29. Compliance with these requirements varied from prison to prison but it is
fair to say that since the introduction of the inspection regime, the Prison Service
has made strenuous efforts to ensure that there is compliance. Again, at the
conclusion of each inspection, a Report and an Action Plan has been sent to the
Governor of the prison concerned. These have been accepted, and subsequent
inspections have usually shown considerable improvement. I am reasonably
confident that in time inspections will show that there is general compliance with
the Act and with the Rules laid down under the Act. It is of the first importance
that this should be achieved and that inconsistencies in performance are
eliminated.
30. Since my predecessor began to inspect prisons he and I, using an excellent
team of Inspectors who have worked under our Chief Inspector, have been
responsible for visits to a total of 132 prisons. 31 have now been re-visited. Revisits are arranged more quickly if it is considered necessary to check that
improvements have been made, but in general the object of re-visiting is to ensure
that standards are maintained.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Northern
Ireland Office Warrants
31. In paragraphs 10 – 12 of my predecessor’s 1995 Annual Report, he set out
the reasons for not disclosing the number of warrants issued by the Foreign
Secretary and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the main part of the
Report. I take this opportunity to emphasise again the reasoning behind this
decision.
32. This practice is based on paragraph 121 of the Report of the Committee of
Privy Councillors appointed to inquire into the interception of communications
and chaired by Lord Birkett. The Birkett Committee thought that public concern
about interception might to some degree be allayed by the knowledge of the
actual extent to which interception had taken place. After carefully considering
the consequences of disclosure upon the effectiveness of interception as a means
of detection, they decided that it would be in the public interest to publish figures
showing the extent of interception, but to do so only in a way which caused no
damage to the public interest. They went on to say:
“We are strongly of the opinion that it would be wrong for figures to be
disclosed by the Secretary of State at regular or irregular intervals in the
future. It would greatly aid the operation of agencies hostile to the state if
they were able to estimate even approximately the extent of the interceptions
of communications for security purposes.”
33. Like my predecessors I am not persuaded that there is any serious risk in the
publication of the number of warrants issued by the Home Secretary and the First
Minister for Scotland. This information does not provide hostile agencies with
any indication of the targets because as Lord Lloyd said in his first Report
published in 1987 “the total includes not only warrants issued in the interest of
national security, but also for the prevention and detection of serious crime.”
These figures are, therefore, set out in the Annex to this Report. However, I
believe that the views expressed in Lord Birkett’s Report still apply to the
publication of the number of warrants issued by the Foreign Secretary and the
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I also agree with the view of my
predecessor, Lord Nolan, that the disclosure of this information would be
prejudicial to the public interest. I have, therefore, included them in the
Confidential Annex to this Report.
Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)
34. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was established on 1 April
2006 and was formed from the amalgamation of the National Crime Squad
(NCS), National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), that part of HM Revenue
7