offender learning reform

Offender Learning ReformLabour Market Insight for Bidding and Beyond

2 | Offender Learning Reform

Labour Market Insight for Bidding and Beyond | 3

CONTENTS

4 ......Foreword

5 ...... Offender Learning Reform and the importance of Labour Market Insight

6 ......Why the need for granular Labour Market Insight?

8 ......Focus on the HMP Winchester region

ABOUT Emsi

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FOREWORD

In this time of unprecedented educational reform in English prisons, it is crucial that the role of Labour Market Insight to support vocational learning, training and skills in achieving positive rehabilitative outcomes for learners is used effectively by all partners involved in the delivery of education throughout the individual’s journey. With prison governors having to do some detailed planning to design their vocational education, training and skills provision based on regional employer opportunities and the specific needs of their prisoners, they will be relying heavily on regional and local LMI data to provide this information.

So what does the future look like for prison education under the new Prison Education Framework?

● Greater governor empowerment over the delivery of vocational education, training and skills in their prison

● Localism agenda based on regional employment trends using specific modelling data

● Vocational qualifications and skills ‘tailored’ to individual prison and employer need

● More involvement by the third sector who understand regional and local employer needs

Therefore, this should create a joined-up, outcome-focused approach to learning leading to greater engagement in education and opportunities for employment and/or further training on release through the gate.

This study on Offender Learning and the use of Emsi data will provide constructive thinking for all those considering providing education, training and skills within prison, working to secure better outcomes for all individuals in secure establishments.

Robert Mills

Robert Mills is an expert in adult and juvenile prison education. He recently concluded a secondment with the Ministry of Justice where he led and supported a number of projects directly related to the Sally Coates Report: Unlocking Potential: A Review of Education in Prison & The White Paper ‘Prison Safety & Reform’.

OFFENDER LEARNING REFORM AND THE IMPORTANCE OF LABOUR MARKET INSIGHT

One of the big issues addressed in the Government’s 2016 White Paper – Prison Safety and Reform – is the desire to bring reoffending rates down. According to some estimates, as much as 25% of adults and 38% of juveniles go on to reoffend, and the report claims that this costs society somewhere in the region of £15 billion per year. However, there is evidence to show that rates of reoffending can be reduced if offenders gain employment upon release, and so much of the proposals in the White Paper are geared to giving prisoners the best chance possible to get into work at the end of their sentence.

A key part of the proposals is to grant a far greater degree of empowerment to prison governors who are, according to the White Paper, currently “held back by a system that is highly complex and centralised”. By giving governors more empowerment, the hope is that it will “put them at the centre of all services in prison by devolving budgets and control, and providing them with the levers they need to hold other providers to account.” One of the key areas that they will have much greater empowerment over is the provision of education and training, with the report expressing the hope that by devolving this issue to the local level, governors will be in a better position to ensure that what is taught in their prison is aligned with the needs of employers in the prison region.

For governors, this means the opportunity and the responsibility to align skills provision with labour market demand, in order to give offenders the best chance possible of getting employment in the region upon release. But it also means that organisations which provide educational services to prisons also now have a much bigger incentive to demonstrate their ability to match their provision with local labour market demand.

In fact, with OLASS 5 set to kick off in Q1 of 2018, and with the procurement process expected to broadly follow the recommendations in Prison Safety and Reform, education and training providers will need to demonstrate in their bids how they can respond to regional demand. Not only this, but the successful organisations will then need to carry the theory over into practice, by actually providing a curriculum which aligns with local employer demand in the prison region. The question is how this can be done.

A big part of the solution is the use of granular LMI. By granular, we mean data which can identify both industrial and occupational trends at the most specific level of classification (SIC 4 and SOC 4), and which can do this at the local and regional levels. The purpose of this short report is to show why this is important (see pages 6-7); and an idea of how this sort of data might be applied by giving a snapshot of data for the region around HMP Winchester (see pages 8-11).

The ideas contained in this report are by no means exhaustive, but are intended to offer a flavour of how LMI can be used effectively in both the bidding process for OLASS 5, and the newly devolved prison environment.



WHY THE NEED FOR GRANULAR LABOUR MARKET INSIGHT?

Prison Safety and Reform acknowledges that the present system of skills provision in prisons is failing to meet actual labour market needs. Although the paper commends what is currently learnt by prisoners as being “valuable experience of basic employability requirements like turning up every day, punctuality, and delivering timely, good quality services and products which meet customer expectations,” it goes on to say that:

…too much of the work and training we provide in prisons is outdated in today’s economy and does not meet local labour needs.

The solution, according to the authors of the paper, is for:

A fundamental shift in approach so we are focused on preparing offenders for future employment in modern jobs. We need to provide prisoners

with skills for which there is a real demand from employers.

In other words, employability is not simply about preparing a person for employment, but also about whether the skills they learn are really needed in the local labour market. If they are not, then it could be that they are learnt in vain.

MEE TING LOCAL EMPLOYER DEMAND

To rectify this situation, the paper suggests that devolving more authority to the governors of each prison will enable better engagement with what is really needed in each local area, and the tailoring of the skills that are taught in prisons to meet those needs:

We want all of our prisons to follow suit to equip prisoners with skills that they can put to use to enter the labour market, whatever it looks like when and

wherever they are released. Giving governors greater autonomy over decisions made in prisons will allow them to target training and work in prisons to match

more closely the needs of the local labour market [our emphasis].

The report goes onto suggest that data will have a crucial part to play in this:

Governors will be encouraged to work with local employers and use data on the local labour market gaps to choose the right vocational training

to help offenders into employment… [our emphasis].

The key word in these two statements is local. But why is this so important?


“LOCAL” IS KEY

The majority of offenders finish their sentences in a prison close to their home, and so if they are to have the optimum chance of finding employment, the prison needs to be aware of labour market needs at that granular, local level. In other words, LMI which is unable to tap into what is happening at that granular, local level, but instead gives only generic national insight, or even broad regional insight, is really not going to be helpful. In fact, it could well be detrimental, since if a prison were to tailor its education provision to the generic needs of the British economy as a whole, or even the Government Office Region, this will almost certainly not be reflective of the labour market in the smaller prison region. In other words, offenders may well be learning skills which are just not needed in the area where they are due to be released.

The key is therefore local insight – data which can answer the following questions positively:

1) Can it identify industry and occupation data down to the most specific classifications (SIC and SOC 4)?

2) Can it identify these industries and occupations at the most granular geographical levels, i.e. county/unitary authority and even Local Authority level?

3) Can it offer forecasting at these granular levels based on past and current trends?

This type of insight is of massive value to governors and providers who are looking to understand the employment needs of the prison region, as it gives them the ability to shape their curriculum in accordance with real demand. Just to give one example, one of our partner providers, Milton Keynes College, has been using this kind of insight for the past few years to plan their provision, and according to their former Innovation & Development Co-Ordinator (Offender Learning), Sue Snoxell:

When we drill down into Restaurants and mobile food activities, for instance, we can see which occupations within the sector are set to grow and so which

skills are needed. We can then shape our hospitality and catering training more closely to meet the needs of the sector within the local economy.

This kind of targeted approach is clearly beneficial to all parties concerned: the provider is able to match their training to skills requirements; offenders receive training which is more likely to lead to employment; and employers benefit from a talent pool of workers trained in the skills they need.

IN SUMMARY

Prison Reform and Safety recognises that at present much of the education and skills provision learnt by offenders is not helping them get into employment, and the reason for this is that it is not sufficiently tailored to real labour market needs. The greater empowerment proposed for governors gives them a great opportunity to alleviate this issue by better mapping provision to employer needs. However, in order to achieve this, both prison governors and education providers are going to need granular data to give them a window on their local labour market. Such data can function as a common language between the prison, the education provider, and other key, local agencies, enabling them to work together to ensure that the skills that are taught are the skills that are needed. In turn, this greatly increases the chances of offenders entering the workplace soon after completing their sentence.


FOCUS ON THE HMP WINCHESTER REGION

T O P 1 0 S E C T O R S T H AT D R I V E C U R R E N T E M P L OY M E N T

Sector 2016 JobsHospital activities 33,954

Retail sale in non-specialised stores with food, beverages or tobacco predominating 32,578

Primary education 32,358

Public administration and defence; compulsory social security 31,188

Restaurants and mobile food service activities 27,044

Beverage serving activities 18,930

Temporary employment agency activities 17,189

General secondary education 16,873

Computer consultancy activities 16,567

Other human health activities 15,299

TOP 10 S ECTORS THAT ARE FORECASTE D TO ADD TH E MOST JOBS I N N EX T 5 YE ARS

Sector 2016 – 2021 ChangeRestaurants and mobile food service activities 2,853

Construction of residential and non-residential buildings 1,607

Social work activities without accommodation for the elderly and disabled 1,214

Computer consultancy activities 1,071

Retail sale in non-specialised stores with food, beverages or tobacco predominating 1,055

Other education n.e.c. 995

Other residential care activities 985

Hotels and similar accommodation 923

Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet 914

Other telecommunications activities 823

So far we have talked about why LMI will be a crucial part of the devolved powers given to prison governors, and even more importantly, why that LMI must be granular – able to uncover details of the labour market at the local level – if it is to be truly effective. But what does this kind of data actually look like?

In order to give you some idea, over the next four pages we have selected some data from the region around HMP Winchester (we have included Hampshire, Southampton and Portsmouth). (Please note, we have included all the region's top industries and occupations in the tables and graphics on the following pages, but of course in reality some would need to be filtered out as they are deemed unsuitable for ex-offenders to work in.) The place to begin is to identify which are the region’s chief industries, which we have done below, firstly looking at the Top 10 in terms of job numbers, and then identifying which industries are set to grow over the next five years:


Being able to identify the biggest sectors and the growth sectors is of course useful in terms of knowing which types of employers to target. What would be really useful, however, is if there were a way of unpicking the occupational needs of those industries. The good news is that this is indeed a possibility, and by using our staffing patterns, we can delve into any one of those industries, in order to find out what occupations it employs.

For instance, we could look at the fastest growing sector in the region – the Restaurant and mobile food service activities sector – which according to the data is forecast to see an increase of 2,853 jobs between 2016 and 2021. Below are the top 10 jobs that are employed in this sector, including the current number of jobs, expected growth, and – crucially for offender learning – the percentage of these jobs which are Level 3 or below:

T O P 1 0 O C C U PAT I O N S E M P L OY E D I N T H E R E S TAU R A N T A N D M O B I L E F O O D S E RV I C E AC T I V I T I E S S E C T O R

Waiters and waitressesn 5,912s 554D 82%

Kitchen and catering assistants

n 6,853s 740D 86%

Sales and retail assistants n 1,535s 171D 81%

Cleaners and domestics

n 305s 33D 90%

Catering and bar

managers

n 386s 47D 75%

Van drivers n 553s 79D 88%

Bar staffn 821s 58D 81%

Cooks n 968s 104D 91%

Restaurant and catering outlet

managers and proprietors

n 3,050s 279D 63%

Chefs n 3,807s 361D 85%

Key

n Number of jobs in 2016s Change in number of jobs 2016-2021D Percent of workforce with level 3 or

below qualification


T O P 1 0 O C C U PAT I O N S T H AT D R I V E C U R R E N T E M P L OY M E N T

Occupation 2016 Jobs % of workforce with level 3 or below qualification

Sales and retail assistants 34,499 81%

Care workers and home carers 22,529 80%

Other administrative occupations n.e.c. 20,824 68%

Cleaners and domestics 19,337 90%

Kitchen and catering assistants 17,206 86%

Nurses 16,848 5%

Sales accounts and business development managers 16,822 41%

Elementary storage occupations 14,074 89%

Primary and nursery education teaching professionals 13,511 4%

Book-keepers, payroll managers and wages clerks 13,267 59%

TOP 10 OCCUPATIONS THAT ARE FORECASTED TO ADD THE MOST JOBS IN NEXT 5 YEARS

Occupation 2016 – 2021 Change

% of workforce with level 3 or below qualification

Care workers and home carers 1,315 80%

Kitchen and catering assistants 805 86%

Waiters and waitresses 582 82%

Other administrative occupations n.e.c. 470 68%

Sales and retail assistants 420 81%

Property, housing and estate managers 410 51%

Chefs 377 85%

Production managers and directors in construction 285 52%

Elementary storage occupations 278 89%

Nursery nurses and assistants 266 72%

The data on page six identified the top sectors in the HMP Winchester region. However, it might be that the prison authorities or a provider bidding for the contract to run the learning and skills in a prison might want to begin by looking at occupations, rather than sectors.

As with the industry data, our granular LMI enables us to identify occupations at the most specific level (SOC 4 classification), and the charts below show firstly the top 10 occupations in the region, and secondly the occupations that are forecast to grow the most over the next few years, together with the percentage of these jobs which are Level 3 or below:

FOCUS ON THE HMP WINCHESTER REGION

Primary education

n 923s -60

Restaurants and mobile food service activities

n 6,853s 740

Event catering activities

n 1,233s -310

Hospital activities

n 408s -41

Retail sale in non-specialised stores

with food, beverages or tobacco predominating

n 493s 13

Beverage serving activities

n 1,371s 78

Other food service activities

n 2,160s 320

Hotels and similar

accommodation

n 762s 56

General secondary education

n 365s -26

Residential nursing care

activities

n 231s 15


Just as on page seven we ran a staffing pattern to identify the occupational make-up of the Restaurant and mobile food service activities sector, we can also do the reverse – i.e. take an occupation and run an inverse staffing pattern to find out which sectors employ this particular job.

So again, we can take a high growth occupation – in this case we've chosen Kitchen and catering assistants, which is the second highest growing job, forecast to grow by 805 jobs between 2016 and 2021 - and we can identify the Top 10 sectors that employ this position. What is the significance of being able to do this? Most occupations are employed in a variety of sectors, and so by finding out which are those sectors, the task of knowing which employers to engage becomes that much easier.

T O P 1 0 S E C T O R S E M P L OY I N G K I T C H E N A N D CAT E R I N G A S S I S TA N T S

Key

n Number of jobs in 2016s Change in number of jobs 2016-2021

To find out more about how our data can help your organisation prepare for bidding and beyond, contact Andy Durman:

Email: [email protected]: 07720 641651

Web: www.economicmodelling.co.ukBlog: www.economicmodelling.co.uk/blog

Twitter: @Emsi_UK

You can also find our webinar on Offender Learning Reform at www.economicmodelling.co.uk/webinars

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