Government guarantees private prisons will not face closure

Government ministers and civil servants reguarly extol the virtues of a 'level playing field' when it comes to the delivery of public services. Neither the public, private nor voluntary sectors should have an unfair advantage when it comes to competing on cost, quality or delivery, so the argument goes.

The following snippet from the National Audit Office Criminal Justice System Landscape Review, published earlier this month, is therefore interesting, pointing, as it does, to a distinctly 'unlevel' playing field in relation to private sector prisons: