Select committee: Education Committee
Recommendation 14
First report - Not just another brick in the wall: why prisoners need an education to climb the ladder of opportunity
Published 18 May 2022
Paragraph 70
Addressed to Department for Education
Education Committee Prison Education All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The quality of prison education is of huge concern and has been deemed “inadequate”. The vision of Governor autonomy, as set out by the Coates Review, has not been realised by the new contracts and we are disappointed that the new contractual arrangements resulted in the same four educational providers being appointed. The new contracts were meant to encourage partnership between prisons, prison educators, the further education sector and the voluntary sector, but in practice bureaucratic contracts undermine this vision and make educational provision transactional, rather than rooted in the needs of the individual and the local area. The Government must ensure that there is a greater emphasis on working with the Further Education sector.
From: Education Committee, First report - Not just another brick in the wall: why prisoners need an education to climb the ladder of opportunity (HC 56), paragraph 70, 18 May 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 27 September 2022 (deadline 18 July 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government accepts many of the Committee's recommendations, some of them in principle, and rejects others, giving reasons such as existing governor flexibility, budgets being "subject to future Spending Review negotiations", and the cost of loans.
- On pay, it "reject[s]" equalising education and prison work pay, saying governors "already have the necessary freedom to set local pay rates" and that it does "not propose to set additional rules on pay".
- It rejects setting a date for broadband in all prisons: in-cell laptop services will be in 15 prisons by the end of October 2022, but wider rollout is "subject to continued and long-term resourcing".
- It accepts "in principle" the call for a review of the prison education framework by the end of 2022, but says "it would not be feasible to complete this within the timescales provided".
- It accepts the recommendation on employment hubs, committing that "By April 2023, all resettlement prisons will have an employment hub in place". It rejects removing the "six-year rule" for higher education loans.