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The Ministry of Justice has enlisted top UK businesses to help expand existing programmes that enable ex-prison inmates find work as part of efforts to curb soaring rates of reoffending.
A new initiative from prisons minister Lord James Timpson will oversee the creation of regional employment councils, bringing probation and prisons services together with local businesses and the department of work and pensions.
These councils, according to the MoJ, will support offenders on probation and the tens of thousands of people serving sentences in the community into work, broadening an existing jobs scheme.
Chief executives from bakery chain Greggs, supermarket Iceland and ready-made meals company COOK will be among those to sit on new councils.
“Getting former offenders into stable work is a sure way of cutting crime and making our streets safer,” said Timpson on Friday, adding that the scheme would build on existing employment advisory boards he helped set up in prisons across England and Wales.
Timpson’s appointment last summer as prisons minister coincided with a crisis in the prison system, with the estate close to full capacity, reoffending rife and a series of damning inspectors’ reports highlighting deteriorating conditions and violence.
His nomination raised hopes among reformers that the UK’s criminal justice approach may tilt now from retribution to rehabilitation.
A longtime advocate of prison reform, as chief executive of the eponymous key-cutting company Timpsons, 10 per cent of his staff were former offenders.
From 2019, he also spearheaded the creation of job hubs inside prisons to connect inmates with potential employers before their release. This helped to increase the number of prison leavers finding employment within six months of release from 14 per cent to 30 per cent by 2023.
“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,” Timpson said on Friday.
According to MoJ data, reoffending accounts for around 80 per cent of all recorded crime.
While many ex-offenders struggle to hold jobs down and require support with addiction, mental health and housing problems, the latest data shows that the reoffending rate of people employed six weeks after leaving prison is around half of those out of work.
“A job provides a key way to help people restore their lives and relationships following a stretch in prison,” said Rosie Brown co-CEO of COOK, adding: “In return, we get committed, loyal team members to help us build our business.
“Re-offending is reduced, and families, communities, and society as a whole wins.”
Julia Pyke, joint-managing director at the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk, who also backed the initiative, said integrating ex-offenders into the workforce offered “significant” benefits for businesses, “especially during a time of widespread labour and skills shortages, while also providing a vital chance for individuals seeking to rebuild their lives”.
