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Inner London Probation Service contribution to Convoy 2000
The probation services have constructed all the new beds which will be used in the project at their Stoke Newington workshops. The work has been carried our by people sentenced to community service orders
Beds will free up greatly needed floor space
Some examples of the work carried out by the community service workshops of the ILPS The
Inner London Probation Service is committed to Convoy 2000. Chief Probation
Officer John Harding is a member of the Romania 2000 Advisory Group and former
Deputy Chief Probation Officer Roy Gray is co-ordinating work in Bucharest. Roy
retired from ILPS two years ago to live and work in Romania. His own involvement
with orphanage work in Romania prompted the decision to make this project a
joint mission for the Millennium. Much
of the carpentry work involved in the project will be carried out by offenders
sentenced to community service by courts in Inner London. They will make 72 bunk
beds for the orphanages and flat pack them for transporting.
Three offenders, accompanied by probation staff,
will travel to Bucharest to assemble the beds and help in the general
refurbishment work. CS
sentences are between 40 and 240 hours long and must be completed in an
offenders' own time. Making the bunks will take approximately 2,000 hours and
each one will cost £90 in materials. Offenders give their labour free as part
of their punishment and as reparation to the community. ILPS staff are raising
the money needed for materials and travel. Most
of the work will be carried out in the ILPS community service workshop in
Newington Green which is fully-equipped for joinery. Workshop manager Don Gibbs
is overseeing the project. CS
offenders assigned to the workshop have recently completed projects to build
play equipment for a primary school in Haringey and have made signs, benches and
play area furniture for Clissold Park, Hackney. Community
Service is the most cost effective of community penalties imposed by the courts.
A CS order costs £1,690 a year to administer compared with £2,195 for a
probation order and £24,000 to keep someone in prison. Additionally,
offenders on community service provide free labour for the community. Inner
London benefits from approximately 300,000 hours of CS labour annually. Costed
at £5 an hour this equates to £1.5 million of work a year. To
find out more about ILPS' involvement, or to donate money towards the cost of
the beds, please contact:- Susan
Lord, Head of Public Relations, or Louise Marriage, Press and Public Relations
Officer, ILPS, 71-73 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 2BN. Tel: 0171 222 5656.
Email: slord@ilps.demon.co.uk Pamela
Cooke, Community Service Manager for Camden, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, ILPS, 3a
Alexander Road, London N19 3PG. Tel: 0171 272 5727. Don
Gibbs, Workshop Manager, 121a Church Walk, Newington Green. N16 8QW. Tel: 0171
241 4913.
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