Prison service tight-lipped over cost of TVs
NEW flat screen televisions have been installed in 85 cells at Inverness Prison but the service is refusing to reveal how much has been spent on the project.
Prisoners have access to 20 channels on the new 19-inch sets which have built in DVD players with the ability to play CDs.
Inverness is one of the first jails in the country to receive the televisions, which the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) estimate will save it £80,000 per year.
The prison’s older style televisions were replaced with the newer models last month.
A spokesman for the SPS said: “The new TVs have been bought, in part, due to their energy efficiency properties and are in line with our environmental policies,” he said.
“Inverness is not the first to get this, but it is one of the first. I know Barlinnie has got some of the televisions as well.”
SPS asked the The Inverness Courier to submit a Freedom of Information request to find out how much the replacements cost.
“The contract was signed not so long ago, just in the past few months, and as a result there is a degree of confidentiality around it,” the spokesman continued.
“The people who have supplied the televisions have been in competition with others and they will feel they are going to be disadvantaged if their competitors know what price they were supplied at.”
Plans to replace 1600 television sets for the country’s 8000 inmates sparked anger when they emerged in November 2010 after the order appeared in a tender document issued by the SPS.
Televisions have been a feature of Scottish prisons since 1999 and access is at the discretion of prisoner governors.