The public spending watchdog has said that it will be carrying out a preliminary examination of the Ministry of Justice’s commercial arm, which has been criticised for selling British prison expertise to regimes with poor human rights records, including Saudi Arabia and China.
Michael Gove, the justice secretary, last month ordered the closure of Just Solutions International (JSI), telling MPs it was because “of the need to focus departmental resources on domestic priorities”. However, it emerged on Monday that staff at the National Audit Office are to look into JSI following correspondence requesting them to do so. The NAO is to report back by the end of next month ahead of what may evolve into a full-blown investigation.
Lord Falconer, the shadow justice secretary, wrote to the NAO to seek an investigation into the operations of JSI, stating that there had been a lack of transparency on the part of the government in relation to the commercial body’s structures and funding. David Allen Green, a lawyer and writer, also had contacted the NAO.
The watchdog’s focus will be on whether the taxpayer was getting value for money as a result of the JSI’s commercial activities.
JSI was set up by the previous justice secretary, Chris Grayling, as the trading arm of the national offender management service (Noms) to sell its expertise in prisons and probation – including in offender management, payment by results, tagging and privatisation – around the world.
JSI has worked with several countries with poor human rights records in their criminal justice systems, including China, Pakistan and Libya. There was particular criticism of a £5.9m contract with Saudi Arabia, where public beheadings, torture and amputations are carried out within its justice system.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was among those who put pressure on the Ministry of Justice to drop its bid for a Saudi prison contract, using his first address as leader to his party conference last month to cite the case of pro-democracy protester, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who has been sentenced to crucifixion.
