Recommendation 34

In our 2019 review of the Ministry’s progress in transforming rehabilitation, we concluded that the Ministry would not make sustained progress with reducing reoffending until it could provide the support offenders desperately needed on leaving prison, including securing stable accommodation. We recommended that the Ministry, working with the Reducing Reoffending Board should report back to us, setting out a cross-government strategy to reduce reoffending, by the end of June 2019.77 The Government accepted our recommendation in July 2019. In its response to our report, it agreed that an overarching strategy focused on reducing reoffending was required and committed to implementing our recommendation by the summer of 2020.78 Despite this, a cross-government strategy has not yet been published. We therefore asked the Ministry when this was likely to take place. It said that it was “not sure if there is an imminent publication”. It committed to taking advice and coming back to us on this issue.79