Recommendation 191

We asked them whether there would be value in literacy and numeracy services being commissioned to support people serving community sentences. Carrie Peters remembered the discontinued Offenders’ Learning and Skills Service (OLASS), whereby “funding went to probation services and colleges delivered literacy, numeracy and ESOL classes in probation settings in the same way as the education provision is delivered in prison”. She was “a big supporter” of that approach, because colleges “often do not want people who have committed certain types of offences, or sometimes any offences, to attend, so bringing their services on to probation premises works well”. 371 Niki Scordi and Rebecca Robson, representing two women’s centres, felt that “numeracy and literacy tend to be at the very bottom” of the needs of the people they are supporting. 372 Their organisations prioritise more urgent needs, for instance around mental health and trauma.