Offender Learning Green Paper: Reducing Re-Offending through Skills & Employment
On the 15 December 2005 the Government published a Green paper entitled Reducing Re-Offending Through Skills and Employment, jointly produced by the Department for Education and Skills, the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions. This document sets out our strategy to help reduce re-offending by improving skills and employment opportunities for offenders
Reducing Re-Offending Through Skills and Employment (PDF, 683 Kb)
(PDF, 683 Kb)
The document sets out the case for action and outlines a radical vision to make a step change in four main areas:
- To focus strongly on jobs for offenders, with employers driving the design and delivery of programmes, and new approaches to get offenders into work;
- Increasing the quality and effectiveness of learning and skills delivered to offenders, to improve their skills in prisons and when released;
- Promoting greater coherence in the ways in which offenders are trained and prepared for employment within prisons and probation services; and
- Motivating and engaging offenders, including through a new ‘employability contract’, with a strong emphasis on rights and responsibilities.
This paper recognises the need to deal with the range of factors which lead some offenders into a cycle of repeat offending. This cycle carries a considerable cost to the Exchequer: a re-offending former prisoner costs the criminal justice system an average of £65,000 up to the point of re-imprisonment and £40,000 each year in prison. On top of this, there are often unquantifiable costs to the victims of crime and their communities.
An important part of the Government strategy is a concerted drive to transform the skills and employment prospects of offenders. The challenge is stark. A majority of offenders have poor skills, with over half having no qualifications at all. Nearly half have experienced exclusion from school. Two thirds were unemployed before prison.
Evidence suggests that employment and a reduction in re-offending are linked, and that stability and quality of employment are key factors. Accordingly, there is a strong case, as part of our wider strategy, for seeking to get more offenders into jobs, and to raise their skill levels in order to improve their chances of becoming more productive and successful in employment, to the benefit of individuals, their families, and the wider society that would be damaged by continued offending.
A great deal of progress has been made in recent years. Increased investment has raised the capacity of the prison education service, and improved basic skills training for offenders in the community. Achievement of qualifications in literacy, language and numeracy has more than doubled since 2001. Prisons are subject to the same demanding standards of inspection as other education providers, and this is driving up quality. Jobcentre Plus offers employment and training advice to offenders in prisons and, with the help of additional Prison Service investment.
We propose to test new approaches in order to make the best use of the resources and capacity within the system. We look forward to the widest possible debate - with employers, with the learning and skills sector, and with colleagues working in prisons, probation and in jobcentres.
To view the full contents of the Green paper, press release or how to order a copy, please click one of the following links:
Green Paper (PDF, 683 Kb)
Green Paper Executive Summary (DOC, 42 Kb)
Green Paper Press Release
How to order a copy of the Green Paper (DOC, 28 Kb)
