Custody Inspection Report - Greater Glasgow

1. Custody is delivered throughout Scotland by the Police Scotland Criminal Justice Services Division (CJSD). This division is one of several national divisions which sit alongside and support the thirteen local policing divisions. CJSD is led by a Chief Superintendent who reports to an Assistant Chief Constable and, in turn, to a Deputy Chief Constable. Custody is delivered in accordance with the custody standard operating procedure, which is updated and amended regularly to reflect changes in practice guidelines and expectations.

2. National custody throughput has seen an increase over the past three years as indicated in the table below. Greater Glasgow primary custody centres have seen a small reduction in throughput over the past two fiscal years. However, the ancillary centre at Cathcart has been used more frequently in the past year, which brings overall throughput to a similar figure for each of the past two years.

Table 1 – National custody throughput

Table 2 – Custody centre cell capacity and throughput

3. Custody centres in Scotland are organised into clusters, each led by a Cluster Inspector and Glasgow has two custody clusters, each with one primary custody centre. The custody centres we visited during this inspection were London Road, Govan, and Cathcart in Glasgow. Cathcart custody centre is an ancillary centre. It is normally closed and is used as a business continuity fallback option. It sits within the same cluster as Govan whereas London Road custody centre sits within its own cluster.

4. During our inspection, Cathcart was opened to allow for essential maintenance at Govan custody centre. We inspected Cathcart and we were also able to inspect Govan custody centre when business returned there from Cathcart. We have placed greater emphasis on the two primary centres in this report, however we comment on the facility at Cathcart where relevant.

5. The custody centres serve the Sheriffdom of Glasgow and are located within local area police stations. Because of their size, Govan and London Road also accommodate detainees from neighbouring jurisdictions when necessary.

6. During our inspection, we found that there was considerable discussion amongst custody staff about which centres should be used in Glasgow. We found a commonly held view that Cathcart custody centre should be prioritised over London Road custody centre. It was considered that this would provide the required increased capacity, thus reducing the number of detainees who are transferred for capacity reasons most weekends.

7. Some staff indicated that there is a case for all three centres to be open, particularly at weekends, however it was recognised that staffing challenges may preclude this. The issue of which centres should have primary status appears to reside within a wider custody estate context, with challenges at Greenock, Coatbridge and Motherwell custody centres impacting on the greater Glasgow custody provision, something the area commander referred to as a significant issue.

8. At the time of our inspection, all staff observed the CJSD 222b shift pattern. Each staff team at Govan and London Road custody centre was made up of two police sergeants, a criminal justice police custody and security officer (CJPCSO) team leader, and ten CJPCSO staff.

Independent custody visitors

9. Under the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) is required to make arrangements for independent custody visitors to monitor the welfare of people detained in police custody. Regular visits to custody centres are carried out by volunteer independent custody visitors from the local community. Independent Custody Visiting Scotland (ICVS) manages the process and co ordinates volunteers. Any concerns identified by custody visitors are raised with custody staff during their visits and outcomes are recorded in custody records. ICVS is also a member of the UK’s NPM.

10. During our inspection, we reviewed the ICVS service book that is completed following each visit by the custody visitors. This reflected a pattern of recent and regular visits with no significant issues raised.