Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 23
23
Accepted
HMPPS lacks robust impact evaluations for employment initiatives, making causality of outcomes unclear.
Recommendation
HMPPS told us it is proud of the progress made on employment support initiatives with 25% of prison leavers from April 2022 to February 2023 employed after six months, compared with 17% in 2021–22.57 But HMPPS’s plans to evaluate its employment initiatives are still in the early stages and as of May 2023 it had no firm plans to carry out essential impact evaluations. Determining whether recent improvements in prison leavers’ outcomes are attributable to its interventions or whether they may have happened anyway will be a key challenge for HMPPS.58 MoJ told us it is “hard to identify exact causality” in complex systems but it is confident that HMPPS’ employment initiatives in prisons are “making a big difference”.59 Managing increased demand
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and states that detailed evaluation plans are now in place to assess the effectiveness of HMPPS investment in resettlement, with impact evaluations expected to be complete and findings available by summer 2024 to inform future planning. For some initiatives, findings will be available beyond 2024, with interim findings provided by autumn 2024.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 5.2 Detailed evaluation plans, based on best practice set out in HM Treasury’s Magenta Book, are now in place to assess the effectiveness of HMPPS investment across key elements of resettlement activity. The agency is taking a proportionate approach where interventions are subject to evaluation, prioritising those where existing evidence is limited, sample size is sufficient, and cost is high. 5.3 By summer 2024, impact evaluations are expected to be complete, and findings will be available to inform planning around key interventions. Interim findings will also provide insight into the effectiveness of HMPPS’s Commissioned Rehabilitative Services (CRS), to inform future service development. 5.4 For some initiatives, findings on impact will only be available beyond 2024, due to the time required to reach a sufficient sample size and for sufficient time to pass once someone has been released from prison in order to measure whether they have reoffended. In these cases, the MoJ will use monitoring data and process evaluations to provide interim findings. By autumn 2024, outcomes data will inform early findings on the effectiveness of resettlement initiatives such as Prison Employment Leads, Employment Hubs and Resettlement Passports. 5.5 The agency is continuously developing and improving its evidence base on what works to reduce reoffending, which will inform the next spending review. Where impact and economic evaluations have concluded, the MoJ and HMPPS will consider whether the evidence supports continued investment. For interventions where evaluation is ongoing, it will review whether emerging evidence supports continuing the intervention until evaluation evidence is available to support ongoing investment.