Linde Material Handling UK To Support Job Prospects For Prisoners

HMP Five Wells, operated by GS4 and opened last year at a cost of £253 million, has been designed to accommodate up to 1,680 low-risk male prisoners. All will have been transferred from other prisons as they approach the end of their sentences.

The Linde workshop offers a full day’s work preparing some of the firm’s small truck range for a typical range of tasks.

Lauren Wren, Linde Material Handling UK’s Depot Manager for its Region East depot, set up the partnership with Paul Cunningham, who is the Business Enterprise & Community Manager at the Prison, after learning about similar projects involving their customers.

The prison is unlike any other, fitted with 16 classrooms and 24 workshops in which offenders can learn the skills they need to find workplace opportunities upon release.

Anyone chosen to enter the programme first undergoes a thorough screening process and is supervised by members of G4S prison staff who have completed the necessary training on Linde’s forklift trucks.

The next step involves individuals undergoing stringent assessment before being offered day-release at Linde MH’s Wellingborough workshop. This ROTL (Release On Temporary Licence) programme gives the participants the opportunity to qualify in much the same way as through the company’s apprenticeship scheme.

Lauren said: “I look forward to the day when we employ someone from this programme. I have been overwhelmed with the support from everyone – the management, field and workshop engineers all playing their part.“

One inmate, planning a career in commercial tyres, said: “There are not enough jobs out there and the ones that appeal need qualifications, which cost money. This course gives me a huge chance and I couldn’t let it pass.

The unnamed individual added: “I have a little boy waiting for me and I want to make him proud of me. If I can have a career in the commercial tyre world, then that would be incredible. It’s something I now want to do.”