Decision Report 201402914

Summary

Mr C was pursuing a full-time education programme in prison and complained when it was stopped. He said he had had serious literacy difficulties but that the education provision had helped him hugely and he wanted to access more education opportunities.

We established that the prison had provided far more education for Mr C than prisoners usually receive. This was largely because of his literacy difficulties and the difficulty he had in obtaining work in the prison. The prison agreed with him that he had done very well and had achieved a number of accredited qualifications but said the time had come for him to transfer some of what he had learnt into work activity, which they wanted to arrange for him in the prison. They also said that they needed to use some of their resources to help other prisoners with greater needs, but that they were still providing six hours of education a week for Mr C and would continue to try to meet his wishes. We considered that they had acted appropriately and we did not uphold Mr C's complaint.