By Steve Bargeton, political editor

MINISTERS WERE last night accused of “negligence” after it emerged that taxpayers may have to fork out £44 million to compensate criminals for slopping out in Scottish prisons.

According to the Scottish Prison Service annual report and accounts, the amount set aside for claims has risen from £26 million last year to £44 million.

In a landmark legal ruling, armed robber Robert Napier was awarded £2450 after he claimed he suffered an outbreak of the skin complaint eczema when slopping out at Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow.

Lord Bonomy ruled that slopping out amounted to “degrading” treatment under human rights law, opening the floodgates to claims from other prisoners.

He also noted Scottish ministers had taken £13 million out of the SPS budget in 1999—cash that could have been used to end slopping out and avoid the massive compensation settlements.

The Scottish Executive faces more than 1000 claims for damages from prisoners and former inmates, and the SPS is seeking to reach out-of-court settlements in similar cases.

Several hundred inmates still have to use chamber pots instead of toilets in Scottish jails.

The Scottish Tories said yesterday taxpayers were paying “a heavy price for the inexcusable negligence” of Executive ministers.

“They have to pay twice: once to end slopping out, and then even more to pay this multi-million pound compensation to prisoners across Scotland,” said justice spokesman Margaret Mitchell.

“We must not forget that this was an entirely avoidable fiasco. The original Bonomy ruling makes it plain that the Scottish Government ‘Took a deliberate decision not to address the (cell conditions), when they both had the resources and the capacity to do so.’

“The withdrawal of £13 million funding in 1999, and the delay in ending slopping out from the Tory target date of 1999 to an unspecified time in the future led directly to the compensation ruling and the multi-million pound claims.”

Margaret Mitchell added, “Indeed, Jack McConnell was finance minister in 1999 and his government squandered and continues to waste tens of millions of pounds every year on special advisors, spin doctors, ministerial cars, propaganda and a burgeoning army of bureaucrats.

“By deciding to settle outstanding and future claims ‘out of court’, the Executive has run up the white flag and admitted that it has cost the taxpayers far more than the original cost of putting things right.

“It is a graphic illustration of Labour and Lib Dem mismanagement, waste and failure.”

SNP justice spokesman Kenny MacAskill said, “This is a huge error and the blame lies solely with the Executive.

“The Executive was told the costs and was fully aware that there was a problem looming over slopping out.

“The Executive have failed to act even when it had the funds available to rectify the situation and as a result, have been supplanted by the huge cost of paying off the prisoners and meeting the costs of legal actions.

“It is unacceptable that because the Executive failed to take action on this issue, the price is now being met by the Scottish taxpayer. The price must be paid by the Lib/Lab Executive—it was their mistake.”

Tony Kelly, the solicitor who represented Napier and others claiming against the SPS, said that the public should not blame “litigants vindicating their rights.”

“People should be pointing fingers at the choices made by ministers in the course of the 1990s and in the post-devolution settlement,” he said.

“Those are the choices and omissions that litigants are founding upon now, those are the choices people are using to recoup money as a result of a breach of their convention rights.”

The Executive rejected the suggestion that the £13 million taken from the SPS budget six years ago would have ended slopping out, pointing out that £1.5 million is spent each week to improve prisons.

SPS chief executive Tony Cameron said in the report that “significant progress” was made during 2004-05, including ending slopping out at Barlinnie last July.

The report also shows a separate contingent liability for other potential cases related to the European Convention of Human Rights has been reduced from £136 million to £24 million.

The SPS said the fall in this figure showed its “overall exposure” to the risk of ECHR-based claims was considerably less than initially estimated.

The accounts confirm the Napier case cost the taxpayer almost £1.5 million—£970,000 on settling the cost of his legal aid and £500,000 in legal and other costs.

Auditor General Robert Black has proposed a review of how future legal actions against ministers should be handled.