Prisoner Screening and Assessment Tools and Associated Services

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has a legal requirement to secure the provision of education and training for prisoners and recognises that Education, Skills, and Work (ESW) play a significant role in reducing reoffending. A 2017 MoJ report shows that prisoners who participated in any form of learning activity were 9 percentage points less likely to reoffend compared to non-learners and 1.8 percentage points more likely to be in employment after release. MoJ is committed to delivering a transformed 'Prisoner Education Service' (PES) focused on work-based training and skills'.

The Prisoner Education Service (PES) is developing an innovative, integrated digital ecosystem that brings together a holistic prisoner view that informs planning, delivery and accountability. Effective Screening and Assessment (S&A) is at the core of this, ensuring that prisoner's learner needs are identified when engaging with education, and inform their learner journey throughout their time in custody. This system should enable HMPPS to drive up standards and outcomes across the estate, both in custody and in the community.

To enable and support HMPPS ambition and realise the strategic decision for national education screening, we are procuring digital S&A tools for the Prison Education Service contracts. The scope of this procurement includes screening tools for English, Mathematics, Digital Skills, Reading, and Additional Learning Needs (ALN). Due to the importance of having a 'human element' in assessing reading ability, certain elements of the reading tool are not required to be digital.

We are expecting to procure three Tools, one for each of the following Lots:

Lot 1: English, Mathematics, and Digital Skills

Lot 2: Reading

Lot 3: Additional Learning Needs

The Tools must be compliant with Government Digital Standard (GDS) in the design, testing and deployment in time for Service Commencement and must be capable of integrating with other services and sharing data using open standards.

The vision for the S&A Tools contracts is to:

• Implement high-quality, accessible tools that accurately identify prisoner ability levels and indicate potential needs.
• Enable collaboration with the Authority and PES providers to ensure continuous improvement so that the S&A tools enable quality S&A delivery.
• Enable data reporting integration of the S&A tools into the Authority systems.
• Provide for the first time national consistent S&A tools across the PES estate to reduce duplication and improve data flow across the estate.
• Deliver the ambition for digital by default screening with contingencies to allow continued S&A delivery when access to digital tool/s is impacted.
• Ensure high quality S&A tool provider led training and ongoing support to PES core-education staff on the use of provider screening tools.
• Drive quality via performance measured key performance indicators.

Additional information:

The purpose of this engagement is to secure wider market involvement in the testing and development of our procurement structure, including the specification and contract.

Topics we would like to hear suppliers' view on may include but are not limited to:

• Specification Optimisation
• Contract Terms Proportionality
• Removing Barriers to SMEs
• Lot Structure
• IPR
• Costs
• Pay Mech
• Insurance Levels
• Digital Requirements

As part of this PIN we have included a pre-recorded presentation and PowerPoint slides from the Screening and Assessment Team, which goes through the current Screening and Assessment situation in prisons, our future view, and the areas we would particularly like to seek your feedback on. Feedback on other areas will also be welcomed.

We have included a Survey to seek out your views and to ask if you would be willing to speak with us further on this topic. The survey will be open from 22nd May - 4th June. If you agree to speak with us, we will be holding meetings on a first come first serve basis between 28th May - 4th June.

We then intend to review our approach based on the information provided from the market before coming back to you on the 17th June - 27th June. Please note, we will not be sending out an additional PIN for this.