Memorandum from A4e Offender Learning
and Skills Service
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. A4e are an established provider of offender
learning services in 32 prisons in the UK. In response to the
Public Accounts Committee on OLASS we have three issues that we
would like to raise, Employer Engagement, Incomplete Qualifications
and Social Enterprise.
BRIEF INTRODUCTION
TO A4E
2. A4e is an international business that
manages, operates and delivers front line public services on behalf
of public sector customers. A4e provides a broad range of services
to individuals, organisations and communities working with the
public, private and third sectors. Services include offender management,
welfare to work; skills and workforce development services; enterprise
support; a range of services to the financially excluded; public
health and social care services; educational services; and increasingly
funding distribution and supply chain development services for
government agencies and departments.
3. A4e have been involved in the delivery
of the OLASS service since its inception three years ago. A4e
is the largest private provider of offender learning, working
with offenders in 32 prisons, delivering 196,000 hours of learning
in prisons each year. Over 600 of our staff are dedicated to offender
learning, representing a quarter of A4e's total work force. A4e's
work with OLASS is about reducing the risk of re-offending by
providing offenders and ex-offenders with the support they need
to overcome barriers to learning and employment.
4. A4e would like to raise the following
points from the discussions held at the PAC committee and from
our experience in offender education.
EMPLOYER ENGAGEMENT
5. In our experience an offender is more
likely to retain motivation if there is a realistic prospect of
gaining employment when they are released. In the prisons we work
in we have found that engaging employers to lead the training
is one of the most effective ways to secure job outcomes and deliver
truly demand led training relevant to the needs of the labour
market. Employer engagement is not specifically the responsibility
of any one organisation and since there are no contractual obligations
it can often fall by the wayside.
6. OLASS Providers should be accountable
for Employer Engagement so that employer demand can lead the nature
of the training in custody. This will help to stimulate employment
opportunities for offenders on their release. By linking into
Job Centre Plus Offices and Local Employment Partnerships in the
areas where offenders are due to be resettled OLASS Providers
can provide a more responsive and effective employment focused
service and break reoffending cycles.
7. At HMP Blantyre House A4e has been working
in partnership with high street retail chain Timpsons, securing
full time employment for inmates. The company has actively sought
to recruit ex-offenders, and as a result, over the last few years,
has provided opportunities for a number of individuals across
the country, which has led to one being promoted to store manager
and also one as assistant manager. Offenders who gain release
on temporary licence (ROTL) can begin working on the company's
training programme, leading to permanent employment.
8. Dennis Phillips from Timpson said "Blantyre
House is without doubt a success story, the prisoners have taken
on board the opportunity offered and are clearly adding value.
I am confident that they will have a fantastic career with our
Company."
INCOMPLETE QUALIFICATIONS
9. It has been well documented in the NAO
report that incomplete qualifications for offenders are very costly
for the LSC. If qualifications and programmes for offenders in
custody and community settings were aligned then there is no reason
why an offender could not continue their Individual Learning Plan
with a community learning provider on their release. This could
be arranged using existing funding through join up with DWP and
LSC funded provision for unemployed people. If qualifications
remained incomplete when the offender commences employment they
could be completed using LSC funded Train to Gain or Apprenticeship
services.
10. What is required is an end-to-end journey
for offenders that begins at sentencing, continues when they move
through the prison gate and back into the community and finished
when they are in employment and fully rehabilitated.
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
11. A4e have been developing a concept that
will bring social enterprise projects into prisons to help deliver
vocational skills with embedded skills for life activity. The
Working Wing a scalable system where all support services for
offenders are brokered and managed by one organisation without
increasing current funding. This way, offenders receive an individual
support brokerage service from the same person in custody, in
the community and into employment at no extra cost.
12. In the Working Wing live vocational
projects would be used to provide a commercial vehicle that would
be run as a business delivering a range of services in the prison
to the prison population; it would employ people from outside
the prison, and offenders in the prison to deliver the services.
We would like to have offenders spending a 9-5 working day on
the wing, which will allow offenders to commit full time to the
projects.
13. At HMP Haverigg inmates work on live
social enterprise projects, one of the most successful has been
in horticulture, where offenders grow plants, fruit and vegetables
that are sold at a nearby market stall. Garden furniture is also
made and sold locally. Buyers can request items that are made
to order to suit their needs. Offenders work towards vocational
qualifications such as NVQ Levels one and two in Horticulture,
along with embedded basic skills, financial accounting and joinery
to assist them in sourcing employment when they leave.
14. Working Wing Projects could be developed
that work across both community and custody, for example a recycling
business could be created where community sentenced offenders
collect recyclable rubbish from homes/offices and this is brought
back to the prison where the "in custody" offenders
sort and package ready for redistribution to the relevant disposal
areas. This would be linked to an Intermediate Labour Market (ILM)
working with the local authority.
15. This approach will provide practical
learning and practical work experience; it will also provide a
range of jobs from hands on practical work to management, financial
accounting and administration work.
CONCLUSION
16. A4e supports the Panel's contention
that the prospect of gaining employment is an excellent motivational
tool when working with offenders. We recommend that the responsibility
of engaging employers should sit with OLASS Providers as a contractual
obligation to the LSC. This will give clear lines of responsibility
and align offender learning in custody to welfare to work provision
available in the community.
17. Further to this, closer linkage between
OLASS and welfare to work providers will allow offenders, including
those serving a sentence of 12 months or less, to begin vocational
and Skills for Life qualifications in custody which could be completed
upon release. We have found that engagement of offenders in custody
is often easier due to the structures of the prison institution.
It is at the point of release where support often ends—yet
this is the crucial moment to break the cycle of reoffending.
18. A4e support the integration of social
enterprise projects within prisons and we have developed the Working
Wing Model with social enterprise at the heart of the support
for offenders. At the moment social enterprise is occurring sporadically
in the prison estate but there is no consistent approach under
OLASS or prison governance to these initiatives.
June 2008
| 
