How we manage offenders

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Accommodation

Getting offenders into stable accommodation is the foundation for successful rehabilitation and for ensuring we manage risk efficiently.

Accommodation can provide the anchor for a previously chaotic life and act as a springboard for other crucial steps such as getting and keeping a job, and accessing health care or drug treatment.

How we aim to address an offenders accommodation needs:

• make an assessment of an offender's housing needs and address those needs at the earliest opportunity
• develop closer partnerships between NOMS, other criminal justice system partners and local housing providers to increase the number of offenders who have stable accommodation to go to
• ensure offenders' accommodation needs are incorporated into wider national, regional and local strategies and initiatives, for example, Community Plans, Drug Action Team Treatment Plans, Regional Housing and Homelessness Strategies
• ensure that offenders' wider support needs are addressed to enable them to sustain independent living.  

Early assessment

Early assessment of accommodation needs is vital to ensure that the maximum number of offenders possible have accommodation to go to at the end of their sentence.

Since April 2005, prisons must now complete a Housing Needs Initial Assessment (HNIA) for 90 per cent of new receptions within four days of the prisoner's arrival.

This enables any immediate offender accommodation issues, such as the need to sustain or close tenancies, to be identified and acted upon immediately. The 90 per cent target was exceeded by 5 per cent in July 2005.

The HNIA is being used in prisons on a pilot basis and the aim is to extend this by developing a common full housing needs and risk assessment tool for use in all prisons and probation. 

Closer partnerships and wider housing strategies

We need close partnership working with other organisations to ensure we make the most of the housing stock available.

Prison and probation services work in close partnership with housing providers and Supporting People commissioning bodies to analyse and scope the scale and range of offenders' housing and support needs.

The South West Accommodation Gateway is an example of a partnership approach to a project.  It aims to develop strong links with local housing providers to help reduce re-offending, by handling referrals from a range of services.

Work to join up services in this way in other regions is being taken forward by Government Offices and Regional Offender Managers.

Experience of partnership working in the regions is being used to produce a toolkit to support Regional Offender Managers in creating agreements between criminal justice agencies and housing providers.

Another example of successful partnership working is the Housing and Returning Prisoners (HARP) protocol (new window).  This has been implemented on a pilot basis throughout the North East region to facilitate the resettlement of returning prisoners and aid information sharing.

Work based on the experience of HARP is now being developed in Merseyside, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, East Midlands and Wales.

Supporting independent living

Many offenders need support to maintain independent accommodation.

Prisons, probation and others need to:

• assess support needs
• build links with other services

while the offender is still in custody, after release, and in the community, to ensure there is a seamless transition and support from a range of services (eg, health, drug treatment, benefits, training and employment).

The role of voluntary and community sector bodies such as NACRO (new window) and Shelter (new window) is crucial in providing advice and support to enable offenders to find and sustain their tenancies.

The Supporting People programme (new window) provides housing-related support for vulnerable people including those in supported housing, floating support and support in emergency accommodation. The Probation Service is a partner in the local Supporting People commissioning process and their role is to represent offenders’ needs.

Local Authorities’ Supporting People strategies have been reviewed and services for offenders are included in the majority of authorities’ priorities.

The Supporting People programme is in the process of developing a new strategy - preliminary conclusions 'The Way Forward' (new window), were published in July 2006 with a full strategy to follow. Following this, Supporting People guidance will be published for NOMS and other CJS staff.