Head of Community Justice Glasgow
In last year’s Annual Report an article was provided by a member of the Community Justice Glasgow Team ‘Throughcare – Mitigating the Negative Impact of Incarceration’, which set out an overview of Throughcare, what it means, how it fits with the wider reducing re-offending agenda and some of the outcomes of that work over the years. Another member of the Team provided an article ‘Sharing Data to Meet a Common Goal’ which set out the foundations for the Improving Throughcare – Pathfinder to Housing, Health & Benefits (PHHaB) through a partnership lens and the development of the data sharing agreement.
For this year’s report I wanted to update on the project and its development during the height of the Covid19 Pandemic and the difference the preparation work made.
For background, in 2018, a multi-partner meeting was held in HMP Barlinnie to consider key challenges and opportunities for Prison Throughcare through the lens of Financial Inclusion and Tackling Poverty.
The event identified significant challenges, including:
- prison population – within Barlinnie was 1350 with a cell capacity of 987; with a rising the prison population across Scotland;
- 15% homeless on entry to prison with 50% having no fixed abode on release;
- 70% of offending is for individuals who have previously been convicted;
- 90% of Glasgow prisoners are from the 9 most deprived areas;
- 96% of people in prison are financially reliant on welfare benefits;
- 80% of inmates are medicated; and
- the direct financial cost of reoffending to the public purse in Glasgow is estimated to be £580m per annum.
Acknowledging existing, robust partnership arrangements, the aim of the project has been to deliver improved outcomes for people post-liberation through data sharing and closer collaboration and securing suitable Housing, Health and Welfare Benefits. Working in partnership to develop solutions to mitigate the challenges faced post-liberation, the focus was to support individual resilience while improving systems and establishing a new way of working.
In 2015, Shelter Scotland completed a study in to links between homelessness and reoffending, ‘Preventing Homelessness and Reducing Reoffending – Insights from service users of the Supporting Prisoners; Advice Network, Scotland’ stating:
“Prisoners who have problems securing accommodation on their release are significantly more likely to reoffend than those individuals who do not face these challenges.”
Similarly, a report published by the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research in 2013 ‘The Elements of Effective Through-care Part2: Scottish Review’ highlighted, as a means of reducing reoffending the importance of:
“addressing the practical needs of prisoners in several key areas, including: provision of accommodation, timely access to welfare benefits…”
Placing great importance on these fundamental requirements is important to delivering the shared outcomes:
- Securing suitable housing in advance of release dates.
- Seamless and timeous access to DWP Welfare Benefits.
- Improved awareness of changes to welfare benefits system.
- Increased support for families affected by imprisonment.
- Addressing broader issues of financial exclusion and poverty across the city through a focus on prison throughcare.
- Improved connectivity with community-based health support on release.
- Robust monitoring to track and measure outcomes and impact.
It is important to acknowledge that there were existing support networks in place already, and that the work undertaken was in collaboration with these partners and networks.
The project was due to launch in June 2020, but was instead focussed on addressing, within the newly established partnership arrangements, throughcare needs during Covid and supporting plans for “early release” programmes. The established arrangements for PHHaB, and the trusted collaborations which evolved, proved essential to addressing the challenges of prison release during the peak of covid-related restrictions. Partners acknowledged the value of the arrangements within a review of Throughcare – ‘Prisoner Release during Covid Restrictions, Including Early Release A review by Glasgow Partners’ during covid.
The collaboration continued, and the revised programme was launched on 1 April 2021, with a positive start and some early wins. Karen McDonald, Manager Homelessness Servicews within HMP Barlinnie commented:
“This collaboration has provided our Team with the support to change how we work within the prison and provided the platform to protect tenancies as people come into the prison alongside a co-ordinated approach to throughcare.”
Updates will feature in next year’s Annual Report, as well as in the regular updates to the Glasgow Community Planning Partnership.
The project continues to involve, but is not limited to, the support of:
- A Post-Liberation Multi-Partner Working Group to oversee progress of the project, bring together workstreams, and support with project initiation and ongoing monitoring.
- Glasgow Community Planning Partnership to oversee governance arrangements.
- Scottish Prison Service to assist with providing data on those in prison and existing support networks.
- Glasgow City Council to support through the involvement of the Financial Inclusion team.
- Community Justice Glasgow supporting by providing knowledge, networks and expertise of the justice landscape and the provision of data analysis.
- Jobs & Business Glasgow to support through employability projects.
- Glasgow Life to support through use of the Universal Credit hub in Riddrie Library.
- Department of Work & Pensions – Job Centre Plus – to support with work coaches.
- Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership supporting with housing expertise, as well as linking up service users with mental health support amongst other services.
- NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to support through its prison based and community health facilities and throughcare planning.
- West of Scotland Housing Forum and the Wheatley Group to support with housing and access to housing providers.
- Third Sector organisations (and the Third Sector Interface) to support through unique areas of expertise and service reflective of a holistic approach.
