To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many prisoners' complaints have been referred to the Prisons Ombudsman in each prison service area; in how many cases he has found in the prisoner's favour; and how many and what proportion of his recommendations have been accepted by the prison service; [36893](2) if he will list by category the prisoners' complaints referred to the Prisons Ombudsman, the number and proportion where the ombudsman has found in the prisoner's favour and the number and proportion of these recommendations which have been accepted by the prison service. [36894]

The Prisons Ombudsman had received 1,664 letters of complaint by 3 October 1995 of which 448 were eligible for investigation by his office; the eligibility of a further 117 was being considered. Two hundred and ninety three investigations had been completed. Of these, the prisoner's complaint was upheld on 128 occasions. A total of 154 recommendations had been made to the prison service, of which 121–78 per cent.—had been accepted. Twelve—8 per cent.—were not accepted. Four partially accepted and a further 17 were under consideration.There are 15 prison service areas in England and Wales and as at 3 October 1995 the Prisons Ombudsman had received the following number of complaints about establishments in each area:

Area	Number of complaints
Central	99
Chilterns	62
East Anglia	112
East Midlands	144
Kent	131
London North	187
London South	157
Mercia	42
North East	134
North West	80
South Coast	79
Trans Pennine	143
Wales and West	101
Wessex	90
Yorkshire	72

The remaining complaints concerned matters which were the responsibility of prison service headquarters.The number of complaints received by category were:

Category	Number of complaints
Adjudications	159
Assaults	54
Security categorisation	123
Food	26
General conditions	172
Regime activities	55
Links	88
Medical	48
Pre-release and release	237
Property and cash	295
Race	15
Segregation	43
Transfers and allocation	251
Miscellaneous	98