The Ministry of Justice has announced a partnership with KPMG that will see the consulting giant support a national campaign to encourage businesses to hire prison leavers.
The Big Four firm, which launched its own pilot scheme to hire prison leavers two years ago, will work with the department to encourage other employers to follow suit.
KPMG UK launched its New Futures Programme pilot in 2022 to offer reformed prison leavers permanent employment.
It is now expanding the scheme, which has hired ex-offenders into roles including technology development, and will support the MoJ’s efforts to encourage businesses to do the same.
The campaign is the latest step in the MoJ’s efforts to reduce reoffending rates. Prison leavers in full-time employment are around 10 percentage points less likely to reoffend, according to the latest statistics.
In 2020, the department created the New Futures Network, HM Prison and Probation Service’s in-house employment broker, which developed partnerships between prisons and employers to help prison leavers find jobs.
In summer 2021, the government pledged to recruit 1,000 prison leavers into civil service roles by the end of 2023. The Cabinet Office and Civil Service Commission run a joint programme, Going Forward into Employment programme, that aims to support and recruit people from specific disadvantaged groups, including ex-offenders, into the civil service.
Since the release of the prisons strategy white paper in 2021, the MoJ has also recruited employment leads, who develop employment strategies and match prisoners with jobs, in 93 prisons across England and Wales; and opened employment hubs across the prison estate.
The proportion of ex-offenders who have taken up jobs within six months of release more than doubled in the two years since April 2021, the latest MoJ figures show.
In a statement accompanying the announcement of the firm’s partnership with the MoJ, an anonymous KPMG UK employee and ex-offender said they had previously experienced “rejection after rejection – businesses never looked beyond my criminal record”.
“It felt quite belittling because no one’s looking at your skills and experience – that generates a lot of anger and frustration, it was very tempting to give up,” they added.
They said the pilot programme had been “refreshing” and “put me on the right path”.
Prisons and probation minister Ed Argar said: “Our drive to get ex-offenders into employment is not only cutting crime and reoffending, but is also growing the economy as part of our long-term plan for growth, which is why we’ve partnered with KPMG UK to encourage other businesses to follow suit.
“We’re helping prisoners kick-start law abiding lives, which makes our streets safer and provides businesses with the staff they need to boost the British economy.”