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A major new drive to get thousands of offenders into stable jobs and away from a life of crime will see top UK business bosses, sitting on new Employment Councils which will support offenders serving their sentence in the community into work.
They will build on the success of prison Employment Advisory Boards, which were created by Lord Timpson before he became a Government Minister. These have brought local business leaders into jails to improve education and prisoners’ ability to get work when released.
The new regional Employment Councils will expand this model out to the Probation Service and the tens of thousands of offenders serving their sentences in the community.
Each council will also have a representative from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to help improve links with local job centres.
The initiative was a manifesto commitment and will play a crucial role in the Government’s mission to make streets safer by tackling reoffending under the Plan for Change.
Around 80 per cent of all crime is reoffending but latest data shows offenders employed six weeks after leaving prison had a reoffending rate around half of those out of work.
Alongside breaking the cycle of crime, getting offenders into work helps employers fill vacancies, build their businesses, plug skill gaps and boost the UK economy.
Minister for Probation, Prisons and Reducing Reoffending, James Timpson, said: “Getting former offenders into stable work is a sure way of cutting crime and making our streets safer. That’s why partnering with businesses to get more former offenders into work is a win-win.
“The Employment Advisory Boards I spearheaded have made huge progress and now these Employment Councils will expand that success to steer even more offenders away from crime as part of our Plan for Change.”
Employment Councils will provide support to frontline probation staff already involved in getting offenders into work. They will provide them with a greater understanding of the local labour market and help build better relationships with suitable employers.
Further support from the DWP will help link offenders with work coaches placed at job centres throughout the country.
Employment Councils will serve as the successor to regional Employment Advisory Boards and will officially bring together probation, prisons, local employers and DWP under one umbrella for the first time, with a renewed focus on broadening support to offenders in the community.
The Boards will continue at 93 individual prisons but the addition of regional Employment Councils will help prison leavers look for work across an entire region, not just the immediate vicinity of the last prison they were in.
Colin Shute, Founder of soft FM provider SBFM and a Chair on an Employment Advisory Board commented: “The launch of Employment Councils is a promising new scheme designed to help break the cycle of repeat offending. Prisons have been 99 per cent full across England and Wales, leading to early releases and putting immense pressure on the prison structure. This hugely hinders the government’s ability to provide catered support to offenders and guide them out of a cycle of reoffending.
“Without support structures like these in place, many ex-offenders leave prison with nowhere to go, no job opportunities lined up, and face stigmatisation, which prevents them from applying for and securing new opportunities.
“These factors hugely impact reoffending, further incapacitating our overcrowded prison infrastructure. James Timpson and the Timpson Group have tirelessly worked to change this reality for years, especially through the Employment Advisory Boards (EAB) that Timpson helped establish with the Ministry of Justice. I am proud to be a chair of the EAB, which helps ex-offenders develop through skills-based training to ease their transition out of incarceration.
“Many prison leavers are eager to prove their abilities in the workplace and are an underappreciated potential workforce, which is where we come in. SBFM wants to give ex-offenders new, fulfilling career opportunities that help them rehabilitate into the workforce.
“More businesses need to engage with their local communities and prisons to develop support structures for prison leavers. We hope that Employment Councils will bring these groups together to develop stable, much-needed pathways so more people can leave the prison system for good.”
FMJ has partnered with Watco to deliver a webinar on Thursday 30th January where we will be grilling a panel of experts on how facilities managers can maintain a safe workplace while balancing shrinking budgets.
The webinar follows the Lifting the Lid report series that the industrial paint and repair products specialist has been developing over the past few years based on research conducted with FMs across the UK. The research explored core responsibilities of the FM role, including how they have evolved in the past decade, and the associated challenges to manage.
Watco’s Sales Director and key contributor to the reports, Chris Budd, will be joined by a panel of experts including Phil Pinnington, Head of Audit & Consultancy at the British Safety Council, Nick Bray, Head of HSEQ, ISS UK and Ireland and Jenni Gallop, Director of Estates and Facilities at Provide Community.
With decades of combined experience in the introduction and management of health and safety in complex, demanding environments, the panel will provide the audience with recommendations broken down into steps that can be introduced immediately.
The panel will discuss the research data from FMs across the UK, the evidence they have seen of those experiences across industries and their first-hand recommendations on how to manage those challenges and ease the pressure.
Click here to sign up for the webinar.
