About us

We connect prisons with employers to help businesses fill job vacancies and prison leavers to find employment.

Our specialists work with businesses across many different industries in England and Wales. We aim to address the needs of your business and reduce reoffending, giving a second chance to prisoners and prison leavers.

Work with you to understand the needs of your business and connect you with other employers who have recruited prison leavers
Take you on prison visits to see the work and training that goes on each day and advise you on which prisons to recruit from, based on your business needs
Guide you through the process of identifying suitable candidates and connect you with specialist charities
Remain a single point of contact for you within the prison and probation service

There are a range of ways to recruit prison leavers, including:

Prison industries

Businesses set up commercial workspaces in prisons, which become part of their supply chains.
These workspaces are staffed by serving prisoners who work there daily, on anything from packing and assembly work to more complex manufacturing and services.
Prisoners gain valuable and transferable skills, experience and qualifications.

Release on temporary licence (ROTL)

Businesses offer training and work experience to a serving prisoner to see first-hand what individuals can offer.
Suitable, risk assessed, men and women leave prison each day to work for employers in the community.
This can be full or part-time for up to two years before being released.

Employment on release

Businesses work with prisons and probation to find talent and offer employment to people at the end of their prison sentence.

For more information, get in touch and one of our specialists can advise you on the best route.

A prisoner learning the art of gardening

Leading by example

We recognise the value of employing prison leavers which is why we’re proud to lead by example on these three important strands of work:

Going Forward into Employment (GFiE) is a scheme which places prison leavers into a variety of roles across government.
New Future’s Network are partnered with the GFiE team to match prison leavers to suitable Civil Service roles.
Learn more about this initiative.

The Civil Service is committed to improving life chances and social mobility opportunities and welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. It works with New Future’s Network, who provide specialist advice in support of this work.
Many departments already participate in Ban the Box and prison leavers are only asked about criminal convictions when offered a role.
Learn more about this initiative.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is one of New Future’s Network’s existing partners.
The MoD Defence Equipment and Support organisation have already set up 31 workshops across 30 prisons for the production and refurbishment of equipment used by service personnel.
Learn more about this initiative.

New Future’s Network are also working with commercial partners to make the employment of prison leavers a requirement in suitable government contracts.
This has already been trialled on a small scale with great success, and we are looking forward to seeing how this rolls out further.

Prisoner Banking Programme

A bank account enables prison leavers to access employment, accommodation and welfare payments.

Prisons that join the Programme are officially partnered with one of seven banking providers that volunteered to be part of the Programme: Barclays, the Co-operative Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Group, Natwest Group, Santander, and Nationwide Building Society. The Programme enables those individuals who do not have an existing bank account and need one for use on release, to apply for a basic bank account whilst in custody. There are other conditions that need to be met to be able to apply.

A note on language

Throughout this website we have used the terms ‘serving prisoners’, ‘people leaving prison’ and ‘prison leavers’ to describe the men and women that fall within scope of our ambitions. We recognise that other terms are sometimes used, including ‘offender’ and ‘ex-offender’, but have adopted this terminology in consultation with the employers and other stakeholders that we work with.