To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his most recent estimate is of the (a) number and (b) proportion of (i) men and (ii) women leaving prison who had a job to go to; and what the equivalent figures were (A) 10 and (B) 20 years ago. (134012)

The information is not currently available in the specific format requested. HM Prison Service collects the total number of prisoners who have education, training or employment (ETE) secured upon release. This data are supplied in the following table for the last two financial years, broken down by gender, along with the prison system target for this measure. ETE information was not collected in the current format before April 2002.

Outcomes include those who attended Freshstart appointments at Jobcentre Plus, whereby prisoners who do not have a job or training place to go to on release are linked into employment, training and benefits advice and support immediately after release.

Freshstart interview attendance data for February and March 2007 have not yet been received.

HM Prison Service is implementing new systems to ensure the specific information requested is available for the 2007-08 financial year.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his most recent estimate is of (a) the re-offending rates of those who find a job on leaving prison and (b) those who do not. (134013)

No assessment has been made to date of the re-offending rates of those who find a job on leaving prison or of those who do not have a job on release. However, work is currently underway to analyse the findings of three resettlement surveys of prisoners conducted at the point of release and this will provide such an assessment. Findings from this work should be available by the autumn of 2007 and published on the RDS NOMS website.