Prisoners' Release: Housing
(asked on 22nd September 2020) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve resettlement for prison leavers.
Answered by
Baroness Scott of Bybrook
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
We have invested an additional £22m per annum over the remaining life of the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) contracts to deliver an enhanced Through the Gate resettlement service preparing offenders for release which includes the requirement that CRCs complete specific tasks to help prisoners to secure and maintain settled accommodation, gain employment, and manage debt and their financial affairs.
The probation reform programme will deliver an enhanced pre-release planning strategy improving the current service for all released from prison, along with access to specialist accommodation providers to reduce the risk of homelessness, and a mentoring provision to support those who struggle with the transition from prison to community to reduce the risk of recalls and build community networks. All National Probation Service (NPS) regions will have a short sentence function providing a multi-agency and responsive approach to sustain existing community links and fast track referrals into new services to improve compliance and outcomes. We will also deliver the existing NPS service-level to all CRC cases under a unified model to increase staff working within the prison service and in the community.
Accommodation pilots in Leeds, Pentonville and Bristol prisons have been operating since August 2019 and, subject to evaluation, we will inform future provision of accommodation for offenders, through the new Probation model. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Justice also secured £8.5 million to support individuals at risk of homelessness on their release from prison and help them to move on into permanent accommodation.
Seven Homelessness Prevention Taskforces have been set up to work with local authorities and other partners to find accommodation for offenders released from prison and these taskforces are still active and we are considering how the these will build on the gains made.