Prison Leavers Academy

This contractor is working on a the new prison Leicestershire for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) as part of their new prison transformation programme.

The MoJ have set Social Value KPI’s focusing on supporting prison leavers into employment. At this project the target is to create 100 jobs through the project with 25% of these to be for prison leavers or people on Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL). The contractor together with their supply chain have embraced this challenge and within 4 weeks of starting construction works on site had 6 people on ROTL working on the site. The contractor identified the importance of working with local partners and stakeholders who would help them to reach prison leavers and launched their Prison Academy this year.

They partnered with APM (part of the Ingeus group) and RMF Construction Training CIC to create a Prison Leavers Training Academy and leveraged external funding from the HMPPS Co Financing Organisation (CFO3), Sector Based Work Academies and Adult Education Budget.

The Construction skills training delivered to Prison Leavers and individuals on ROTL is in response to the employers skills requirements on the project and other construction projects in the area. The contractor has provided access to on-site training facilities and to supply chain partners with job opportunities working on the site or on other construction projects.

So far two cohorts of training have been delivered and 75% of trainees have secured employment with 125 jobs being created of which 37 have been filled by Prison Leavers or people on ROTL.