DARTMOOR Prison has been given six months to improve its grim reputation ? or face privatisation.

The drastic threat from the Government requires the prison at Princetown to meet strict targets on performance or face being contracted out to be run in the private sector.

Prisons minister Hilary Benn on Tuesday announced that Dartmoor was one of only two jails in England and Wales which would begin ?performance-testing? with immediate effect ? the other under-threat jail is HMP Liverpool.

Mr Benn said: ?Dartmoor and Liverpool should see this as a positive opportunity to improve performance and I hope they will grasp this challenge.

?Performance-testing will ensure that prisons really are working towards delivering improvements which will mean better treatment of prisoners and more opportunity to reduce offending.?

Mr Benn said the performance-testing was intended to improve standards in prisons, and would be evaluated by a board chaired by the Commissioner for Correctional Services, Martin Narey.

The board would make recommendations to the minister to transfer to private management any prison failing to meet the performance tests.

Prison governor Graham Johnson said the prison was moving forward and he hoped the ?pockets of change and improvement could be spread throughout the whole prison in the next six months?.

Mr Johnson, who became prison governor two years ago, said he was ?confident? his staff could make the most of performance-testing.

West Devon and Torridge MP John Burnett said he was ?surprised and disappointed? to hear about the decision to

introduce six months of performance-testing measures at Dartmoor.

?From all I have heard, under the new governor there has been mutual co-operation and progress in the prison,? said Mr Burnett.

?The recategorisation of the prison 18 months ago is bound to bring transitional challenges. It would be my belief that the governor and the staff had responded well to these challenges.?

Mr Burnett said he would be meeting prison governor Graham Johnson and staff in due course and if they felt they had been ?unfairly treated? in this decision, he said he would take up their case with the appropriate authorities.

Dartmoor will be given six months to produce proposals for a much-improved level of service. Performance will be assessed on factors including meeting targets for maintaining security and safety, delivering an effective regime and helping prisoners to settle into the community after release.

The decision follows a scathing report into the prison just over 12 months ago by the Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers who described Dartmoor as ?the prison that time forgot?.

The report found ?degrading? conditions at a now-dismantled segregation unit in the jail and prisoners? ?dangerousness? being exaggerated to justify Dartmoor?s reputation as a ?hard? prison with little interaction between staff and prisoners.

The report, following the inspection which took place in September 2001, described the atmosphere within the prison as one of ?over-control, which could be perceived as intimidation? with prisoners referred to by some staff, in front of inspectors as the ?rubbish? of the prison system.

The report concluded by insisting Dartmoor needed ?a new culture, role and resources?, if the jail was to survive and develop.

Two prisons have already been through the performance-testing process ? Reading and Leicester, both of which were successful. The prisons minister said a further two unnamed prisons were set to undergo performance-testing from June.

Last November, a disturbance involving around 40 inmates on A Wing refusing to return to their cells broke out at Dartmoor Prison.

Trevor Horn, branch chairman of the Prison Officers? Association, acknowledged there were areas where the prison needed to improve: ?There are certain things that need to be improved at Dartmoor, such as employment for prisoners,? he said.

?It can work if the resources come with the recommendations. The work can be done and we can expand areas in Dartmoor, like the new resettlement unit, where the resources were put in.?

Mr Horn added the Prison Service had got to stop using Dartmoor as a dumping ground. ?We still appear to be used as a dumping ground, we have got to get away from Dartmoor having that image.?

He said the future of the jobs of his 200 members were at stake, and much of their good work might be lost if the running of Dartmoor was taken over by the private sector in six months.