Select Committee on Education and Skills Seventh Report

6  The content of prison education

DELIVERING EFFECTIVE EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAMMES

200. Janice Shiner, Susan Pember, and Chris Barnham from the DfES have all described to this Committee the three main achievements of the Offenders' Learning and Skills Unit to date as being the achievement of targets for the number of basic skills qualifications amongst prisoners, the increased expenditure on prison education in the last three years, and the appointment of Heads of Learning and Skills within each prison. Whilst we recognise these achievements, as discussed previously, we believe that the Offender Learning and Skills Unit has yet to make a significant impact for the offender in terms of their access to, or experience of, appropriate and effective prison education (paragraph 138 and 139).

201. Achievements must be linked to the purpose of prison education. Professor Andrew Coyle said:

'What you really want to look at is what is being done. If you are doing the wrong thing first of all, then doing the wrong thing better is not necessarily going to improve things. We are back to this issue of an expansionist prison system and an expansionist criminal justice system.'[133]

202. Lord Filkin told this Committee that Ministers are now beginning to ask the question of whether existing provision, including an emphasis on basic skills, is sufficient:

'The thrust to date has been quite clearly to significantly ramp up the increase in basic skills training. That increase in the number has been remarkable. The sort of questions that we are now asking ourselves—and the three Ministers are working on this together—are will that by itself, even if there were to be more money put in, be sufficient?'[134]

Description of current provision

203. The Government made a manifesto commitment to 'increase dramatically the quality and quantity of education provision in prisons'.[135] The DfES have told us that 'Prisoners achieved over 46,000 qualifications in literacy, language and numeracy in 2003-04, as well as nearly 110,000 qualifications in work-related skills which will prepare them for employment on release.'[136] These achievements exceeded national targets in both areas.

204. The following graph, produced by the DfES, demonstrates the increase in the number of basic skills qualifications that have been achieved by prisoners against targets since 2002. The qualifications achieved are shown in detail in Appendix 1.

Qualifications achieved against targets

Source: Department for Education and Skills

205. Basic skills education is undeniably the focus of all prison education departments, largely due to these departments having targets set by the DfES and Prison Service. However, this focus on basic skills has been to the detriment of flexibility of learning opportunities that Heads of Learning and Skills can make available to prisoners.

206. It is still the case that only a very small proportion of prisoners participate in education provision. According to the Offenders' Learning and Skills Unit in the Department for Education and Skills, just under a third of the prison population is attending education classes at any one time.

207. The 'purposeful activity statistics' obtained from the Prison Diary Project undertaken by the Home Affairs Committee, demonstrate that nearly 50% of prisoners were not engaged in any sort of education programme, and 65% were not involved in any sort of vocational training programme.

Proportion of prisoners with no time in the following activities during the week

Source: purposeful activity statistics obtained from the Prison Diary Project undertaken by the Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons. (OBP refers to Offender Behaviour Programmes, DTP refers to detoxifying programmes).

208. For the period September 2002 to August 2003 the average number of hours per week prisoners undertaking education spent in formal learning activities was 9 hours.[137]

209. Information collected by the Forum on Prisoner Education suggests that, on average, 31.5% of prisoners have access to education. Across the adult population an average of 28% of prisoners have access to education.

Source: Form on Prisoner Education (FPE). Statistics collected in preparation of the Directory of Offender Education in August and September 2004. Statistics were collated for the Committee by the FPE.

Note: Prison population statistics are based on the most recent edition of Prison Statistics, published by TSO. Some prisons did not supply this information, and these prisons have been excluded from the above statistics. The omitted prisons are Dovegate, Feltham, Lindholme and Swinfen Hall.

210. Such low levels of provision of education are not simply a reflection of a lack of willingness to learn. For the most popular training courses there are often queues of prisoners waiting to get a place. The table above demonstrates that on average nearly 5% of prisoners are on a waiting list for education, including nearly 7% of male prisoners in category D prisons. Part of the Government's manifesto commitment is to dramatically increase the quantity of provision available. Despite £30M extra investment in offender learning in 2004-05, the effects of such an increase in funding on capacity are difficult to observe.

211. In terms of physical capacity within prisons, the DfES have invested a further £4.5 M of Capital Modernisation Resources in 2003-04. However, there is a bidding process for individual projects; therefore facilities vary a great deal, and there has not been investment in physical space across the whole prison regime.

212. Despite some excellent educators working in prisons, we know from reports of the inspectorates that prison education falls far short of expectations. The Adult Learning Inspectorate has reported that 'much of the learning provision [in prisons] was found to be inflexible or inappropriate, and involved too narrow a range of teaching methods to hold the attention of people who have often been discouraged from learning.'[138]

213. Most concerning was the evidence we received that prison education is failing to achieve its defined purpose; it is failing to provide real alternatives to crime for prisoners and it is failing to contribute to them not re-offending. David Singleton HMI, Ofsted, said:

'On the second question, which is essentially, are we effectively helping the young people not to re-offend and, if so, how are we doing it, what's working and what isn't, well, we think we are probably as far away as ever from getting a clear answer to that and on the whole it looks as though the fundamental difficulties about prison education are not being overcome and they are the prior experience of the young people themselves with very short custodial sentences, quite often, it appears to us, not accompanied by effective support in the community outside the custodial bit of the sentence, variation in the priority given to education and difficulties in attracting and retaining key staff.'[139]

214. Current provision of prison education is unacceptable. Whilst the Government has provided a substantial increase in resources it is failing to fully meet its manifesto commitment to 'dramatically increase the quality and quantity of education provision'. In 2004, still less than a third of prisoners had access to prison education at any one time. There needs to be a fundamental shift in approach to prison education and a step change in the level of high quality provision that is suited to meet the needs of individual prisoners to provide them with a real alternative to crime on release.

THE QUALITY OF CURRENT PROVISION IN COMPARISON TO EXTERNAL STANDARDS

215. During 2001, Ofsted became responsible for inspecting all 16-19 education, including education provision in Young Offender Institutions and Secure Units and Training Centres 'at the invitation of HMI for prisons'. The Adult Learning Inspectorate was established in 2000 and is responsible for the inspection of education and training in prisons 'at the invitation of HMI for prisons'. Anne Owers said:

'The Adult Learning Inspectorate and Ofsted, I think, have raised the game of the inspection of education and training in prisons quite significantly and I think they have also done a very important thing which we look for in all aspects of prison life, which is to demand that what is offered in prisons is equivalent to what is offered outside.'[140]

216. But prison education is still a long way from achieving external standards. David Sherlock, Chief Inspector of the Adult Learning Inspectorate, said:

'Last year ALI participated in 33 inspections of prisons and young offender institutions. In just over 60% of those, the overall education and training provision was found to be inadequate to meet the reasonable needs of those who were partaking of it and that is a substantially higher proportion obviously than you would find outside the Prison Service.'[141]

217. However, we have to recognise the need for external standards to be applied and this Committee supports the Government's efforts to move in this direction. We should be moving towards a situation where the standard of provision is equal to that on the outside. In light of this, we welcome the role of the LSC in prison education provision and we also welcome the joint inspection regime of the Adult Learning Inspectorate and Ofsted.

218. The Youth Justice Board intends to alter the current approach to running secure institutions that provide education. The core principle underpinning this approach is that the education and training that are provided at all stages of the DTO (Detention and Training Order[142]) should reach the standards provided for young people in mainstream schools and colleges. Education and training must operate as a coherent and integrated programme across the DTO and be targeted closely at the needs of young people.'[143]

219. Ofsted's Annual Report 'Standards and Quality 2002/03', concluded 'too many young people in young offender institutions and secure units fail to receive an education that meets their needs or prepares them for the transition from custody to the community.'[144]

220. The Adult Learning Inspectorate has reported that 'much of the learning provision [in prisons] was found to be inflexible or inappropriate, and involved too narrow a range of teaching methods to hold the attention of people who have often been discouraged from learning.'[145]

221. HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) is responsible for inspecting all other parts of the prison regime that impact on prison education. In what it calls its 'expectations' for inspection, HMIP includes, as regards education, the following:

a)  Learning plans are integrated into individual sentence and custody plans

b)  Prisoners do not lose the opportunity for other activities because of an inflexible education programme

c)  prisoner pay structure does not financially disadvantage those who participate in education

d)  Prisoners are transferred to another prison that can meet their individual education needs if necessary.

e)  Prisoners on education / training programmes are helped to continue their courses on release, and are not transferred while undertaking a course

f)  The education and training department contributes to the creation of links with external agencies in prisoners' home areas.[146]

222. Repeated evidence from written submissions, including that of the Independent Monitoring Board,[147] clearly demonstrate that none of these expectations are being met.

223. A joint Ofsted / ALI report[148] concludes that 'the Skills for Life initiative has been highly successful in increasing the number of literacy, numeracy and English for Speakers of Other Language learners and in raising the profile of this area of learning, but there needs to be a sharper focus on quality of the education and training that is available.'

224. The quality of existing education provision remains a major concern. 60% of provision inspected by the Adult Learning Inspectorate was inadequate. This is unacceptable. There must be rapid progress towards meeting external standards of provision of education and training in prisons.

INTERNET ACCESS

225. A significant failing of current provision is the lack of access that prisoners have to IT and the internet as a learning tool and as a key skill for employment. Professor David Wilson told us:

'there is a barrier in that prisoners are not allowed access to Intranet. There are only 31 prisoners allowed out of the 75,000 access to the internet, 31. That surely is a barrier to learning.'[149]

226. It is essential that prisoners have access to IT and the internet in terms of learning IT skills for employment, learning how to search for information using the internet, but also to access on-line learning programmes. IT facilities vary across the prison estate, but are generally poor and out of date and access to the internet is virtually non-existent.

227. To undertake higher levels of learning inside a prison, a student needs internet access. It is not clear why restricted access should be such a problem. Jeanne Harding, Principal of Dudley College of Technology, told us:

'Internet access is not allowed in British prisons—the Open University programmes, a lot of distance learning programmes. Some of our prisons will not even allow us to take materials in on CD-ROM. A lot of modern education is provided using that type of technology, and that is a whole area of work where, for the more able students—and there are numbers who are more able, and numbers doing OU courses—it has to be transcribed, and they have to do the courses that are more paper-based. In order to do some of the work that might be more useful possibly to industry in the future, they have to have access to the internet.'[150]

228. The Government has promised that this is in hand. Martin Narey, Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service, explained:

'A number of establishments have already done this and work which we are doing in partnership with the DfES I am confident will open up access to limited sites in a controlled way.'[151]

229. We believe that lack of access to the internet is a significant barrier to learning. Access to the internet clearly must be controlled and properly supervised, but the internet is essential both as a learning tool and as a key skill for employment. We recommend that the Government prioritises progress in this area and sets out a clear timetable for implementation of access across the prison estate.

THE BASIC SKILLS AGENDA—A BROADER CURRICULUM IS NEEDED

230. There is little research available on what sort of education and training provision is most effective in enabling prisoners to gain secure employment on release (paragraphs 31 to 33). We have also established that the existing basic skills agenda in prisons was based on little more than a 'hunch' (paragraph 41). If it was working successfully against the defined purpose of prison education, this would not matter, but we have concluded that it is not (paragraph 213 and 214). Most of the evidence this Committee has received demonstrates that the current approach to prison education, with an almost exclusive focus on the achievement of basic skills qualifications, is not sufficient to enable prisoners to gain secure employment on release. Measured against the purpose of prison education, current provision is failing.

231. There is no question that the Government's focus on basic skills, including the introduction of key performance targets for prisons, has concentrated provision, almost exclusively, on the programmes that meet these Key Performance Targets. NATFHE have argued 'that basic skills provision needs to be placed within the context of a wider curriculum offer. We realise that not every establishment can or will be able to offer a wide range of subjects, but there must be a balanced educational programme offering a range of creative, practical and life skills and personal development programmes which can be studied in their own right as well as being platforms for delivering basic skills.'[152]

232. There is an almost unanimous opinion across the evidence that we have received that there is an urgent need to broaden the curriculum of prison education. The importance of a broader curriculum has been identified both in relation to the motivation of learners, and their employability skills.

233. The importance of soft skills and a broader curriculum to engage disaffected prisoners was seen as key. Jen Walters, ALI, said:

'we should not lose sight of those other soft things ... all of those things which give people, particularly young people, self-respect. I was at Brixton this week looking at something called the Dream Factory where young prisoners were performing Shakespeare with Sinatra. This is the sort of thing that gives them the kind of self-respect they had never had. Let us not be so focused on useful skills that we forget the routes that are needed to get people to drink at the trough once we have provided it.'[153]

234. A broader curriculum was also seen as essential in terms of delivering the soft skills prisoners will need to gain employment. Anne Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons said:

'What we need is to make people employable so that they can hold down employment, and that is about the whole area of self-esteem. It is not about being able to hang on to a job for a day or a week. It is about being able to engage fully and properly in the job market which people have never properly done before.'[154]

235. Professor Andrew Coyle believed that a broader curriculum would enable prisons to engage with prisoners as individuals and therefore impact on the likelihood that they re-commit crime:

'I think for a period the pendulum swung too far to the purist approach. I think it is coming back now and that we do see more use of creative activities in prisons. If we helped to develop the prisoner as a person then I think we will reduce the likelihood of that person continuing to commit crime.'[155]

236. Finally, for the 10,500 long-term prisoners in the system, basic skills and Key Performance Targets are wholly insufficient to meet their needs of purposeful activity over extended periods of imprisonment. Professor David Wilson told us:

'What we have also got to remember is that there are 6,000 prisoners currently serving ten years or longer in the prison population and there are some 4,500 lifers. So there is a core 10,500 people who quite clearly have gone through basic skills and should be doing something more with their time.'[156]

237. An over-emphasis on basic skills driven by Key Performance Targets has narrowed the curriculum too far. Whilst aiming to meet the basic skills needs of prisoners the Government must endeavour to broaden out the prison education curriculum and increase flexibility of provision to meet the much wider range of educational needs that exists within the prison system.

EMBEDDED SKILLS

238. We have been told that 'very many prisoners have had a negative experience of education'.[157] A large proportion were regular truants, and many left school before 16. Despite this, a large proportion of prison education is still classroom based 'chalk and talk' method. The education sector in general has a great deal of knowledge and experience in embedding basic skills in more applied learning experiences. It is unclear why prisoners have been treated differently to the other students in this area. As Professor Andrew Coyle told us:

'People who are in prison are no different from some of their cohorts elsewhere in society and the actual packaging of these tools is extremely important.'[158]

239. Susan Pember described existing research findings as showing that embedding literacy and numeracy learning in areas that the learner is interested in is known to be the best approach:

'for literacy and numeracy we do know our adults learn the best, and they learn best when it is actually embedded in something they are interested in or is embedded in a vocational area.'[159]

240. Using embedded skills training in applied learning is part of the process of adapting education provision to meet the different learning needs of different prisoners. Dr John Brennan said:

'We need to recognise that there are a variety of learning needs, and that often the motivation of learners, even where they have important basic skills requirements, can be better achieved through integrating and embedding those basic skills activities in a whole range of other learning opportunities.'[160]

241. There are many examples across the prison regime where skills are being embedded in more practical learning experiences. In Feltham Young Offenders Institution, the Committee heard of an example where one-on-one teaching support of basic skills was being provided to individuals that were involved in a workshop and had achieved great success. But such examples are the exception rather than the rule. We recommend that the Government gives further consideration to how basic skills might be embedded in more practical learning experiences right across the prison estate, on a much greater scale than is available to prisoners at present.

A joined-up approach to education, training, and work

242. Part of the difficulty in embedding basic skills in more practical learning is the separate nature of education, vocational training, and work in prisons. This cannot be allowed to continue.

JOB-RELATED TRAINING

243. Many of our witnesses emphasised the importance of job-related learning. The Forum on Prisoner Education said that 'with this purpose in mind, it is important that prison education increases a prisoner's chance of secure employment on release. Prison education should therefore be job-related and must have clear vocational links. But vocational education in itself is not necessarily sufficient. Education, as the central focus of the prison regime, should be designed to feed into other regime areas such as work and the delivery of offending behaviour programmes. Vocational education in prison rarely offers the skills needed in today's labour market, and incorporation education with work could overcome some of these problems.'[161]

244. The concern is that the training and work opportunities in prison do not reflect those on the outside and that the skills and knowledge prisoners gain are outdated. The Howard League for Penal Reform believed that 'prisoners often do training or work that doesn't support their future plans. Some of the work, in particular, has remained unchanged over many years including catering and making furniture.'[162] Bobby Cummines of UNLOCK, an ex-offender himself, told us:

'Some of the training in prison is not appropriate for employment.'[163]

245. Vocational training that does not offer the skills needed in today's job market should not continue. Vocational training should be geared towards the needs of the prisoners, not the historic availability of provision at a given prison. A broader variety of vocational opportunities as well as work opportunities need to be offered that prepare prisoners for employment.

246. Prisoners themselves recognise the importance of the relationship between training and employment. Mohammed Saleh, a young offender in Feltham Young Offenders Institution, told this Committee that the popularity of training courses was directly related to employment prospects:

'Most of the people in this prison, all the inmates, the only thing they can think of every time when I ask them, even people that are first time landing into jail, the first thing they will say is a mechanic or bricklaying or painting or decorating. That is what us teenagers think about as being employed—mechanics, painting and decorating and bricklaying. That is the only thing we can think of. It is easier to get employed by them jobs than being employed in other things like with a BT company.'[164]

LINKS TO EMPLOYERS

247. Companies such as Transco and Toyota have received much praise for the successful training schemes they have set up in prisons. We would agree with the Forum on Prisoner Education that 'Such projects and initiatives are undoubtedly the way forward in vocational education in prisons'[165].

248. We would like to see much more involvement of employers in prisoners' training and work. The well-documented Transco initiative, for example, which is now the Young Offender Programme led by National Grid Transco involving over 50 businesses, demonstrates how prisoners can be trained to fill predicted vacancies. We have visited the original Transco project in Reading and have taken evidence from National Grid Transco regarding the increased scale of its work with a broader range of companies and prisons across the country. We fully support the excellent work of the Young Offender Programme, led by National Grid Transco, and recommend that the Government should take steps to enable and encourage many more of these partnership arrangements with employers. The Government should be 'encouraging employers to invest in prisoners' education and training as part of their corporate social responsibility policies, not purely for philanthropic reasons but because there is a strong business case too.'[166]

249. As with the Young Offender Programme, led by National Grid Transco, the Committee would like to see more identification of skills shortages within areas local to the prison, and partnerships developed with businesses to meet these skill shortages.

250. The question of how to move from pockets of excellence to mainstream provision of such employer-led partnerships is a very difficult one, to which the Government needs to give careful consideration. As Professor Andrew Coyle told us:

'the Prison Service is very bad at learning from its own successes and it has had a number of successes but tended to deal with them by marginalising them, … there is a danger of saying, "Well, Transco, that's Reading. It happens in Reading." I think there is a danger, as in any large organisation, of people reinventing the wheel, of not learning from past successes, for example such as may well happen now with the Offender Management Services, rather than looking at the pockets of excellence (and there are some pockets of excellence) and saying, "How do we convert that into the mainstream of the prison setting?" We have been very bad at that in the past.'[167]

251. Working with employers has to be the future of vocational education provision and this has to be driven and funded by the Government. The direct relationship between the private company that is providing the training and the prison, including the prisoners themselves, is of vital importance and needs to be maintained.

252. As Ms Crook explained:

'I think the Prison Service should concentrate on it more. I think if they worked more constructively with employers inside prisons they could form better relationships with employers outside and I think the public would be more supportive of it as well.'[168]

WORKSHOPS

253. In 2003-04, fewer than 10,000 prisoners out of 74,000 were employed in prison workshops. The total number of prisoners in any kind of work is below 50% and the majority of this is low grade, menial work[169].

254. The Offenders' Learning and Skills Unit emphasises the need for a focus on skills for employment. However, there is a huge missed opportunity within prisons to create learning/training opportunities from the work that goes on in workshops. Investment is needed to train those running these workshops so that they can enable offenders to gain qualifications through the work they are undertaking.

255. This is not just about training workshop instructors, but also about prisons taking a joined up approach to work and education. It is often the case that work opportunities are low skill, repetitive, and do not generate opportunities for gaining qualifications. Prisons need to be encouraged to be more creative in the type of work they offer and in linking this to educational opportunities. There are some excellent examples of good practice, but these are unfortunately the exception rather than the rule.

REAL WORK—REAL PAY

256. We have heard much evidence of the benefit of offering prisoners the chance of a full day's reward for a full day's work. Being given the opportunity to be employed under the same terms and conditions as their outside counterparts would enable them to support their families, save for their futures, donate to Victim Support and contribute towards prison upkeep (although not their board and lodging because this is prohibited by EU law). They would also be paying tax and national insurance.

257. The Howard League for Penal Reform told us that they are 'planning a social enterprise in prison with the aim of demonstrating that it is possible to provide meaningful work and training in prison. The Real Work enterprise proposes establishing a print firm in the Mount Prison, that will operate like any outside business, offering prisoners the chance of a full day's reward for a full day's work. They will be employed under the same terms and conditions as their outside counterpart, from which they will be expected to support their families, save for their futures, donate to Victim Support (if they wish) and contribute towards prison upkeep. They will also have to pay tax and national insurance.'[170]

258. In his evidence to this Committee, Martin Narey was dismissive of the idea that prisoners should be receiving real pay for real work and claimed it would act as a disincentive to education:

'in giving people real work and real money, perhaps £60 a week to work in an industrial production workshop, then we are providing, it would be argued, a disincentive to going into education.'[171]

259. We disagree. Firstly, there is no reason why prisoners should not receive education and training in the workplace if they are working. Secondly, where such schemes do exist, for example in Finland, they provide those prisoners earning real wages (the 25% in open prisons) with expense allowances for participating in education or rehabilitation programmes.

260. In evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee, Paul Goggins MP said that he thought this would just create a huge 'bureaucratic exercise in paying people imaginary money so that they can pay imaginary board and lodging'. However, if prisoners were working in real business enterprises, this would not have to be 'imaginary money'. Furthermore, the advantages in terms of self-esteem and re-integration into working society should not be underestimated. Such a system can work well in conjunction with education and training programmes.

261. In evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee in May 2004, Paul Goggins said that 'at present there are 1,500 people in our open prisons that go out to work during the course of each day. They work full-time, they earn a wage through doing that and that can help them in their long-term rehabilitation.' This Committee recommends that the Government considers placing a much larger proportion of short-term prisoners in open prisons so that they can continue their links in the community with a full week of work or education or both.

262. Frances Crook, Howard League for Penal Reform told us:

'So these are young people and adults being received into prison who have no experience of real work, who do not have national insurance numbers in the sense that they have never been employed, they have never paid tax and do not know how to do it, they have not been in school for many years so they are completely outside what I would call real life. They go into prison. They may do a little bit of education... It is pretty "chalk and talk" stuff in adult prisons. They will be employed within the establishment maintaining the establishment earning £5 to £8 a week. They are not paying tax, they are not paying national insurance, they are getting no training, and this means that the Prison System is reinforcing the view that it is acceptable not to pay tax or national insurance or to work or to have a steady and organised life and to take responsibility for your life and to be engaged in being what we would like people to be, which is responsible citizens. I think in many cases the prison system is perpetuating the view that crime pays better, is more exciting and they do not have to worry about when they are released because they can go back to this informal economy from which they came.'[172]

263. And arguing that real work, real pay requires a much smaller prison system, Frances Crook added:

'That is the kind of vision for the Prison Service I would like to see but you can only achieve that if you reduce radically the numbers of people in prison so that only people who need to be there are held there. Then the Prison Service could do something useful with those who have to be held in custody for public safety reasons. It is a completely different vision, it is turning it round on its head.'[173]

264. Such changes would require a complete revision of the management of prisoners in this country. It is a radical proposal, but with recidivism as high as it is, some far more radical solutions need to be considered. The Committee urges the Government to give 'real work, real pay' proposals full consideration as a possible solution to reducing recidivism.

265. The Committee was shown an excellent example of a working print shop being run as a viable business in HMP Albany on the Isle of Wight. Along with the example of the original Transco project which originated in Reading prison, the common link between such projects was an entrepreneur within the prison who was willing to drive the project forward and forge links between people working inside and outside the prison.

266. Another example of the importance of entrepreneurial activity within prison education is where Further Education Colleges and Universities have been particularly successful at creating links with prisoners and have helped ex-offenders to join mainstream courses on release. Goldsmiths University, for example, have had great success with encouraging ex-offenders to undertake degree programmes through their work with the charity UNLOCK.

267. We would like to see the Government encouraging a great deal more entrepreneurial activity within prisons both in terms of business enterprises to provide real work for prisoners and in terms of forging much closer links with local Further Education Colleges, Universities, and employers.

MOTIVATION TO LEARN

268. A key area of prison education that must be considered is the prisoners' motivation to learn. The Forum on Prisoner Education said: 'when talking of "needs", we need to consider motivation. Very many prisoners have had negative experiences of formal education, and simply shutting them in a classroom is unlikely to have any positive effect. In assessing "needs", an assessment should be made of the styles of learning likely to work for that prisoner. Very low self-esteem is common, and education must be "sold" to many of these prisoners. Prisoners need to be encouraged to learn, and shown that they can learn, and can change and enrich their lives through learning.'[174]

269. We took evidence from the Dialogue Trust which runs discussion forums with prisoners. They emphasised the important link between prison education and the broader rehabilitation needs of a prisoner that cannot be separated out. 'We are aware that a prime de-motivating force for many prisoners is that for them education has been a negative experience. We believe that experiential work such as ours can overcome some of these anxieties. We feel that this kind of experiential learning and development should be incorporated into prison education and rehabilitation. Ideally, these two components, education and rehabilitation, would be provided in a seamless service that is integrated with prisoners' sentence plans.'[175]

270. Professor Rod Morgan of the Youth Justice Board told us:

'…what we are very keen for is that they gain motivation and one of the ways of doing this is that they start to engage in activities which they enjoy, which they find fun, which, if they are on vocational training, offer the prospect of some employment in the community which is essential and having gained some motivation, you then smuggle in the basic skills on the back of the motivation. We have evolved various techniques, various schemes that we can describe to you to try and achieve that end, but we need to do more of it.'[176]

271. Motivation of the learner in prison is extremely important. Much more needs to be done to provide a wide range of high quality education programmes that should be available for prisons to meet the needs and different learning styles of prisoners to engage them in learning.

EQUAL PAY

272. In relation to the motivation of a prisoner to engage in learning, the Committee has heard very concerning reports of lower rates of pay being offered to prisoners who are choosing education programmes. Statistics provided to us by the Forum on Prisoner Education show that nearly half of prisons pay more for work than for education with an average of £8.27 a week paid for education and £10.47 for work. Pay for education varied from just £3 a week to £18 a week, whilst pay for work varied from £6 a week to £35 a week. Around 45% of prisons had already taken the step to equalise the level of pay for education and work.[177]

273. Both Phil Wheatley, Director General of the Prison Service, and Martin Narey, Chief Executive of National Offender Management Service told this Committee that they did not believe that offering a lower rate of pay acted as a disincentive for prisoners to undertake education programmes. Phil Wheatley told us:

'In my experience, and I have a lot of prison experience ... prisoners are not deterred from entering education by the vagaries of the pay system because education is a very attractive thing for lots of prisoners to do, particularly part-time education, which normally does not much interfere with their ability to earn because they are doing part time work, and because there is not enough work to give everybody full-time work. So prisoners are not normally deterred by the pay system.'[178]

274. Martin Narey agreed with Phil Wheatley's comments and told us:

'I have been more than once to every prison in the country and I have never been stopped by a prisoner who has said to me that wages are preventing him from wanting to go into education.' [179]

275. However, a large number of witnesses told this Committee that lower pay was acting as a disincentive to participation in education. NATFHE said that 'the Social Exclusion Unit Report, the NATFHE/AoC "Shared responsibilities", and the recent Prison Reform Trust report on the perceptions of prisoners of prison education[180] all reported that the disparity in the payments prisoners received when attending education programmes, as compared to the payment received for other prison activity, was a serious disincentive to participation in learning in prisons.'[181]

276. The difference in pay of just a few pounds a week might seem insignificant, but given that it is the prisoner's only expendable income for items such as phone cards, cigarettes, and food snacks, it is possible to understand why being unskilled, but highly paid, might seem more appealing than education. Janice Shiner recognised that this was going on in our prisons:

'If people are wanting to go into the workshop because it gives them phone cards and cigarettes or whatever, we need to make sure that when they are in that workshop they are learning and they are clocking up some NVQ modules.'[182]

277. The difficulty with proposing that prisoners in the higher paid workshops should be gaining qualifications through their workshop experience is that, largely speaking, it is the very low-skill, repetitive workshops that pay the most and these types of workshops would not provide opportunities for gaining qualifications.

278. The Committee has heard evidence from some witnesses, including Phil Wheatley, that has justified the higher rates of pay given for some workshops on the basis that the work is highly repetitive and tedious and would not be undertaken if pay was not better than for other options. Phil Wheatley told us:

'What we do have to do, however, with some of them is the most repetitive work, and a lot of prison work is essentially repetitive work ... unless there is some decent reward for it, we cannot get prisoners to do in a co-operative and productive way, so we do need to make sure we can reward people in that sort of work appropriately. Education ... if I did pay high pay-rate there, I would have to drop somebody else's pay-rate and I would probably have the person in the 'mindless shop' doing the repetitive work feeling very upset and annoyed, thinking, "I am not being paid properly for this. Why should I do it", and I cannot afford that.'[183]

279. But why are such workshops, described by the Director General of Prisons as 'mindless', being run in the UK prisons? How will such unskilled and tedious work help these prisoners to gain secure employment on release? The fact that such unskilled workshops are run to the financial benefit of the prison, and to no benefit to the prisoners, says a lot about existing priorities.

280. We recommend that pay must be equalised across all activities undertaken in prison with immediate effect. There must be equal pay for education as for all other activities. Workshops that offer tedious, unskilled work should be phased out as they contribute nothing to the employability of a prisoner on release.

MENTORING

281. Another approach to learning that has impressed the Committee is the mentoring activity that is being undertaken in prisons, largely by charitable organisations such as the Toe-by-Toe scheme that teaches prisoners to read. Christopher Morgan MBE, Director of the Shannon Trust, described the success of the Toe-by-Toe scheme to us:

'... once we got started, we discovered just the size of the problem because there are 30,000 prisoners in our prisons at any one time who cannot read (above the standard of an 11 year-old). There is no way that they can get given the one-to-one attention of professional teachers and a number of them refuse to go to the professional teacher because they have bad memories of school.. but they will learn from another inmate. … we started to make a great deal of progress 18 months ago and we have now reached something over 100 prisoners in England.'[184]

282. A survey by the Forum on Prisoner Education showed that 116 out of 139 prisons that returned information to them were offering peer mentoring in some form[185]. The Committee would like to highlight the excellent work of two mentoring schemes in particular; the work of the Shannon Trust that runs the Toe-by-Toe mentoring scheme teaching prisoners to read, and the Trailblazer mentoring programme being run as a charitable project at Feltham Young Offenders Institution, which has had remarkable success in reducing rates of recidivism amongst participants in the programme. The projects are both outlined further in appendix 3. Professor Andrew Coyle told us:

'I referred earlier to the fact that prisoners were not a homogenous group and that they themselves have many skills, and I think what we have failed to do by and large up until now is to make use of the skills which some prisoners have to help other prisoners. I think if you tried to see education within a narrow box then that will be much more difficult. We have traditionally in England and Wales shied away from involving prisoners in anything like this with the exception.. of the listener scheme and I think we could look with some benefit to new initiatives where we might encourage prisoners who do have skills (and many of them do) to help other prisoners who do not, because very often prisoners will respond better to that sort of encouragement.'[186]

283. We have been impressed by the success of various mentoring programmes run by charitable organisations and urge the Government to look at significantly increasing the role of mentoring in prison education, including supporting existing successful programmes on a national basis.

WORK OF CHARITIES IN PRISON EDUCATION

284. The work of charities in prison education is well established, broad ranging, and often very successful. Information from the Forum on Prisoner Education showed that 72 different charities were listed as being involved in prison education—many in just one prison, but some in as many as 118 different establishments[187]. But prisons should not have to rely on charities to plug gaps in mainstream provision. In evidence to this Committee, Merron Mitchell, contract manager for prison education at City College Manchester, said:

'We all will need the voluntary sector, but we cannot devolve our responsibility to the voluntary sector. We still have to be accountable and get outcomes for teaching people to read and have the social skills to resettle.'[188]

285. We welcome the significant contribution to prison education that is made by the voluntary sector. However, we strongly believe that the Government cannot devolve its responsibility to provide education and training to the voluntary sector. We recommend that the Government undertakes a thorough review of the different charities working in the prison sector and those that are successful are given national recognition, funding, support, and enter the quality assurance regime.

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133   Q 46 Back

134   Q 782 Back

135   Department for Education and Skills, Offender Learning and Skills Unit. www.dfes.gov.uk/offenderlearning/about_the_unit.cfm Back

136   Ev 148 Back

137   House of Commons Written answer, December 2003. Back

138   Adult Learning Inspectorate, Basic skills for offenders in the community, 2004. Back

139   Q 443 Back

140   Q 428 Back

141   Q 447 Back

142   This is the custodial sentence for 12-17 year-olds.It combines detention with training and is used for young people who commit a serious crime or commit a number of offences.Half the sentence will be spent in custody and the other half will be supervised by the Youth Offending Service, out in the community.The intention was that considerable time would be spent on training and education to help young people stop offending when their sentence is finished.DTOs were introduced in April 2000 and were a central component of a dramatic overhaul of the whole youth justice system in England.DTOs have replaced all sentences of detention in a Young Offenders Institution for young people up to 18 years. Back

143   Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, National Specification for Learning and Skills for Young People on a Detention and Training Order, April 2002. Back

144   Ofsted, The Annual Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools, Standards and Quality 2002-03. Back

145   Adult Learning Inspectorate, Basic skills for offenders in the community, 2004. Back

146   Home Office, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons: Expectations: Criteria for assessing the conditions in prisons and the treatment of prisoners. Back

147   Ev 263-266 Back

148   Ofsted/Adult Learning Inspectorate, Literacy, numeracy and English for speakers of other languages: a survey of current practice in post-16 and adult provision, HMI 1367. Back

149   Q 40 Back

150   Q 313 Back

151   Q 668 Back

152   Ev 77 Back

153   Q 470 Back

154   Q 493 Back

155   Q 4 Back

156   Q 30 Back

157   Ev 1 Back

158   Q 6 Back

159   Q 573 Back

160   Q 270 Back

161   Ev 4 Back

162   Ev 36 Back

163   Q 248 Back

164   Q 845 Back

165   Ev 4 Back

166   Ev 36 Back

167   Q 84 Back

168   Q 166 Back

169   Home Affairs Committee, First report of session 2004-05, Rehabilitation of Prisoners, HC 193-I. Back

170   Ev 37 Back

171   Q 692 Back

172   Q 161 Back

173   Q 163 Back

174   Ev 1 Back

175   Ev 58 Back

176   Q 99 Back

177   Information has been collated from the returns provided to the Forum on Prisoner Education in preparation of the Directory of Offender Education in August and September 2004.Information was collated for this Committee by the Forum on Prisoner Education.Information on pay was provided by 89 prisons. Back

178   Q 572 Back

179   Q 692 Back

180   Prison Reform Trust, Time to Learn, Julia Braggins and Jenny Talbot, 2004. Back

181   Ev 76 Back

182   Q 752 Back

183   Q 572 Back

184   Q 207 Back

185   Information has been collated from the returns provided to the Forum on Prisoner Education in preparation of the Directory of Offender Education in August and September 2004.Information was collated for this Committee by the Forum on Prisoner Education. Back

186   Q 83 Back

187   Information has been collated from the returns provided to the Forum on Prisoner Education in preparation of the Directory of Offender Education in August and September 2004.Information was collated for this Committee by the Forum on Prisoner Education. Back

188   Q 290 Back

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Prepared 31 March 2005