Review of Offender Learning

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I am publishing today “Making Prisons Work: Skills for Rehabilitation”, the report on the review of offender learning that I commissioned last summer. The document sets out our reform programme for offender learning. Our plans mark a departure from existing practice. The means of managing the system and measurement of outcomes will change dramatically and, consequently, so will the allocation of resources.

“Making Prisons Work: Skills for Rehabilitation”, which has been developed jointly with the Ministry of Justice, takes careful account of the Government’s plans for reform of adult learning and skills over the remainder of this Parliament, plans for reform in the criminal justice system and the 98 responses to our call for evidence. I thank all those who took the time to submit their views.

The plans also reinforce our public service reforms, shifting power away from the centre of Government into the hands of front-line staff and the partnerships that operate at a local level to deliver services.

The link between recidivism and the failure of ex-offenders to find work is clear. If those in prison acquire the skills needed to gain employment on release from prison there is a good chance that they will turn their lives around.

We are determined to make prisons places where people learn skills to build lives beyond crime. And the authenticity of what is taught and tested will be assured by its relationship with further learning and employment. Plainly, skills acquired through prison education must make ex-offenders more employable. In these terms prison must be made to work. Those closest to the effects of their decisions on the funding and management of learning provision should be responsible and accountable.

Some of the previous reforms to the skills system inside prisons have brought about improvements: certainly, we have increased prisoner participation in learning and skills. However, we are still failing to ensure prisoners continue their progress on release in terms of further learning or employment. To address this, we will place a much greater focus on developing the vocational skills demanded by employers in the areas to which prisoners are to be released, making offender learning an authentic part of the wider skills system. That sharpened focus will also enable us to support the drive towards prisons increasingly becoming places of meaningful work. As responsibility is devolved to those closest to the effects of their decisions, accountability will be assured through measurement of outcomes.

We will reflect the Government’s focus on payment by results by introducing outcome incentive payments: providers’ payments will be based, in part, on their success in helping get people into jobs. Our new emphasis on decentralised control and accountability means we will change the distribution of resources between prisons, supporting our determination to put in place the right skills offer for the offender while they are within the justice system. That will be framed by a significant change from the current system, introducing a focus on clusters of prisons between which prisoners tend to move and with wide implications for the way people work together.

To put these changes in place, we shall re-procure the offender learning contracts for delivery in adult prisons in England.

For offenders in the community, supervised by the probation service, we will place a new collaborative emphasis on the skills system in helping offenders gain the competences that will help them into work.

My Department will not be able to do all of this alone. The interaction between the Department for Work and Pensions, especially the Work programme and Jobcentre Plus’s other employment support, and the skills system will be critical to our success in making sure that offenders use their newly acquired skills to secure work. Just as important is the need to engage sectors, social enterprises, charities and voluntary organisations whose dedication and expertise makes such a positive difference to so many lives.

“Making Prisons Work: Skills for Rehabilitation” is available on the BIS website at http://www.bis.gov.uk/ and copies will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.