As I walked through the immense heavy oak doors and into the refurbished Victorian chapel with its stone and stained glass splendour, I could tell that it was going to be an enjoyable lunch. I was, after all, sitting down to eat at TripAdvisor’s number one restaurant in Cheshire, in the village of Styal just outside of Manchester.
There is, however, something about this restaurant that sets it apart from most others: It is a restaurant at HMP Styal, staffed mostly by prisoners and run by the Clink charity—and there are only three more of its kind in Britain.
The Clink charity aims to change the face of rehabilitation in our prison system through initiatives such as gardens and event catering centres at other prisons. They build environments where prisoners who have between six and 18 months of their sentence remaining can gain experience of working in the outside world, providing them with qualifications—and hopefully a job—when they are released. Since the first restaurant opened in 2009, the Clink has trained 500 prisoners, won more than 30 industry awards and now serves over 4,000 diners each month.
Chris Moore has been the charity’s chief executive for six years, and has extensive experience in the restaurant industry, including time at Harrods and the Hilton Hotel group. Moore tells me the Clink is different because, unlike many other charities, they involve the public in their work, helping to break the stigma that exists in society around prison and those who have been.
“We’re educating the public, changing their perception”, says Moore as he joins me after my exceptional lunch of leek and potato soup followed by roast beef. I mention how tasty the bread was that came with the soup, and he instinctively tells me that all of the kitchen staff are classically trained and make everything from scratch.
Moore exudes real pleasure and pride in the restaurant’s staff that is heart-warming to see, and knows the staff by name. Looking around at the restaurant, customers, and smartly dressed staff, it really is an inspiring example of how rehabilitation should be done. The whole purpose, Moore says, is to engage with an industry that is suffering a skills shortage, with an expected 11,000 vacant jobs by 2020. The results speak for themselves: Just 12.5 per cent of Clink graduates re-offend, compared with 47 per cent of prisoners who are released with no post-prison employment.
Working in partnership with the prison service, Clink provides prisoners with the skills, experience, continued support and, crucially, the qualifications, to move into gainful employment after they leave the prison system. The charity has partnerships with over 200 employers who will all take Clink graduates subject to a satisfactory interview. The experience offered at the Clink means that an eight hour working day is normal, whereas inside prison the working day is only four hours—two in the morning and two in the afternoon—which, as Moore points out, “hardly prepares you for life on the outside.”
Clink graduates leave with either a City and Guilds NVQ Level Two in food service and food preparation, or both, and are assigned a dedicated support worker who gets to know them three months before their release, and who will meet them at the gates. They help the inmates write CVs, and remain in regular contact when they are in the workplace for the next six to twelve months.
This, Moore says, is the “absolute key element, because if you come out of prison and you haven’t got friends, a family, or a job, you have got nothing,” and that can contribute to high re-offending rates.
But it is not just academic skills that the Clink can offer, it’s also what Moore calls the “soft skills”—the communication, confidence and self-esteem, that make a difference on the outside. This continued support is the jewel in the crown for an organisation that is not interested in quick fixes, and cares immensely about the work that it does. The combined effect is easy to see in the restaurant staff, and I understand completely what Moore means when he tells me that in other places a prisoner’s identity would be their sentence or crime, but “when they walk out of the Clink they’re a chef or a waitress”.
As I make my way through the cheese board the conversation turns to the difficulties faced by ex-prisoners trying to find a job in a society where many applications require applicants to tick a box to indicate whether they have a criminal conviction. Moore admits that he had never employed an ex-offender before he moved into his current job, and agrees that there is an unfortunate public perception around those who have been through the prison system.
The maître d’ echoes this sentiment in a conversation we have outside. Full of nothing but praise for the Clink we talked shop about our home towns, families, the public’s attitude to ex-prisoners—largely one without empathy and a lack of understanding—and second chances. Just days away from the end of a six month sentence, and soon to be in a job, I found myself both sad and angry that despite serving her sentence, this lady may suffer prejudice or stigma.
I ask Moore how that can be changed, and he replies that “we” need to educate the public, and there is more that can be done to make life post-prison easier for ex-offenders. Explaining his support for removing the criminal convictions tick box on applications, he explains that ex-offenders are some of his most loyal employees and they have far more to lose than the two of us, a point with which I wholeheartedly agree.
He continues by highlighting how an employer can ask the prison for a full transcript on what an ex-offender has done inside and, with a good write up from the Clink, they will actually know more about an ex-offender than any other employee. Moore says he would like to see criminal record disclosure coming at a second interview, so everyone is “employed on their own merit.” I cannot help but feel that these hurdles are the largest barriers to having a prison system that can consistently and successfully ensure wholesale low re-offending rates, and stop a time inside being a life sentence.
The amazing work of the Clink does not come cheap. The charity manages to break even through a combination of revenue streams but is always looking for more funding, and aims to have ten Clink training schemes by 2017. The setting up of the restaurants—including the cost of refurbishing buildings and equipment—is met by private money, and restaurants lose around £150,000 before they start up. Income from the restaurants, the Skills Funding Agency, and payment from the prison service contribute to the operating income.
Without a wine list on which to make significant margins, the Clink’s food costs are about 50 per cent compared to most other restaurants’ 25 per cent, but Moore is keen to tell me that despite the harsh realities of economics, people are the Clink’s currency.
“It’s a full time job and it’s getting harder, but people get it,” says Moore, which reaffirms the mission of the Clink and, I feel, of all of those who contribute to its success. Educating the public, helping offenders upon their release from prison, making our society a nicer and more prosperous place to live; these values are reflected in the Clink’s ‘five step’ program—Recruit, Train, Support, Employ, Mentor—and in Moore, who leaves me after our chat to meet with another colleague.
He is optimistic about the future, and rightly so: The Clink is doing invaluable work in the prison system for a group of people who are often overlooked and tarred with the same brush. As I leave the restaurant I am reminded of something Moore said to me when he first sat down: “The prison population is a cross section of society, they could be just like you or I.”
