Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 39
39
Accepted
Paragraph: 214
Set out how female prison leavers will access new accommodation, ensuring equitable provision
Recommendation
Accommodation is one of the most significant and urgent barriers to effective resettlement. We welcome the work the MoJ is doing to address this barrier and are particularly pleased to hear about the new accommodation service. We note that it provides up to 12 weeks of basic temporary accommodation for approximately 3,000 prison leavers. However, we are concerned that, given the comparatively small size of the female prison population, female prison leavers may be disadvantaged in accessing this service provision. The Ministry of Justice should set out how it will ensure that women are able to access this service provision as needed, and whether a proportion of this accommodation has been specifically reserved for women leaving prison.
Government Response Summary
The government accepted the recommendation, detailing that the Community Accommodation Service considers women's needs with gender-specific provision, an additional 39 beds in Approved Premises, and a commitment to reserve 10% of bed spaces in each probation region for female offenders in the new contract.
Paragraph Reference:
214
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
We accept this recommendation. In the PSWP, we committed to ensure that no one who is subject to probation supervision is released from prison homeless. MOJ has developed a Community Accommodation Service (CAS) so that prison leavers can access risk appropriate accommodation. The service brings the existing Approved Premises, Bail Accommodation and Support Service, and the new provision of transitional accommodation together under the auspices of one accommodation system. All of our accommodation services consider the needs of women. We provide accommodation dedicated to single gender usage as required. For high risk-offenders, we have increased capacity for women in the Approved Premises estate. To date the Approved Premises Expansion Programme has provided an additional 39 bedspaces for female offenders on top of the original 150 beds (6.5% of AP provision), delivered across eight sites. For bailees or those released on Home Detention Curfew, a new contract which will replace the BASS service with a new Community Accommodation Service (CAS-2), will come into place in October 2022. The new service will continue to have gender specific accommodation and retains the requirement for a minimum of 10% of the bed spaces to be reserved for females with accommodation in every probation region area. MOJ’s new Community accommodation service-Tier 3 (CAS-3), which provides up to 84 nights temporary accommodation for all individuals released from prison subject to probation supervision at risk of homelessness, will be rolled out across England and Wales by the end of this year. The new service will have gender-specific accommodation, with 10% of bed spaces in each probation region reserved for female offenders. The latest data, published 28th July 2022, supports our response that women are not disadvantaged in accessing our transitional accommodation service. Between 1st July 2021 and 17th June 2022, approximately 2,400 individuals, who would otherwise have been homeless upon release, were accepted on to our transitional accommodation service. Of these places 94% were for male residents, and 6% were for female residents. Males currently comprise 96% of the prison population, and females 4%. We also introduced Strategic Housing Specialists in 20 prisons last year. Four of these roles are in women’s prisons namely: HMP Styal, Bronzefield, Peterborough and New Hall. Our White Paper outlines our commitment to increase the number of Strategic Housing Specialists from 20 to 48 across England and Wales. This will include one within every female custodial establishment.