THE company which owns Scotland’s private Addiewell prison has paid more than £3 million to shareholders in less than two years despite serious concerns over prisoner and staff safety amid high levels of deaths and violence, The Ferret has found.
In total, almost £20m has been paid out in dividends to shareholders since the prison opened in 2008. In half of the years it has been open, it has failed to meet agreed Scottish Prison Service standards, paying penalties as a result.
In January, a murder inquiry was launched after an Addiewell prisoner was allegedly pushed and fell from a jail landing. He later died from his injuries. Last year, there were more deaths at Addiewell, in West Lothian, than in any other Scottish prison.
A third of Addiewell Prison Limited’s shares are owned by Sodexo Investment Services and 67% are owned by Infrastructure Investment Holdings, an arm of London investment firm HICL Infrastructure.
According to accounts for 2024, Addiewell Prison Limited paid more than £3m in dividends to the two firms from April 2023 to November 2024.
The prison is run by facilities management company Sodexo under a private public finance (PFI) deal made in 2006 by Scotland’s then-Labour and LibDem coalition.
Critics said that “prisons should never be a place for the pursuit of private profit at the expense of vulnerable people” and “profit-hungry companies” should have contracts for public services ended.
They claimed “serious issues specific to HMP Addiewell need to be resolved with some urgency” and there needed to be greater reinvestment in education, counselling and staffing levels to reduce violence and reoffending.
However, Sodexo said it was “subject to the same range of intensive scrutiny as all prisons” and was “building on progress” made to improve the prison’s safety and operation record.
In recent years, other serious concerns have been raised about the prison. A damning report published in May 2023 found less than a third of inmates said they felt safe. In reports found “credible” by inspectors, one in four claimed to have been assaulted or abused by staff. A severe shortage of experienced staff was another issue raised.
In 2023, The Ferret reported that violent assaults were higher at Addiewell than at any other prison. A whistleblower claimed a culture of violence, fear and intimidation was rampant within the prison, and claimed that an inspectorate report painted a “rosy picture” compared with the reality.
They shared details of violent assaults including in public areas and involving homemade weapons, razor blades or scaldings. One email shared, originally sent by the prison director at the time, suggested the prison may never have been fully staffed at any point since it opened in 2008.
Addiewell’s company accounts show that these failings also had a financial cost. Prison bosses had to pay the Scottish Prison Service £2.7m for failing to meet agreed performance indicators in the last financial year. In total, Addiewell Limited has paid £9m in fines since 2011.
Despite these fines, the Scottish Prison Inspectorate has commended prison management for recent improvements. But in its 2024 report, inspectors said its journey to “transformation” was “by no means over” and raised concerns about the health and wellbeing of prisoners.
In 2016, a parliamentary question revealed the prison would end up costing Scottish taxpayers nearly £1 billion over its 25-year contract – more than 12 times what it cost to build.
Addiewell is not Scotland’s only private prison. His Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Kilmarnock was formerly run by Serco, another outsourcing company, but was transferred back to the Scottish Prison Service on March 17, 2024.
According to financial journalist and author Ian Fraser, the private finance initiative – or PFI – “was a stitch-up from the start”.
It was introduced by John Major’s Conservative government to allow investment to be channelled into public infrastructure without immediately increasing national debt.
“Labour enlisted private sector experts from the likes of Barclays and KPMG to form Partnerships UK, who devised funding structures which were beneficial to themselves, their organisations and private-sector partners. It ultimately meant the public sector was ripped off,” Fraser told The Ferret. “PFI projects were subsequently revealed to be costing the public sector between four and 10 times more than actual construction costs.”
In Scotland, it was “championed” by Labour leader Jack McConnell, according to Fraser, who said it soon “became the only game in town for funding everything from new schools to prisons and hospitals to sewage works”.
Fraser added: “It’s no wonder Sir Howard Davies, the former chair of the Financial Services Authority and Royal Bank of Scotland or NatWest, has admitted that PFI is ‘a fraud on the people’.”
Sodexo runs six private prisons across the UK as well as having contracts with HMRC, police and public transport providers such as the London Underground. Last October, the Sodexo Group reported a 24% in operating profit.
Cat Hobbs, director of We Own It, claimed that “when shareholder payouts are prioritised over basic amenities for inmates, it can have tragic results”.
She highlighted the findings of a 2023 inquest, which revealed serious failings at Sodexo-run HMP Bronzefield following the death of an 18-year-old Black prisoner’s baby. Rianna Cleary was left to give birth alone in her cell. Sodexo, which was one of several services found to have failed her, said it was “truly sorry”.
“Overall, privately run prisons are more overcrowded and more violent than those in public hands,” Hobbs added. “There is a clear message here – remove profit-hungry companies from our prison system before they do any more damage.”
In Scotland, concerns have been raised about the safety of the entire prison system. Last month, a sheriff concluded that the deaths of two young people at Polmont Young Offenders Institution could have been avoided but for “a catalogue of failures” in the system. Katie Allan, 21, and William Lindsay, 16, both took their own lives at the prison.
IN 2024, a record 57 people died across all of Scotland’s prisons – a total which exceeded the previous record of 53 deaths, set in 2021. Data from the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) show that at least six prisoners took their own lives and another seven died of drug overdoses. Other deaths were due to natural causes, or no cause had yet been given.
Scotland’s only privately managed prison, Sodexo-run Addiewell, recorded 12 deaths, the most reported by any prison.
Emma Jardine, policy and public affairs manager at the Howard League for Penal Reform Scotland, said the Scottish Government had talked up its commitment to a publicly owned prison service since 2007.
“Prisons should never be a place for the pursuit of private profit at the expense of vulnerable people,” she added. “There is increasing evidence of serious issues specific to HMP Addiewell which need to be looked into and resolved with some urgency.”
Scottish Greens spokesperson for justice Maggie Chapman MSP agreed it was “totally inappropriate for firms to profit from people’s misfortune and misery”.
“But this is exactly what is happening,” she added. “It highlights the very urgent need for fundamental prison reform. We must change our strategy and focus on prevention as the current system is failing both prisoners and the wider population. Prisons are supposed to be spaces for those in custody to be held securely and safely, to serve their sentence, and to offer the opportunity for rehabilitation to prevent reoffending upon their release.”
An HMP Addiewell spokesperson said: “Unfortunately, we cannot comment on matters of government policy, commercial matters or any individual deaths in our custody. Any death in custody is a tragedy and all are subject to full investigation from all relevant parties, culminating in a fatal accident inquiry.
“We are pleased that you note the positive comments from HMIP Scotland and the prison continues to build on that progress. Working to a well-established contract with the Scottish Prison Service, the prison is subject to the same range of intensive scrutiny as all prisons, further enhanced by a dedicated team of SPS contract monitors based in the prison.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish Government said it had been its policy that prisons should be owned and managed by the public sector since it came into power in 2007.
“We continue to work with the Scottish Prison Service and other partners to ensure privately operated HMP Addiewell operates as a safe and secure prison,” they added.
A Scottish Prison Service spokesperson said it “closely monitors performance and compliance” on its contract with Sodexo to run Addiewell prison “to ensure the best possible outcomes for people in custody and for the wider community”.
