18 Establishment of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s National Preventive Mechanism also uses telephone interpretation when this is the only option. The NPM never uses other persons deprived of their liberty as interpreters during private conversations. The NPM documents conditions photographically during visits. Recommendations Following each visit, the NPM drafts a visit report containing a specification of findings and the risk factors revealed by the visit. The report also contains recommendations to reduce the risk of persons deprived of their liberty suffering torture or ill-treatment. Under article 22 of OPCAT and section 10 the Parliamentary Ombudsman Act, the authorities have a duty to examine these recommendations and enter into a dialogue on possible implementation measures. • the statutory regulation applicable to the place • whether there are existing supervisory mechanisms and their effectiveness. Considerations other than risk include the work done by other actors (the CPT, the SPT, supervisory bodies etc.), reports (for example information received, complaints and media coverage), the geographical spread of visits and assumed visit impact. The prioritisation criteria developed in spring 2014 were shared with the NPM’s advisory committee and discussed at the committee’s first meeting in June. They were also discussed with the APT, the SPT and staff from other NPMs. Visit schedule The places visited by the NPM are given a deadline for reporting on follow-up steps they have taken in response to the recommendations. Follow-up of previous visits will be an important priority for the NPM in 2015. Determining the priority order of places of detention The high number of places of detention requires the NPM to set relatively clear priorities when planning visits. A set of prioritisation criteria was therefore developed in connection with the establishment of the NPM. The aim of these criteria is to ensure that the NPM invests its resources as purposively as possible. The risk of violations is a primary criterion. If there are circumstances suggesting that the risk applies to many people and/or that there is a risk of a serious or very serious infringement, this is an indication that the place should be given priority. A number of factors influence the risk of violations, including: • whether the place holds persons deprived of their liberty at an early or later stage of deprivation of liberty • the personal circumstances of the persons deprived of their liberty (circumstances that increase vulnerability) • how intrusive the deprivation of liberty is Norway’s National Preventive Mechanism – Annual Report 2014 Since the visits in the autumn of 2014 were the NPM’s first, emphasis was given to factors that applied particularly during the establishment phase. This included the size of each place and the opportunities to identify “best practice” as a reference base for more challenging subsequent visits. It was decided that the focus should be on two closely related sectors: police custody facilities and prisons. The conclusion was that it was sensible to start with visits to two prisons and two police custody facilities because well-developed methodology for such visits was already available and would be useful during the establishment phase.12 Information was also gathered about places the Parliamentary Ombudsman had visited in recent years. The NPM decided to visit two prisons in Tromsø and Bergen and the police custody facilities in Tønsberg and Drammen in the autumn of 2014. The advisory committee was informed of the visit schedule. The NPM decided to give prior notice to both the local administration and the responsible authorities before making these visits. A further conclusion was that unannounced visits could take the form of either follow-up visits to previously visited institutions (for example revisiting the police custody facilities at a later date), or visits to institutions where the available information made it particularly important to make a quick, ­unannounced visit. In the autumn of 2014, the NPM developed a visit schedule for 2015.