Skip to main content

Unemployment: Prisoners

Volume 469: debated on Tuesday 11 December 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many ex-prisoners have entered Progress 2 work/link up in each year since its inception; and how many of these have found sustained employment. (162683)

The available information is in the following table.

Ex-prisoner2 starters on the Progress2work and Progress2work-linkUP programmes in Great Britain

Starters

Jobs

Sustained jobs

2002

210

30

10

2003

2,840

520

120

2004

5,330

1,350

300

2005

5,580

1,360

350

2006

5,560

1,080

400

Notes:

1. Figures are rounded up to the nearest 10 for data protection reasons; totals may not sum due to rounding.

2. The figures relate to customers who volunteered the information that they had served a custodial sentence; it will necessarily be an under-count as some customers will not wish to disclose this type of information.

3. In the case of earlier years the ‘sustained jobs’ figure is the number of customers who did not claim benefit again within 13 weeks of their job start. Later information, since September 2006, comes from information provided by contractors in the management information they give to the DWP.

4. Progress2work was rolled out early in 2002, initially in 27 pathfinders. Progress2work provision was available in around 60 Jobcentre Plus districts by June 2003 and was rolled out to the remaining districts by April 2004.