57 First five years – some results This is also reflected in the Directorate of Correctional Service’s management of the prison regions and the individual prisons. For instance, the Directorate receives the prisons' draft replies on follow-up of our visit reports and provides comments to the individual prisons before the follow-up letters are sent to us. The directorate has also sent letters on several occasions ­specifying the regulations to all prisons as a response to our findings.31 Solitary confinement and restrictions on association with other inmates Already during our first visits to prisons in 2014, the Parliamentary Ombudsman found inmates who were confined to their cells for most of the day, and who had little opportunity to associate with others. A continued focus on this issue over the years has helped put this problem on the agenda. Early on, we criticised the prisons' inadequate overview of the extent of exclusion from common areas, in addition to lack of clear legal definitions and a lack of relevant statistics.32 As follow-up of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s findings and recommendations, the Correctional Service began, in 2015, to count the number of inmates who spent less than eight hours outside their cells. Together with the random day counts of the number of inmates who spent less than two hours outside their cells that was initiated in 2012, this produced a more comprehensive picture of the challenges facing the Correctional Service regarding solitary confinement and restrictions on association with other inmates. View from an 'open air cell' in a prison visited by the NPM. These cells are used as exercise yards for inmates in solitary confinement. In August 2016, the Correctional Service proposed amendments to the guidelines to the provisions of the Execution of Sentences Act regarding exclusion and association with other inmates. The proposed amendments included important clarifications, including the requirement for an administrative ­decision to be made for exclusion from common ­areas to ensure a better overview of the scope. In our consultation submission, we pointed out that these changes were not sufficient.33 The background for this was that human rights standards had introduced more stringent requirements for the use of solitary confinement, and we therefore considered it important that the Execution of Sentences Act’ statutory provisions were assessed in light of this change. 31 See, for example, Directorate of the Norwegian Correctional Service, Dagsmålinger og manglende vedtak om utelukkelser, letter of 8 April 2015 to the correctional service regions. 32 The Parliamentary Ombudsman's report after its visit to Bergen Prison 4–6 November 2014, p. 13. 33 The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s consultation response to the guidelines on exclusion pursuant to Section 37 of the Execution of Sentences Act, 1 November 2016.