Barlinnie could have a new home by the end of the decade

Planning consultants are already evaluating potential sites, even though funding will not be available until 2017.

The jail's new governor, Ian Whitehead, 50, said: "There is no funding being attached to this project now to build it.

"The funding commitment by the Government at this time has just passed Grampian and is now funding Inverclyde. In 2016/17 the new prison in Inverclyde will be delivered."

Barlinnie is expected to be allocated cash for a new jail in the round of funding after that.

But Mr Whitehead is certain HMP Barlinnie should stay in Glasgow's East End, where it has been since the 1880s.

Barlinnie was constructed between 1882 and 1897 for 1018 prisoners, but now holds "just over 1300", according to Mr Whitehead.

He said: "It is a place that is always busy - very busy. It only reflects what is happening out there in the community.

"There is a big, big court in Glasgow and other courts like Hamilton that send people here."

Mr Whitehead is clear that criminals should be collared and face justice in the courts, but he cautioned against short sentences that swell the population of his prison.

In recent years it rose as high 1760, prompting Mr Whitehead's predecessor Derek McGill to call for the jail to be demolished by 2020.

Mr Whitehead said: "This whole notion about having people coming in here for really short periods of time - and this prison in particular was always well known for it, people getting 14 days and 21 days, all that kind of stuff - it is nonsense.

"It serves no purpose. It does nothing to deflect those who come in from offending. It does nothing to change the individual.

"It gives the staff no time whatsoever to get to know people. It is a waste and it costs money to do it."

Mr Whitehead took up his post in July and said his "vision" was to transform prisoners' lives and reduce repeat offending.

Sitting behind a new desk made for him by inmates, he said: "It might sound grandiose - it's a big vision - but what we are trying to do is put ourselves out of business in the long term by reducing the number of people who come back to prison because you have undertaken to say, 'Actually, you are not bad at all things'."

He speaks sympathetically about prisoners who have been denied opportunities to get on in life due to difficult backgrounds.

Mr Whitehead said: "Some people benefited from the love of a good family and that is not always the case with people here.

"So should anybody really be surprised that is how folk turn out? I would argue no."

However, the married father-of-two from East Kilbride rejected the notion that prison officers wrap criminals in cotton wool.

He said: "I wouldn't ever stand on a public platform and say these people need to be 'lovebombed'. I am not suggesting that at all.

"What I am suggesting is we act professionally and with humanity to people that are here in our care. In doing so you get to touch somebody - and our staff do that every day - by understanding and connecting with what they are about and what drove them to where they are.

"In doing so you can quite often introduce subtle changes that enables them to change their particular path."

Mr Whitehead was parachuted in to oversee the project after supervising the construction of two new jails as Head Of Corporate Change for the Scottish Prison Service.

He is a former governor of HMP Shotts, the jail where he started his career with SPS in 1989.

He also spent three years at Barlinnie as Head Of Prisoner Activities in the late 1990s and now he is back to take on his biggest job yet.

Mr Whitehead said: "Between 2008 and 2011 I was in charge of the new prison team and we developed and built Low Moss and Grampian. That is one of the reasons I am here.

"I have got experience of running a prison here and now, but also have a fairly detailed understanding of what you need to do to plan for a new prison.

"It is the accumulation of that kind of experience that is going to be important here and, being a relatively young 50, the intention is for me to be here for quite a bit of time."

peter.swindon@ eveningtimes.co.uk