Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 36
36
Accepted
Paragraph: 194
Broaden employment, training, and education provision to meet the specific needs of incarcerated women
Recommendation
Whilst we recognise that the quality of education provision across the female estate is generally better than in the male estate, it is concerning that provision for women 80 Women in Prison is too narrow, and access to education can be varied, depending on sentence length. The Ministry of Justice should set out what work is being done to broaden provision of employment, training and education to meet the specific needs of women, both on short sentences and long sentences.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government accepted the recommendation and outlined a new Resettlement Approach, including embedded pre-release teams in women's prisons to connect women with community support and services. It committed to pursuing legislation to allow earlier release where a release date falls on a Friday or before a bank holiday (Private Members' Bill Second Reading in December) and to developing a personalised resettlement passport covering education, skills, and work, with initial trials by the end of the year.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
194
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
We accept this recommendation. As set out in the Prisons Strategy White Paper (PSWP), we are committed to delivering a transformed Prisoner Education Service for all prison, including investing in a digital and data platform needed to develop personal learning plans for prisoners. We will be recruiting Education, Work and Skills Specialists in all prisons to develop their curriculum and Neurodiversity Support Managers to better meet the individual learning needs of prisoners. Of the 12 Women’s Prisons recruiting Neurodiversity Support Managers, 5 have already offered the role to successful candidates and the rest are currently going through the recruitment process. We are also developing personal learning plans that will ensure women have a tailored plan that will help them develop the knowledge and skills they need to get employment on release. We are also working to do all we can to get prisoners ready for employment. This includes improving employability skills and adapting the estate and regime to increase opportunities for work-based training within prisons and on Release on Temporary Licence. For example, we are establishing the Employability Innovation Fund, which will provide funding for prison governors, including those in women’s prisons, to enable them to work with more employers and training providers to repurpose workshops, deliver sector specific skills training to meet the changing needs of the economy and smooth the path from prison to employment. MoJ and the Department for Education (DfE) are working together to bring forward regulations that will change the law to allow prisoners to undertake apprenticeships. The new regulations should come into force in early October. Although apprenticeships will be initially targeted at prisoners eligible for release on temporary licence (ROTL) in the open estate, the regulations have been drafted to enable in-prison apprenticeships and MoJ will explore the feasibility of this to a longer timescale. We are currently working with East Sutton Park (one of the two female open prisons) to ensure they are linked up with employers so that female prisoners are included in the programme at an early stage. We have also engaged with Askham Grange, but they have said that they would prefer to join the programme later on. For more details on employment, see response to recommendation 32.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗