The Cabinet Office has opened a £3.5m Social Action Fund to help civil society organisations scale up or replicate programmes that stop prisoners from reoffending.
The Rehabilitation Social Action Fund, run by the Centre for Social Action within the Cabinet Office, will provide grants of between £50,000 and £250,000 to charities or social enterprises that “use social action to reduce reoffending in England”.
According to the published criteria, applicants will need to have “well-tested models of social action supporting adult offenders with at least two years’ delivery experience and existing offender referral pathways”.
Grants may be used to help organisations scale up, build evidence of impact and develop sustainable business models in order to engage with future commissioners, funders and contractors.
The Cabinet Office will consider partnership working, expansion of an existing service, or replication of a model in a new location.
Successful grantees will be supported to expand the scale of their programmes over the 18-month period of the grant, from October 2013 to the end of March 2015, so that once the grant runs out they can continue to provide the service with funding from elsewhere.
Applicants that have match funding and a strong case for how they plan to achieve sustainability beyond the grant period will be favoured.
The fund was developed in partnership with the Ministry of Justice and the National Offender Management Service, following consultation with 37 organisations during May 2013.
Minister for civil society Nick Hurd MP said that a “trusted mentor and volunteer can make a huge difference to someone coming out of prison”.
Information on how to apply can be found at Contracts Finder and prospective applicants can read the Rehabilitation Social Action Fund FAQs for more information. The deadline is 5 September.
Justice Committee criticises probation reforms
The Fund is announced just as the Justice Select Committee has published a report condemning the government’s latest proposals to shake up the probation services, as too focused on male prisoners.
Sir Alan Beith MP, chair of the Committee, said: “The government’s Transforming Rehabilitation reforms have clearly been designed with male offenders in mind. This is unfortunately symptomatic of an approach within the Ministry of Justice and National Offender Management Service that tends to deal with women offenders as an afterthought.”
The Committee recommends that the new contracting plans should be revised with women offenders in mind, so that they receive support appropriate to their needs.
