Prisoner Screening & 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) programme 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 education starting points and learning needs are identified from initial education induction, and inform their learner journey throughout their time in custody. This system should enable HMPPS to drive up standards, improve national consistency and outcomes across the estate, both in custody and in the community.

To enable and support HMPPS ambition and realise the strategic ambition 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. Reading assessments can be partly digital but must include interaction with screening and assessment delivery staff so that consideration can be made of reading accuracy, word pronunciation, expressions of tone or intonation.

This tender is 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 the minimum viable product digital requirements as outlined in the specification 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 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 output measured key performance indicators.