Matthew Offord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure that ex-offenders are helped into work or education upon the completion of their sentence.

Caroline Dinenage

We want prisons to be places of hard work, rigorous education and high ambition, with incentives for prisoners to learn and for prison staff to prioritise education and employment opportunities.

We already work with a wide range of employers in prison through One3One Solutions and engagement by Prison Governors. But we want Governors to do more so we are putting the tools to drive this change in the hands of those at the frontline who best know what works.

We are keen to increase the number of employers who can provide valuable vocational work for offenders while in prison and who are able to offer them support in preparation for release and employment opportunities following their release. I regularly meet businesses across the country, to encourage them to get involved and new businesses are now coming on board as a consequence. The Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending brings together employers willing to employ offenders and provides a range of advice and support to new employers considering working with offenders and provides business to business mentoring to members of the Forum. We are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to increase the involvement of more businesses. The Prime Minister has also announced changes to recruitment practises across the civil service to ensure that people are considered on their merits and not on their criminal conviction and we want to encourage more employers to do the same.

Separately, the Secretary of State for Justice has commissioned a review of prison education led by Dame Sally Coates.