Opportunities

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• Opportunities with A4e

Opportunities

A4e is a fast growing international organisation that manages and delivers services in partnership with Government, public sector organisations, private sector organisations and the voluntary and community sector.

The company’s overall goal is to improve people’s lives through social change. We specialise in providing services that make a difference to individuals and the communities they live in.

A4e is a member of the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) and the Association of Learning Providers (ALP) and is committed to the Department of Work and Pensions’ Code of Conduct, Merlin Standard and Supplier Charter.

Current opportunities

Ministry of Justice PBR Pilot

A4e is looking to work with organisations that can help prevent reoffending for those leaving prison or who are serving a sentence in the community.

A4e is currently bidding to join a PBR Framework that is being established by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to appoint six providers onto three lots, for a competition that will start in the early new year (2012):

• Lot 1: Two pilots for offenders serving a community sentence (and possibly including those released under licence from prison)
• Lot 2: One pilot for offenders who have served a short sentence (under 12 months) in custody, who are being released into the community
• Lot 3: MoJ is seeking a provider to work with the in-house prisonbid team for the delivery of a PBR element in the upcoming prison management competitions

Successful bidders will work with a prison or a Probation Trust to deliver new services which help reduce reoffending rates. These initiatives will not only test new ways of working with offenders, but will test the applicability of Payment-by-Results (PBR) models to the criminal justice system.

A4e intends to apply to join the Framework as a Prime Contractor, and is looking to form a partnership of other providers to deliver services across a geographical area or specific interventions (I.e. ESOL or Parenting Skills).

To register your interest of working with A4e on this pilot, please complete our online registration at www.a4epartners.co.uk and under Current Opportunities select “Ministry of Justice PBR Pilot”

At this stage, the MoJ is not in a position to confirm which prisons or Probation Trusts will be involved, and therefore A4e is unable to indicate the location in which the pilot will take place. We are therefore inviting partners to submit an Expression of Interest only at this point. Once the MoJ has confirmed which bidders have been selected to join the Framework (expected Late December 2011), and the first competition is underway, A4e will instigate a full partnership application process.

Introducing com:pact

com:pact brings together A4e and MITIE, two of the UK’s leading public services providers. Between them, MITIE and A4e have more than 30 years’ experience of delivering large-scale Government and corporate outsourcing contracts. We will strive to reduce re-offending, working closely with offenders to assess their needs and working with local and voluntary sector partners to address the issues that are contributing to their offending behaviour.

com:pact has achieved framework status to deliver Community Payback on behalf of the Ministry of Justice. This will be a national service, procured by the end of 2012 and will be competed initially in Greater London.

What is Community Payback?

Community Payback is the scheme, currently delivered by Probation Trusts, through which offenders who are sentenced to an Unpaid Work order carry out their sentence. Offenders undertake work placements in the community for 6-18 hours per week until they have completed their sentenced hours (between 40 and 300 hours). Placements must be demanding and rigorous and must be of benefit to the community whilst not replacing paid jobs. In addition to being a robust and credible punishment, Community Payback can also enable offenders to develop skills which will improve their employability. The sentence can help to instil work discipline, together with skills such as working cooperatively with others and effective problem solving.

What type of partner organisations is com:pact looking for?

com:pact would welcome expressions of interest from organisations who would like to host Community Payback work placements. These will be community organisations that would benefit from Community Payback volunteers to carry out activities that have a positive impact on the community.

The nature of placements will vary to ensure a range of demanding placements that are appropriate for different offender groups including people with disabilities, women and 16/17 year olds. They may be one-off, or an on-going placement. Examples of placements include graffiti removal in a public area, painting a wall in a local school or serving food at a Senior Citizens’ lunch club.

If you are interested in hosting Community Payback placements please complete the Expression of Interest form.

Further information

Did you know?

• A4e has a supply chain of over 275 organisations from the public, private and third sectors;
• A4e was awarded 5 Flexible New Deal contracts by the Department for Work and Pensions worth in excess of £500m. We work with over 160 partners in our supply chain to deliver this programme, over 40% of which are from the 3rd sector;
• A recent assessment of A4e for DWP’s pilot Merlin Standard, commended our ability to develop strong and diverse supply chains of Third, Public and Private sector organisations; the support, encouragement and development we have provided to small, specialist Third Sector organisations; and our open and effective communication with our Partners

Registering as a Partner

If you think your organisation can help A4e to achieve our vision of Improving People’s Lives then simply register your interest here: Partners Registration

Get in touch

If you have any questions or just want a chat about working with A4e, you can contact our local teams:

Please don’t hesitate to contact the one of our Partnership Managers for further information on partnering with us:

*= Regional Development Directors