Section four Appendices Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland HMIPS inspects prisons, including YOIs, paying particular attention to the treatment of and conditions for prisoners. It also inspects prisoner escort arrangements – including the conditions in which prisoners are transported from one place to another – as well as court custody facilities or other places where prisoners are held temporarily outside a prison. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/about/publicbodies/hmip Independent Custody Visiting Association Independent Custody Visitors are volunteers from the community who visit all police stations where detainees are held to check on their welfare. Custody visiting is statutory and visitors have the power to access police stations, examine records relating to detention, meet detainees for the purpose of discussing their treatment and conditions, and inspect facilities, including cells, washing and toilet facilities, and facilities for the provision of food. One of ICVA’s key roles is to look at the skills base of independent custody visitors and to ensure that they are confident and able to conduct visits to the majority of people in custody and make those visits as effective as possible. Following an earlier review of ICVA commissioned by the Home Office, ICVA changed from an unincorporated organisation to a company limited by guarantee on 31 July 2013. http://icva.org.uk/ Independent Custody Visitors (Scotland) Independent Custody Visitors in Scotland carry out regular, unannounced visits to police stations to monitor the treatment of and conditions for detainees. Custody Visitors in Scotland were officially designated as a member of the UK NPM in December 2013. By virtue of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, custody visiting in Scotland is now a statutory scheme. The statutory scheme is now administered by the Scottish Police Authority. The main focus since 1 April 2013 has been to bring together the previous eight local schemes and introduce standardisation in visiting, reporting mechanisms and recording. In addition, in pursuit of the OPCAT mandate, arrangements were put in place to ensure that all custody centres, which had not previously been subject to custody visiting, were included within the scheme. http://www.spa.police.uk/icv/ Independent Monitoring Boards Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs) have a statutory duty to satisfy themselves about the state of the prisons or immigration detention facilities they visit, their administration and the treatment of prisoners or detainees. The Boards are made up of unpaid members of the community and fulfil their duties by carrying out regular and frequent visits to establishments. There is a Board for every prison in England and Wales and every IRC in England, Wales and Scotland, as well as for some short-term holding facilities for immigration detainees. IMBs also monitor some charter flights. Board members are appointed by the Secretary of State. http://www.justice.gov.uk/about/imb 51