Prynhawn Da a Creoso, good afternoon and welcome to this event celebrating the success of the Clean Slate Cymru project and launching the Clean Slate Cymru Toolkit.
And thank you to Construction Youth Cymru for inviting me to sponsor and welcome you to this event.
The Clean Slate Cymru project was a Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) funded and construction company BAM Nuttall, pan-Wales project aimed at supporting people with convictions into construction employment.
The event is a chance for partners, friends and supporters, of the Clean Slate Cymru project from all over Wales to celebrate the success of the project.
The Clean Slate Cymru Toolkit also being launched today is a practical guide on how the construction industry can engage with ex-offenders in prisons and communities across Wales and achieve social value.
The event is an excellent opportunity to network with people from the construction industry, third sector, criminal justice sector, training and education organisations from all over Wales.
The Clean Slate Cymru Project helps ex-offenders train and find employment in the construction sector via work placements, skills training, support and mentoring, and helps form new links between offender management services and construction firms.
It also supported the development of a the Toolkit and best practice guide to help employers offer continued support when the project ends.
As part of the project, pilots were delivered across Wales to support people with convictions into construction employment.
For example HMP Parc hosted an industry day where construction employers were given a tour of the construction departments.
Attendees felt that the construction workshops were more like being in a college than a prison.
In North Wales, three pilots were delivered:
- Creating Enterprise delivered an inventive course involving four site tours of live construction sites and a days’ practical work experience so participants could see if a career in construction or maintenance was right or wrong for them. Two participants have progressed into volunteering and three have progressed into employment.
- At HMP Berwyn in Wrexham, Galliford Try consulted residents interested in pursuing or continuing a career in construction. Galliford Try are continuing to support the residents at HMP Berwyn with careers fairs, CV reviewing, mock interviews, mentoring, Health & Safety training and work placements.
- HMP Berwyn also delivered an innovative traffic management pilot, the first of its kind in a UK prison -
The Berwyn Way Traffic Management Pilot.
The Highways infrastructure construction industry is a major employer across North Wales and HMP Berwyn were keen to run a pilot that met the skills needs of the construction industry and supported local residents.
HMP Berwyn worked in partnership with Amberon to design and deliver the ‘Berwyn Way Traffic Management’ pilot.
HMP Berwyn added value to the pilot by including Construction Skills Certification Scheme - or CSCS - Test preparation and arranging for the CSCS mobile testing centre to visit Berwyn so residents could take a CSCS Test.
Six participants achieved a CSCS Card and a Traffic Management accreditation.
To date one participant has secured employment and one is being released on temporary licence while still at HMP Berwyn to complete a work placement.
As the Lord Chancellor stated in the “Strengthening Probation and Building Confidence” Consultation which ran between July and September and sought views on the future structure and services provided by the probation system: “we know that community sentences are often more effective than prison in reducing reoffending” – adding that there is:
scope for a range of providers, including in the voluntary sector, to continue to bring fresh, innovative ideas to probation services” and that :
“This consultation outlines how we plan to stabilise probation services and improve offender supervision and through-the-gate services”.
The consultation also stated “the devolved responsibilities of the Welsh Government and existing partnership arrangements in Wales make the delivery of probation services quite different to that in England. The legislative framework provides us with scope to develop alternative delivery arrangements which
better reflect the criminal justice context in Wales. We will then consider whether the learning from these new arrangements s applicable to the system in England”.
I am now pleased to introduce Huw Jones from BAM Nuttall, who will tell us more about the Clean Slate Project.