Prison Break
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With a construction industry skills gap, a growing prison population and all too high prisoner reoffending rate…Surely in the complex world we live there couldn’t be a solution to help remedy all three, could there?
With 37% of all prisoners reoffending on release and everyone deserving of a second chance, we were intrigued by a new initiative spearheaded by Lynch Plant Hire.
With a history of working with Buildforce, ex-military personnel, veterans and former prisoners, Lynch, in March of 2024, along with a range of other organisations from within the construction supply chain, that included Balfour Beaty, Skanska, VGC, Mick George and labour agency Danny Sullivan Group were approached by HM Prison Service.
The brief was outlined and the interested organisations readied to meet at HM Prison Highpoint.
Within These Walls.
Highpoint is a Category 3 training and re-settlement prison based over two sites (north & south) in Suffolk, East Anglia.
In January 2024 HM Inspectorate of Prisons said ‘Highpoint was failing to deliver its core purpose to prepare men for their return to the community’
In March 2025, the Government announced funding to increase the capacity of Highpoint by 50% making it the UK’s largest jail. With the expansion also featuring additional workshops and teaching facilities.
At the launch meeting of the businesses invited to participate, each were given a five-minute presentation slot to talk about their empathetic connections with a project that had the following objectives:
- Giving Prisoners Job Ready Training
- Giving Prisoners a Purpose
- Giving Prisoners a Second Chance
For Lynch, Head of Operator Training Gez Bonner, spoke about his own working class background and how if his father had not moved the family out of Scotland in the 1980’s to work for Tarmac on their numerous motorway projects south of the border, the exposure he had already had as an impressionable teenager to gang culture and sectarianism, things might have been quite different to what they are today.
Gez was clear that the upbringing and environment experienced by inmates at Highpoint would have played a big part in the probability of going to prison. Giving them a second chance with a career in construction could change their circumstances and start to turn their life around.
Gez concluded his presentation to the other twenty businesses by saying if they all were able to give just one job to one ex-offender that would result in the lives of twenty-one men being improved and the risk of them reoffending reduced.
Whilst all that attended were familiar with many well intended schemes, the joint recognition here was that different thinking was, given the unique circumstances, needed.
The proposal from Lynch was to build a training centre in the grounds of Highpoint prison. An idea it’s fair to say that was met with some scepticism from the prison governor. A bulldozer an excavator and countless different building materials…what could possibly go wrong.
Build It and They Will Come.
Lynch, unperturbed, planned to build the centre, train the men all to provide site ready operators for the industry.
With HMP statistics showing that the biggest threat to reoffending occurs in the first three weeks of release, the training plan had to be considered, ensuring that each man who had trained was site ready on their first day of freedom.
The go ahead to build the training centre (a replica of the successful Lynch training model) in the grounds was given and an overgrown site was handed over. The work began immediately with the industry coming together to provide all the concrete, cabins, drainage and power required to build the centre.
From that first meeting in March 2024 the training centre was ready in the first week of November 2024.
Inside Out.
Importantly, for the project to be a success, there needed to be insightful research. This was done prior to any work being undertaken with flyers issued to all inmates and presentations given to assess interest and demand. The first wave of feedback established over 100 men expressing an interest. With the vetting process taking up to 3-months timing was, and indeed remains, a critical issue.
Various open days ensured stakeholders were all kept informed as the various streams of the project came together. Ensuring that everyone knew what was going to happen and how it was going to happen…before it happened. A plan that kept confidence high and momentum maintained.
Gez commented “What the project was not designed to do was to give random tickets to trainee operators in the hope this ‘licence’ might result in an interview and job”.
The stakeholders in this project, as well as Lynch, are contractors such as Wate Management company Mick George, Major Contractors such as Balfour Beatty, Skanska and Gallagher along with recruitment consultant Danny Sullivan.
The stakeholder, via ‘pledges’, specify what their respective business needs are, so that the training and tickets ensure that when released these ex-offenders can go straight to work with that contractor or hirer.
These tickets in the first instance cover ADT’s, Rollers, Wheeled and Tracked Dumpers in addition to Excavators and Dozers. This meant the tickets gained were not just to pass a test and a ticket to nowhere but a ticket to a whole new life.
The qualification is further enhanced with CPCS and NOCN labourers’ green cards meaning that trainees have another ticket to be able to work on site. There is also a provision for trainees to take their theory drivers test all to enable a full driving licence when released.
Going Straight.
This initiative is well thought through and the plans to execute look equally as impressive, with, it is hoped, up to 80 former inmates working in construction by the end of the first year, the first trained guy leaves prison.
Lynch has two of their best men working with Gez, Chris Kent and Paul Head who are in operational charge, ensuring inmates are trained up to 6 months before their release, so that all is in place to deliver the best possible outcomes.
The scheme has a 100% guarantee that there will be a job for every candidate via the ‘pledges’ made by the contractor and hirer scheme stakeholders.
The scheme will give the men who sign up for this initiative a hope and belief that there is such a thing as a second chance. Then instead of leaving prison with a £60 cheque, they leave with a more certain plan that their newfound skills, when applied in the real world, will see them soon earning in the region of £40,000 per annum.
Alas there are few certainties in life, so on release these men will have to get the basics right first. Getting up on time and turning up on time may see some fall, but for the others we end with two of Gez Bonner’s adages.
The first, which is so mission critical, is, ‘that you teach to understand, before you teach to do’ then finally and prophetically ‘if you go to work, you will never be out of work.’
There is confirmed Government funding for the next two years, with the scheme being widened to work with more prisons and prisoners…Perhaps after all we can get a second chance to make a first impression.
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