B APPENDIX Dnr O 7-2018 Page 4 (15) The Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman stated that, according to the details provided by the Prison and Probation Service on 7 February 2019, there were approximately 300 inmates in remand prisons who were not held on remand and asked if the reason for this was that there was a shortage of prison places. According to the representatives of the Prison and Probation Service, several administrative steps must be performed before a convicted individual can be placed in a prison. The Parliamentary Ombudsmen has previously stated that a transfer to a prison must take place within seven days of a sentence being passed. The Prison and Probation Service has found it difficult to meet this requirement and this is mainly due to a lack of places in prisons, but also due to problems with transportation. On 11 March 2019, there were a total of 149 enforcement of sentence cases in remand prisons and of these, 70 cases were being processed. The remaining cases were individuals awaiting a prison place. There are long queues to the National Assessment Unit at Kumla Prison, and therefore the unit will be expanded by 30 places. This will be done via double-occupancy of cells and by placing inmates in one of the institution's high-security departments (Fenix). The Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman asked the representatives of the Prison and Probation Service to expand upon the agency's response as to why it is not possible to produce information on the proportion of inmates placed in association places which are not located within a association department, i.e. question b) above. The representatives of the Prison and Probation Service stated that this is because the agency does not use such terminology in the same way that the Parliamentary Ombudsmen does in forming the question. Which places are used for association placement depends on the current occupancy of each remand prison. Furthermore, the representatives of the Prison and Probation Service stated that the agency does not record and report any statistics on the number of inmates in association. Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman referred to the response submitted by the Prison and Probation Service which stated some 42 per cent of all remand prison places consist of association places.3 The representatives of the Prison and Probation Service were asked how – with regard to their answer to question b) – it was possible to provide this information. In the opinion of the representatives of the Prison and Probation Service, the figure of 42 per cent should only be seen as an indication of how many association places there should be in the remand prison system. This need varies 3 See the Prison and Probation Service's reporting back in dnr 5969-2015 p. 2. – 70 –