1. Prison Education
Richard Ward

2. A brief history of Prison Education
2001 – Machinery of Government (MOG) change moves prison education from Home Office to Department for Education and Skills.
2005 – Offender Learning And Skills Service (OLASS) introduced after Her Majesty’s Prison Service education contracts run out. Explicit central control from LSC and push to make prison education part of FE/ adult skills ‘family’. There were 21 contracted OLASS providers.
2009 – OLASS re-tendered and careers advice separated from OLASS delivery.
2012 – OLASS re-tendered following a review with the aim of giving governors greater freedom and addressing the needs of prisoners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. Governors heavily involved in selecting providers and there are now only four.
2016 – October MOG change moved policy and funding responsibility from Department for Education to the Ministry of Justice.
2017 – Internal restructure moves prison education reform responsibility from NOMS (renamed Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service) to central Ministry of Justice

3. Prison Safety and Reform – MoJ White Paper, Nov 2016
The Drivers of Change…
Unlocking Potential: A review of education in Prison – Dame Sally Coates, May 2016
‘Improved prison education can transform individual prisoners’ lives, but it can also benefit society by building safer communities and reducing the significant financial and social costs arising from reoffending.’
Prison Safety and Reform – MoJ White Paper, Nov 2016
‘Change will be led by governors by putting them at the centre and giving them greater control to innovate and make the right changes for prisoners to reform.’

4. The Purpose of Prison Education Reform
The purpose of education in prisons is to give individuals the skills they need to unlock their potential, gain employment and become assets to their communities. It should also build social capital and improve the well-being of prisoners during their sentences and once released.
At the heart of the prison education reform agenda is a belief that governors should have greater control over and responsibility for delivering quality education in prisons, with a particular focus upon the basic skills necessary to succeed in life.

5. Areas for Development
Ofsted criticises governors for not doing enough to ensure that education and training (and work) reduces re-offending and supports prisoner rehabilitation, with particular criticism of a failure to provide enough activity places or to allocate prisoners quickly to them.
Prisoner attendance and punctuality is often poor and goes unchallenged by prison staff. The impact on prisoners’ personal development and behaviour is poor, with the majority of prison regimes failing to promote a good work ethic in prisoners.
The proportion of low level qualifications has increased for three years running (Ofsted query those qualifications’ effectiveness in helping offenders get back into work once they leave prison) .
The development of maths and English skills remains poor and too many prisoners fail to make the progress they should.
Ofsted say that many prisons, governors and education providers failed to work sufficiently closely with the National Careers Service and local employers to ensure that learning (and work) articulated with resettlement plans on release.

6. Ensuring Consistency: the minimum system requirements to ensure consistency for prisoners as they move between prisons
We will have 12 mandatory requirements for prison governors. These fall into two broad categories: a minimum bar for education provision we expect to be delivered and ensuring the coherence of the system, and include:
assessment of sentenced prisoners’ levels of English and maths on first and subsequent reception and prior to release;
screening of sentenced prisoners’ learning difficulties and/or disabilities on first reception;
development of an individual learning plan; recording of learning against the individual learning plan;
English and maths delivery;
monthly data submissions on the education delivered;
arrangements for the Continuing Professional Development of education staff;
education providers’ staff to be appropriately trained and qualified to meet the additional support needs of prisoners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities;
all prison information, forms and digital systems to be available and/or designed with suitable adaptations to support those with dyslexia;
recording of English and maths assessment results, and of LDD screening, on a central system
recording the individual learning plan on a central system;
use of qualifications offered by particular Awarding Organisations [to be specified] only, unless clear employer-led case for occasionally using an alternative.

7. Ensuring Consistency: Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) & Libraries
We plan to establish a framework contract, within the suite of education framework contracts
that will deliver the successor contracting arrangements, for the delivery of the range of IAG
services. We will define IAG broadly to give governors the freedom to call-off both traditional
IAG services as well as niche provision to ‘fit’ with the services already in place.
It will focus on services that would fall within a traditional definition of IAG: promoting the
benefits of learning, helping individuals to address and overcome the barriers to learning,
supporting individuals in making realistic and well informed choices.
Libraries
Prisons must have a library, so we will put in place a framework contract from which prison
governors can call-off the provision of library and related services.
Governors will want to put in place a well-stocked library and learning resource centre, offering a
place where prisoners can access a wide range of hard-copy and virtual material which can be used
there, in the classroom or, over time, back in the prisoner’s cell.

8. Overview
There are three key parts to making this system work effectively:
1. Empowering Governors
Giving governors the levers, support and information to enable them to ensure delivery of high quality education
2. Ensuring consistency
The minimum system requirements to ensure consistency for prisoners as they move between prisons
3. Focussed accountability
The governor accountability process which will drive improvement in the system and allow the identification of best practice

9. Dame Sally’s recommendation led to a commitment in last November’s Prison Safety and Reform White Paper to “seek to use the same awarding bodies for particular types of provision so those starting a course at one prison can bank and build on their progress if they move elsewhere”. 
Common Awarding Areas
Maths
ICT
Cleaning and Facilities
Construction
Catering and Hospitality
English as a foreign language (ESOL)
English

10. Procurement Procedure
Main framework competition
Open Procedure
Bravo eProcurement System