What a night! Attending the annual Longford Lecture at Church House, Westminster last night, it was a huge privilege to receive the Longford Prize 2016 on behalf of Unlock together with my Co-director Christopher Stacey. The Longford Prize ‘recognises the contribution of an individual, group or organisation working in the area of penal or social

People with convictions play an important role in many charities, particularly those working in the criminal justice sector. Becoming a trustee or leading a charity as part of the senior management team are important roles that people with convictions should be encouraged to take on, and we know it can provide people with a positive

There’s a talent pool of over 10.5 million people that many companies are overlooking. People with criminal records make good employees. This new website that we’re launching today helps employers to make sure they’re not missing out on the diverse skills and experience of people with criminal records. With over 750,000 unfilled job vacancies in

Last month, the Financial Conduct Authority published an occasional paper on access to financial services. I fed into this work, particularly focusing on the issues people with convictions face in accessing insurance. So it was good to see the authors include an especially challenging section of the report focused at a lack of buy-in to

Whilst government announcements last month to reform prisons and improve prisoner education are welcomed, much more needs to be done to encourage and support employers to recruit people with a criminal record. Employers like Timpsons and Greggs have shown that people with convictions can make fantastic employees and that there is actually a business as

              Mainstream home and car insurers have a blanket ban on people with unspent convictions – these kinds of policies are unfair and sometimes illegal To many of the 1.2 million people convicted in court each year, it comes as a surprise to find that if they try to

Quite understandably, David Cameron’s speech on Monday was applauded for being the first one dedicated to prison reform by a Prime Minister in over 20 years. Interestingly though, as he set out his ‘agenda for a revolution in the prison system’, one of the things that caught Unlock’s attention appeared towards the end of his

With the Christmas break almost upon us and 2015 coming to an end, we wanted to write a short note to reflect on the last 12 months. Yet again, it’s been an incredibly successful and busy year for Unlock with lots of positive news and progress to report. We’ve continued to expand the information, advice

The High Court will tomorrow hear a legal challenge, with the support of Unlock, to the Government’s criminal records disclosure scheme. There are two cases being heard on Tuesday 8th December, both focusing on how the system forces people with more than one conviction to disclose them forever when applying for areas of work that involve standard or enhanced

Unlock has now been a charity for fifteen years. To mark the occasion, supporters and beneficiaries joined staff, trustees, patrons, Peers and volunteers at a reception hosted by our President, Lord Ramsbotham. With the kind permission of The Lord Speaker, Baroness D’Souza, Lord Ramsbotham sponsored our use of the stunning House of Lords River Room; a

In an interesting development to the issue of the ‘google-effect’ and spent convictions, the Guardian has reported that Google has been ordered by the Information Commissioner’s Office to remove nine links to current news stories about older reports which themselves were removed from search results under the ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling. The search engine

Following up on my previous article, here is the second part of my blog originally published as a Clinks Guest Blog, in which I look at the changing relationship between the voluntary sector and probation service provision, and how Unlock is responding.            There’s one common factor amongst everyone who works with people on probation –