish Prison Service, when we made some difficult choices and decisions. We now need to move on and look to the future. The new vision for the service outlined below, represents our broad plan for the next 3-5 years.

We have to face up to the reality of the competitive world that we have to live and work in. Who provides prison places is now far less important than value for money and quality of the service provided to the taxpayer who pays our bills.

The SPS are already at the forefront of providing quality prisoner programmes geared to reducing re offending. In the years ahead this will be increasingly important. It is the key contribution we can make to reducing crime and making Scotland a safer place.

The priority for the Executive is to make Scotland a safer place, to free communities from crime and the fear of crime. We have a leading role to play in delivering that commitment. By breaking down the barriers that exist between agencies and being open and responsive to the needs of our partner agencies.

We also have to be able to prove that our work with offenders makes Scotland a safer place. We need to put in place systems to measure and prove the value of the work we do.

The expectations of the public about what kind of service we should provide for them have changed over the years. As well as responding to those expectations we have to try to influence and shape them by informing the public about the good quality of the work we are doing and the real differences we are making in reducing offending, so that our service is something the Scottish public is prepared to pay for.

The greater the value that the Scottish public place upon the work that we are doing then in a very real sense the greater actual value that work has.


The key Aims (the Mission Statement) of the Scottish Prison Service are:

• to keep in Custody those committed by the courts;
• to maintaining good Order in each prison;
• to Care for prisoners with humanity;
• to provide prisoners with a range of Opportunity to exercise personal responsibility and to prepare for release; and
• to play a full role in the integration of offender management services.

These aims are central to our new Vision for the future.

Our Mission tells us what to do, the vision is aimed at making us do it better by concentrating on key themes.

There are five:

·         Leadership in correctional Service

·         A prison estate that is fit for the purpose

·         Highest Standards of Service

·         Respect for our Staff

·         Value for Money for the Taxpayer

Correctional Excellence

In a very real sense we already have many of the elements of a correctional service within SPS; for example, in the programmes we deliver and the work we do in preparing prisoners for life on the outside. We aim to ensure that the prisoners we deal with are less likely to re-offend.

In the future we must ensure that we play a bigger role in correction. This means that as well as developing programmes which are effective in making prisoners face up to and address their offending behaviour we also have to build on the relationships we already have with other agencies, and develop new partnerships.

A Prison Estate That Is "Fit For Purpose"

A prime concern for the service is to ensure that we have a prison estate that is fit for the 21st century - where the living conditions for prisoners and the working conditions for staff will serve our goal of correctional excellence.

We need to use the funds that are now available to us from the executive to end the undesirable practice of slopping out as soon as possible. This will of course, mean that some difficult decisions have to be made - decisions, which will have a direct effect on many people within the service.

We must recognise that our job is to provide a vital service for the people of Scotland and that the service has to be provided in the way which best meets their needs rather than the convenience of those of us who work within the service.

Highest Standards of Service

We will aim for consistently high standards, not the cheap and cheerful. We are committed to being the kind of organisation that makes quality a part of everything we do. As well as developing management techniques and monitoring systems that will guarantee we provide this quality we also need the commitment of all of our staff to the idea of quality and the need to constantly improve.

We will look everywhere for best practice. By learning lessons from the wider world, as well as from each other we will build on what we have already achieved.

Respect For Our Staff

The Scottish Prison Service is proud of our people. We recognise that our staff work in difficult circumstances and are dedicated and skilled. But our image is not good and often that is a self-inflicted wound. We all have a responsibility to make sure that the work we do is recognised, in the wider community.

Over the next 3 years we intend actively to promote the work of the Service to the people of Scotland and do all that we can to ensure that our work is valued by society. But staff at all levels also need to play their part by being positive about the service and selling it to the wider public.

Value for Money for the Taxpayer

We must demonstrate that the service we provide represents value for money for the people of Scotland.

We must make the most effective use possible of the resources we are allocated. We must reduce our costs so that we are in the same ballpark as our competitors. We do not have to be the cheapest, but if our costs are more than those of our competitors we must be able to show that the quality of what we do is worth that extra cost.