Hindley prison, Greater Manchester. Image: Alamy
Manchester-based procurement consortium Procure Plus is in discussions with the Ministry of Justice to extend its new offsite factory scheme that trains prisoners as construction workers.
Osco Homes, a subsidiary of Procure Plus, opened its offsite factory in June and currently employs seven prisoners, training them to build external walls, floors and ceilings of panellised homes.
Under the contract with Hindley prison in Greater Manchester, prisoners receive training and are paid while working on a project to deliver eight factory-built bungalows for a site in West Yorkshire, owned by Together Housing Group.
Mike Brogan, chief executive officer of Procure Plus, told Construction Manager the scheme had already been a big success and the company had held talks with the government to roll it out at other institutions.
“We had discussions with the Ministry of Justice in London about three weeks ago. And they have said, where else can you do this for us?
“So we’re in discussions with the MoJ at the moment, as well as some other clients to look at extending it to other prisons and some open prisons as well.”
Brogan added: “We’re investigating whether by combining the scheme with open prisons better training could be provided. The way it could work is that we’d have people who were confined doing the manufacturing side of things and then people that were allowed out on licence to do the construction activity on site.
“That would mean we could possibly put overall training back to 18 months prior to release, 12 months in the factory and then the last six months actually on site, ensuring that when released they have all the skills.”
Although the scheme currently only has seven prisoners, Brogan maintains that they had scope to train up to 24 prisoners in the future and that once the prisoners are released, they would be offered construction worker jobs with a full salary by Osco Homes.
