The Elephant in the room.

TLJ Occasional Paper, Dominic Murphy 1 December 2006

LORD DAVID RAMSBOTHAM HITS THE HEADLINES

On 30^th November a picture of Lord David Ramsbotham, former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, dominated the front page of The Independent newspaper.  The headline was: “Absurd.  Broken.  Chaotic.”  It described Lord Ramsbotham’s opinion of the current policy on imprisonment in the UK.   It was occasioned by the prison population going through the 80,000 mark and towards total saturation of the prison estate.

A CONFERENCE ON MOTIVATING OFFENDERS TO LEARN

The same day he was speaking at a conference organised by Neil Stewart Associates called: “Motivating and Engaging Offenders to Learn:  Developing New ands Innovative Approaches that Deliver Real Results”, held in central London.   This is a report of that conference. 

It is titled “The Elephant in the Room” because few involved with prison education would disagree that overcrowding is a key factor, perhaps the key factor, limiting the quality of provision of all services in prison including learning and skills.   But it received scant attention at the conference, and perhaps rightly so.  The focus was specifically on reaching out to offenders to engage them in learning and skills to support successful resettlement.  Also, a large part of the discussion was about provision of services to offenders in the community, not in prison.

JOHN SILVERMAN MANAGES THE DAY

Jon Silverman, broadcaster, journalist and criminal justice analyst, set the scene and provided continuity for the day.  It was not a comfortable scene that he set.  He was well aware of the elephant in the room.  Prisons might be overflowing but he pointed to a climate of opinion in which the public are nervous about the alternatives to custody. 

In the new intuitional framework of the National Offender Management Service and education funding through the regional Leaning and Skills Councils (LSC), he raised the question of how we strike a balance between security and opportunity -  between public safety and support for offenders to reduce reoffending.

PHIL HOPE MP GIVES THE KEYNOTE IN THE MORNING SESSION

The morning session of three speeches was started by Merrion Mitchell, head of Offender Learning at City College Manchester, the largest supplier of offender learning in the country.  She too did not shy away from the problems. 

Offenders are excluded from 96% of jobs and the pool of jobs for the unqualified is shrinking fast, from a current number of three million to perhaps only half-a-million by 2012.   Focusing on vocational training, such as preparation for the building trades or catering, she called for a positive culture in prisons to transform learners, a can-do culture rather than a cannot-do culture.

In common with most of the speakers she focused on the need to reduce reoffending rates.  Her key to reoffending involved ensuring that ex-offenders have a home, a family context and a job.

Nick Ross, Offender Learning Project Director for GOALS UK evangelised on the process of inspiring and transforming the individual through motivational counselling.

The morning session concluded with a keynote speech from Phil Hope MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Skills, DfES.  He referred briefly to challenging times (the elephant) but focused on his brief regarding learning and skills.

He considered the framework for support of the offender laid out in the green paper of a year ago: “Reducing Re-Offending Through Skills and Employment”.  He stated that the consultation process on that green paper had gone well.  New government policy can be expected in the New Year.

He paid particular attention to the “Campus Model” presented in the green paper.  This refers to joining up support from agencies both inside and outside of prison.  The objective is to ensure that there is a coherent learning plan both inside and outside of prison and that ex-offenders are given the best opportunities to get work.

WILL OFFENDERS LOSE OPEN UNIVERSITY COURSES?

When asked about self-employment as an option he said that supporting enterprise skills will be important for OLASS.  He highlighted enterprise projects, real working environments inside prisons, to make an important contribution in this area.

In discussion anxiety was expressed form the floor about the prospects for Open University and other distance learning courses in prison.   They are increasingly being delivered over the Internet.  This is not available to inmates.

LearnDirect, part of the University For Industry, may have a solution.  They have been running a programme in which strictly controlled access to web based material has been made available to e-learners in some 20 prisons.  In one of the morning seminars that followed the main speeches, Hillary Clifford of UFI scoped the opportunity.

Funding for the LearnDirect project is secured till July 07.  In January an independent evaluative report will be published on the lessons learned so far.  UFI is hoping to grow this option for delivering distance learning through increased awareness resulting from the report.

LearnDirect and the Open University have agreed memorandum of understanding.  However, there has to date been only one exploratory meeting to consider collaboration.  Hillary said there were no immediate plans to develop the relationship and no timetable or milestones for further discussions at this time.

LORD RAMSBOTHAM IS THE HIGHLIGHT OF A PACKED AFTERNOON SESSION

Sue O’Hara started the afternoon session.  She now leads the LSC team running OLASS having previously been responsible for bringing OLASS into operation.  She likened her current role to bringing up 9 very young children, these being the nine regional LSC groupings that comprise OLASS.

Getting them to collaborate effectively is an important goal.  She spoke of Information Advice and Guidance as being a particularly demanding function.  She stated that a new information system would be put out to tender in January for testing in July.  It would include a template for Individual Learning Plans that will follow the learner effectively from institution to intuition around the learning and skills campus for offenders.  It would enable tutors and others making interventions on the frontline to record outcomes through the Quantum terminals.

She also said that “difficult choices” would need to be made about what gets taught where.   She said that it is pointless to offer some courses in prisons where learners only stay for short periods.  If pruning is to be done it is to be hoped that the LSC will take account of the real picture.   Congestion in the courts and the prison estate results in some learners staying in local prisons for long periods.  Their needs must be considered.

The highlight of the afternoon was undoubtedly Lord Ramsbotham’s presentation.  Despite making the morning headlines about the broader issues of overcrowding facing the prison system, he concentrated on an eloquent appeal for more Speech and Language Therapy and Communication Skills Tutors in offender learning and skills.

Drawing on work he undertook with Professor Karen Bryan, he showed how important the assessments of these professionals can be in framing successful learning plans for offenders.  Some 35% of offenders have listening and speaking skills below level 1.  People who cannot communicate effectively will not benefit from education unless these deficiencies are recognised and addressed. 

Lord Ramsbotham cited a hard-nosed prison governor who found speech and language therapy the most powerful tool in planning and delivering successful resettlement.  He drew attention to an important report from the Learning and Skills Research Centre by David Moseley:  “Developing oral communication and productive thinking skills in HM prisons” available from www.lsneducation.org.uk.

Paul Dale, Director of policy and Development at Rathbone detailed the needs for improving support in the community for young offenders.  John Podmore, previously a very innovatrive governor of Brixton prison and now Head of Transisonal Facilities and Communities Prisons Projects at NOMS, developed the theme regarding offenders of all ages.  He observed that age is the key indicator of likely success in resettlement.  The older the offender the less likely they are to reoffend.

He likened working to rehabilitate offenders to watching a bottle falling in slow motion to smash into many pieces.  The job of rehabilitation involves sticking the pieces back together again.  Harkening back to Merrion Mitchell’s contribution in the morning, he said that the reasons for reoffending are complex and need complex interventions for success.   He also said: “Better not to drop the bottle in the first place”.

He advocated attention to the moral perspective of the offender through restorative justice as well as concern for employment skills, family ties and housing.  He cited http://www.conflictresolutionnetwork.org.uk/index.html?org_forgiveness.htm~mainFrame and http://www.timeforfamilies.org.uk/ as worthy of attention.  He also said that everybody in offender learning should read “Stuart: a life backwards” by Alexander Masters

In a closing seminar session Chis Bath of UNLOCK gave a spirited presentation on the role of financial exclusion as an obstacle to successful resettlement.  He highlighted the discrimination against ex-offenders in getting insurance.  He presented a new course available from UNLOCK to help ex-offenders overcome these difficulties.  They can be found at www.unlock.org.uk.

I left the event thinking that there is plenty of effective advice on how to cut reoffending.    The government backs the resettlement effort in principle.  But that elephant still sits there undressed.  A prison system thrashing at the limits of its capacity to house offenders is poorly placed to benefit.

For more on delivering enterprise skills to offenders visit http://www.thelearningjourney.co.uk/ 

For practical reasons not all the seminars were covered by this report: apologies to those who could not be included. 

Further apologies are due for the delay in publication.  This delay has been brought to you care of Carphone Warehouse’s Talktalk service.  Unresolved technical difficulties (going back some 3 months) are causing problems in supporting this website, which I fervently hope will be resolved once Talktalk can get their act together!  Editor.