Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure prison leavers are aware of the resettlement services available.

Effective resettlement of prison leavers is a core part of our efforts to reduce re-offending. This includes making sure someone has a home, family links where appropriate, access to healthcare, a job or further education, and/or access to benefits.

Probation practitioners in the community coordinate the overall rehabilitation of offenders as they leave prison and serve their licence, supported by Pre-Release Teams (PRT) who provide support to address identified immediate resettlement needs and pre-release support for all people in prison. The immediate resettlement needs of all prisoners are assessed on entry to prison and reviewed pre-release.

Utilising both prison-based services and Commissioned Rehabilitative Services (CRS), there is a wide range of resettlement support covering accommodation, employment, dependency and recovery, personal wellbeing and finance, benefit and debt services. CRS also offers a ‘mentoring’ service, which can be delivered pre-release and follow offenders through the gate for those being released on licence to support community integration. Community probation practitioners and PRTs work proactively with prisoners to build pre-release plans and refer into these services to ensure that the right support is in place for release.

In addition, we have also introduced employment hubs where prisoners can access job vacancies and support with applications, and Prison Employment Leads who support with work-readiness and match them to jobs on release.

To further improve awareness for prison leavers, we are introducing Resettlement Passports, which will bring together key information and services that an individual needs in one place to resettle into the community, such as bank accounts, CVs and identity documents to prove the right to work and rent, as well as appointment and contact information to enable prison leavers to engage with resettlement services available.