Andrew Stephenson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Stephenson on 2015-11-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisons do not accommodate workshops.

Andrew Selous

We want to see more prisoners working productively for longer numbers of hours. We also want to attract more employers who offer both work in prison but also guaranteed interviews and employment opportunities on release. That is why we want to reform the prison estate, building nine new prisons with better facilities for training and rehabilitation.

All prisons provide opportunities for offenders to work and learn new skills which can help them find a job on release and support their rehabilitation. We work continuously with employers nationally and locally to create new opportunities in line with our code of practice.

NOMS uses a specific definition of ‘workshop’ which is only used for commercial and industrial scale work and specific work activities. [1] Currently, there are 10 prisons which are not planning to offer this type of work this year [2], however other learning, vocational training and work opportunities will still be available in these establishments.

Work in prisons continues to grow steadily, up from 10.6 million working hours in 10/11 to 14.9 million working hours in the year 14/15.

[1] Including Enterprise/Contract Services, Engineering, Aluminium, Laundry, Newgate Furniture, Concrete, Plastics, Textiles, Woodwork, Food Packing, Commercial Land Based Activities, Braille, Charity, Printing, Data Entry, Signs, Desk Top Publishing, Retail, External Recycling and other workshops.

[2] Excludes four establishments the Youth Justice Board (YJB) commission from the National Offender Management Service (NOMS)