Members' Business — S6M-11199 Brian Whittle: Recognising the Success of HMP Kilmarnock

That the Parliament recognises the efforts of staff and volunteers working at HMP Kilmarnock to promote a strong culture of collaboration and rehabilitation throughout the prison, including through working with numerous local community groups over recent years with the aim of reducing reoffending; understands that this has included award-winning collaborations with local charity CentreStage to deliver employability and life skills training, as well as help with housing, health and welfare issues, and, more recently, with Recovery Enterprises Scotland, another local charity, on the creation of its Foundations Hub at the visitor centre within the prison; notes what it sees as the substantial contribution that these efforts make not only to reducing reoffending, but to improving the life chances of prisoners on their release by helping them to avoid returning to a pattern of harmful behaviour and offering them a different path; considers that the work done by HMP Kilmarnock’s staff and all those who assist them is of great importance, and notes the hope that their approach not only continues in the years ahead, but that it can also be replicated more widely across the prison estate.