Prisons
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Improving efficiency
We are working with the National Offender Management Service and Her Majesty's Prison Service to improve the efficiency of prison visits for defence practitioners.
Guidance for prison visits
A Good Practice Guide for prison visits has been jointly produced by the Ministry of Justice, Her Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS), National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the LSC. See the Documents panel for this guidance.
The guide has been sent to prison governors and directors to help improve the efficiency of prison visits for both defence practitioners and prisons.
The guidance was developed following:
- a series of fact finding visits to several prisons
- direct engagement with defence practitioners
- a subsequent workshop with officials from MoJ, Home Office, Her Majesty's Courts Service (HMCS), NOMS and HMPS.
The guide uses good practice identified at the local level to highlight how improvements can be made across the system as a whole by both prisons and practitioners.
It recommends:
- joint working by both parties on improvements to legal visits via local user group forums is an effective way to push forward reform
- prisons should improve the processes that support visits more effectively, such as making greater use of electronic booking systems and providing specific written information for legal visitors which is then adhered to
- defence practitioners should be aware that late cancellation of legal visits creates operational problems for prisons and results in delays for other practitioners who want to arrange legal visits with their clients.
Video link interviews
Her Majesty's Courts Service (HMCS) has published new guidance to help solicitors set up video link interviews with clients in prisons.
The scheme can help avoid costly visits and can be used for:
- client interviews
- parole board hearings
- other prison law matters.
The guidance includes updated booking procedures and new contact details for prisons and courts.
Last updated: 30 January 2008