On 14 March 2024, the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee took evidence from His Majesty's Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, Wendy Sinclair-Gieben. She described GEOAmey’s performance as “truly shocking”, advising that there were short-term tweaks possible, but that it all came down to more prisons or less prisoners. She reiterated that Scottish prisons were at a tipping point where we needed to spend to save and that HMP Greenock should be “bulldozed”. She recommended that consideration  be given to making the presumption against short term sentences mandatory; and that currently it is only down to good staff that insurrection has prevented. 

On 28 March 2024, three senior GEOAmey directors gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee. They maintained that whilst they apologised for their poor performance, it was down to two things: i) socio-economic factors relating to fewer people looking for work ii) changes to the “operating environment” (more prisoners and more of them needing to get to court/hospital appointments/VIPERs etc.). In their view, they were “the face of failure” and that the solutions lie in other parts of the criminal justice system making changes too and that all human rights obligations remain with the “state actors” i.e. SPS.