Reliance, the security firm in charge of prisoner transfers in Scotland, is fined £25,000 for each death or suicide in custody and £20,000 for every escapee, according to the first fully published details of its contract.
The private company, which was splashed across the front pages in 2004 when it took over the contract and a number of prisoners escaped, has finally agreed to allow the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to publish all the financial details of their £126m contract.
In opposition in 2004, Nicola Sturgeon, now Health Minister, demanded the full details of the deal and asked Kevin Dunion, the information commissioner, to investigate whether the prison service had been right to withhold the figures.
At the time Mr Dunion said that a gagging clause signed by prison service managers - which gave the Reliance a veto over what parts of the contract were made public - was "an extraordinarily unbalanced arrangement" that fell short of best practice.
He said the deal was so tight there was nothing he could do to force the Scottish Prison Service or Reliance to give the public more information.
But four years on, the prison service has published the full details of the seven-year contract on its website.
The contract says that the £20,000 penalty for each prisoner "unlawfully at large" is capped at £80,000 for each single incident involving more than one escapee. There is a cap of £400,000 for each 12-month period.
In addition, the firm is charged from £2 to £1500 for different failings ranging from late collection of a prisoner, to failure to respond to prisoner complaints.
The late return of a prisoner involves a £24 fine and an incident of prisoner self harm costs Reliance £88 according to the full financial table.
A minor assault against another prisoner or member of staff costs them £88 compared with a serious assault, the fine for which is set at £882.
Mr Dunion yesterday welcomed the decision.
He said: "I am pleased the SPS has decided to put the full contract into the public domain."
In June 2004 the Reliance Secure Task Management agreed to publish a redacted version of the contract after several people were released by mistake.
The 152-page contract was placed on the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) website but every cash figure in the document was deleted. The full report is now on the SPS website.
A spokesman for Reliance said: "As the commissioner rightly points out, Reliance is fully supportive of the decision to publish our contract."
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