New service for Scotland launched to support people leaving prison

More support will be available across Scotland for people leaving prison to help them reintegrate back into communities with the launch of a new £5.3m national service.

Community Justice Scotland (CJS) was asked to look into how people could be better helped and to commission a new voluntary throughcare service to be funded by the Scottish Government.

This will support people leaving a short prison sentence of up to four years, continue to help women leaving prison who’ve been awaiting trial on remand and – for the first time – will include men leaving prison following a period on remand.

Following an extensive assessment process, Angela Constance, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs made the decision that a grant fund of £5.3 million a year be awarded to a partnership of voluntary sector organisations, with Sacro as lead partner,  to deliver the new National Voluntary Throughcare Service in Scotland. 

A range of third sector organisations will share the grant and work in partnership to support people as they leave prison and reintegrate and resettle back into communities. Sacro will work with Access to Industry, Action for Children, Apex Scotland, Barnardo’s Scotland, Circle, Families Outside and Turning Point Scotland.

The new service will start in April 2025 and, subject to future Scottish Government budgets and their approval by the Scottish Parliament, funding is intended to be provided for a period of at least three years.

CJS has been working with the new partnership and the Scottish Government since the decision was made in November by the Cabinet Secretary, to finalise the grant arrangements and to support the start-up and transition process. The partnership is committed to ensuring there is no loss of support during the transition from the existing service to the new one.

CJS developed a fair, robust and transparent assessment framework to ensure applications were treated consistently and objectively. This involved two panels of individuals – including people with lived experience (with first-hand experience of the justice system through their background) and those with learned experience (knowledge through their work) representing a range of stakeholders.

The panels scored the applicants using the framework and put forward their recommendation to the Cabinet Secretary who made the final decision on who should be awarded the grant fund.

Community Justice Scotland chief executive Karyn McCluskey said:

“We have a huge amount of research on what works to reduce crime and keep people safe. A critical part is supporting people as they come out of prison and back into communities; making sure that they have someplace to live, connected to services that help with drugs, alcohol and other issues, and have a relationship with someone that can make that happen.

“We are pleased that this third sector partnership will be running a crucial new service across Scotland to support the prison to community transition, and Community Justice Scotland will be working with them in managing their grant over the next few years.”

Shumela Ahmed, managing director of Resilience Learning Partnership (RLP), said: 

“We welcomed the opportunity for people with lived experience to be involved in the decision-making process for commissioning this important new service. This was the first time this type of approach had been taken for a grant of this nature and size and we’d like to see other organisations following this lead.

“We know panel members felt included, valued and heard and that their input was considered meaningfully alongside others. An authentic and meaningful process from start to finish, we have been very impressed by the approach taken by CJS and the willingness to learn lessons and respond throughout the duration of our collaboration.

“RLP are very proud we have been able to support this commission and everyone from the RLP team has learned a great deal by being involved in this process. This is how commissioning should be done.”

As part of the process the Scottish Government also agreed with a recommendation by CJS to increase the budget by £1.5 million – to take it up to £5.3 million to improve the support available with the new service.

The new arrangements will mean the support delivered in local communities will be more consistent across Scotland for men, women and young people leaving prison.

The announcement follows an extensive review of current support services carried out by Community Justice Scotland in collaboration with the Scottish Government to understand what men, women and young people need before they leave prison and on their release to help them reintegrate back into communities and thrive.

A range of research – including an independent study talking to people with experience of prison and support services on release as well as professionals was carried out to gather evidence.

CJS also conducted an extensive literature review and analysis of demographic information as part of the research. The findings were used to recommend a new service arrangement for this type of support known as voluntary throughcare.