Ms Caron McCaffrey:

The SCA undertook specific work in that area and made 50 recommendations on how we could work together to make the workplace safer for staff. Over 30 of those recommendations have been implemented to date and we have seen a reduction in the number of assaults on staff. One assault on a member of staff is too many so there is no level of complacency within the organisation regarding assaults. In 2017, there were 104 assaults on staff. It is an area we target for continuous improvement. Some of the security equipment we bought earlier, particularly the handcuffs, was one of the recommendations made in the SCA report, which was that we would standardise our equipment across the service and ensure that everybody was properly trained. Again, we are actively working with the SCA with a view to minimising the amount of claims and the number of incidents in our prisons.