Source · Select Committees · Education Committee
Recommendation 22
22
Accepted
Paragraph: 103
The lack of controlled and secure access to proper online education is a significant barrier...
Recommendation
The lack of controlled and secure access to proper online education is a significant barrier to learning. It is stifling opportunity for improvement through education and leaving prisoners unprepared for the real world, lacking the digital skills they need for employment and life skills, and reducing their likelihood of reoffending. The digital divide between prisoners and the community is ever increasing. We cannot let this continue. The pandemic has brought into stark focus the need for prisoners to be able to work individually and in their cells. The Government must set out, by the end of the year, a date for when all prisons will be able to support broadband.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government teaches basic digital skills in all prisons, has introduced laptops in accelerator prisons, and is working to provide prisoners with a managed in-cell laptop service in 15 prisons by the end of September 2022, subject to continued resourcing.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
103
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
We reject this recommendation. In the Prisons Strategy White Paper, we set out the ambition for the next decade and beyond to meet our aims on skills and employment by making the estate digitally enabled for prisoners. We are working to ensure prisons have the digital infrastructure they need to provide prisoners with a strategic, managed in-cell laptop service which features transactional services (such as prison shopping) and curated content, such as access to the Virtual Campus online learning platform. We have started to deliver this, and services will be in place in 15 prisons by the end of October 2022 (including Young Offender Institutions and two Women’s Prisons). However, rolling this equipment out across the whole prison service is subject to continued and long-term resourcing so at present we cannot set a timetable for deployment across the whole estate.
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