APPENDIX Dnr O 7-2018 Page 18 (21) I raised the issue of a planning and follow-up tool at the dialogue meeting in March 2019. The representatives of the Prison and Probation Service stated that, in the completed prestudy, it could be stated that none of the surveys performed so far on the use of isolation-breaking measures are sufficiently adequate to be used at the local level. Additionally, the surveys cannot be used to make national comparisons. For this reason, the Prison and Probation Service wants to develop and introduce a central support system for isolation-breaking measures. In the opinion of the representatives of the Prison and Probation Service, it is a reasonable estimate that it will take approximately five years from the start of the project until there is a functioning support system in place. While awaiting this system support, the Prison and Probation Service will produce a shared Excel file for the whole agency into which the remand prisons must report their use of isolation-breaking measures. The Prison and Probation Service planned to have this central Excel file in use by spring 2019.41 In a statement following the dialogue meeting, the Prison and Probation Service stated that it has not been able to meet the schedule for introducing this central and shared Excel file. Work would resume after the summer to be completed before the 2019 year end.42 At the dialogue meeting in March 2019 with the representatives of the Prison and Probation Service, I emphasised that it is very serious and deeply unsatisfactory that the Prison and Probation Service's national surveys of the use of isolation-breaking measures are not reliable. This is partly due to the surveys being made only seven times a year, and partly –as I mentioned above – the lack of central control which means that the remand prisons do not define, measure and follow up on the use of isolation-breaking measures in a standardised manner. These shortcomings make it, above all, difficult for the Prison and Probation Service to follow the work that takes place at the local level in breaking the isolation of inmates in remand prisons. In addition, the risk of non-response from remand prisons and the fact that remand prisons do not record the use of isolation-breaking measures means that the surveys are associated with such uncertainty that they additionally cannot be used at the national level. It is, for example, not possible to compare the results from different years, which makes the surveys almost useless. This lack of reliable statistics means that it is not possible to say with any degree of certainty which direction the development is going. In addition, the lack of a proper support system makes it difficult for the Prison and Probation Service to evaluate its own work with regard to the use of isolation-breaking See the Parliamentary Ombudsmen’s report dnr O 7-2018 pp. 10 and 11. See the Prison and Probation Service's statement on 30 August 2019, the Parliamentary Ombudsmen’s dnr O 7-2018. 41 42 – 99 – C