Paul McGrath
Question:273 Mr. McGrath asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the cost per annum of keeping a prisoner in each of the prisons and places of detention. [11281/99]
Written Answers. - Prison Committals.
Ivor Callely
Question:276 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the cost to the Exchequer for the provision of a prison place for a year in 1999; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11284/99]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 273 and 276 together.
The overall average annual cost of keeping an offender in custody is £51,500. A breakdown between institutions is not yet available. This figure is calculated by averaging out the current running costs of the prisons and places of detention against the average number of offenders over a certain period, in this case the year 1998. The equivalent figure for the year to date in 1999 is not available as the costs taken into account include items which are not paid from the prisons Vote, such as teachers' salaries and superannuation, and these are not yet known. However, the expenditure to end March on the current running costs under the prisons Vote was £31,304,000 and the daily average number in custody to date is 2,728. This would indicate that the average cost is decreasing this year.
These running costs include certain items which are fixed no matter what the level of prisoners in custody i.e. mainly officers' wages but also such items as lighting and heating. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that each increase by one in the prison population will result in increased expenditure of £51,500 per annum. Taking the fixed costs into account, the additional expenditure would be more in the region of £17,740. Neither, due to economies of scale, would there be a directpro rata relationship with changes in the number of prisoners in other areas of expenditure such as overtime, education, work and training. In fact, the only area which would see such a relationship is the prisoners' gratuities subhead, expenditure on which is linked directly to the number of sentenced prisoners in custody.