Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Offenders to pay back society more visibly under £90 million plan, published on 5 October 2021, what organisations working with former offenders he has recently consulted on the impact of different forms of unpaid work on (a) rehabilitation and (b) skills and employability.

This Government is investing £93m so that communities can benefit from a record-breaking 8 million hours of impactful and demanding unpaid work each year.

As part of our efforts to relaunch unpaid work, we are pursuing a range of measures that will build the skills needed for employment. New national partnerships with charities and organisations mean that offenders can make reparations for their crimes, whilst gaining vital opportunities to improve their skills and employability. We have regular engagement with the voluntary sector, such as our new partnership with the Canal and River Trust, and more broadly with industry leaders through our New Futures Network, including employers such as Timpson and G4S.We are consulting a range of further potential voluntary sector partners to identify unpaid work placements that will develop work ready skills and offer vocational training.

We are engaging with education providers including large colleges, and those within the voluntary and community sectors, to create a national strategy that will see offenders gain access to apprenticeships, create positions of responsibility for hard working offenders to gain skills in group supervision, and provide training opportunities, interview preparation and CV building. We are also looking to recruit offenders locally to act as mentors and support staff. Some may be directly recruited from unpaid work groups, if they have demonstrated a willingness to develop themselves, gain new skills and provide support to their peers.

This work builds on our engagement with leading employment and education specialists as part of reforms to probation this year. Charities and private sector organisations were awarded £195m to provide vital services that help reduce reoffending, including £34m for skills training and employment support.