Conversation with Paul Cowley: the business case for giving ex-offenders a second chance
The Second Chance Partnership is on a mission to transform retail recruitment by placing ex-offenders into guaranteed jobs before they even leave prison, and founder Paul Cowley says the results make compelling commercial sense for businesses willing to take the chance.
With retention rates running 20% better than in the wider workforce, Cowley believes the retail sector should be leading the way.
Subscribe to TRBCan you tell us about the Second Chance Partnership and what it does?
It grew out of the Second Chance Initiative, which I started around three years ago with Iceland Foods and the Food Warehouse. Sir Malcolm Walker asked me to help him develop something to support men and women coming out of prison into employment. I gave him some advice, ended up working for him, and became director of rehabilitation for Iceland Foods.
What we do is quite radical. No one else is doing it the way we do. We offer letters of employment while people are still in prison, and we sponsor positions if there are no vacancies available. In three years, we’ve offered over 700 jobs to men and women in prison, and Iceland Foods now has around 500 of them working today as home delivery drivers and retail assistants.
From that success, Sir Malcolm and the senior team came to me and said — why don’t we open this up to other retailers and businesses? So, we set up a new charity, the Second Chance Partnership, with seed funding from Iceland, and I became managing director. We now have three national partners: Iceland Foods, GXO, one of the UK’s largest logistics companies, and Two Sisters Food Group. We’re in discussions with another four, one of whom is about to sign, and we’re also talking to Virgin.
When pitching to employers, what do you say to them?
I always start at the top with the CEO, the owner, or the founder. If you don’t have buy-in from the top, it simply won’t work. I ask them directly: is this something you genuinely want to do? Are you serious about it? Because if you’re not, I don’t want you to join the partnership. It won’t work, and more importantly, it disappoints the men and women in prison who are counting on it.
If they’re keen, we send an NDA and have a very honest conversation about how we operate. We have clear protocols around who we won’t place. These include sex offenders, terrorists, arsonists, those serving life imprisonment, those without accommodation, and those still on medication scripts for drug dependency. That’s around six categories and explaining those upfront tends to stop a lot of the anxiety employers have.
After that, we tailor a contract specifically for that business and usually start with a trial at one site. We go into the prison, interview candidates for 45 minutes, carry out background checks and a deep search, and then make our decision. Everyone gets a letter either way. If it’s a job offer, it’s a guaranteed position,100%. That’s the radical difference. It gives the person something to plan for, something to look forward to. And if there’s no vacancy at the right location, the company sponsors the position for 16 weeks. In retail, there’s almost always a vacancy within that time.
What barriers do ex-offenders still face, and is the landscape changing?
It is changing, but not quickly enough. When I started 27 years ago, there were very few people doing this work at all. It’s better than it was, but it could be a lot better, a lot faster.
The barriers are twofold. On the employer side, it’s about companies being willing to take that professional risk. On the individual side, it’s about hope or the lack of it. The typical background of someone coming out of prison involves multiple challenges: fractured family life, lack of education, exclusion, drug and alcohol dependency, abuse. That’s the backdrop for the people we’re trying to help. And for women it’s often even harder. In my view, most women shouldn’t be in prison at all as the vast majority pose no danger to society, and we could close eight or nine prisons overnight if we addressed that.
But here’s the thing: offering someone a job reduces the likelihood of reoffending by 50%. Just a job. That statistic alone should be enough to get any business interested.
What’s the business case for employers?
It’s compelling. The retention rate among the men and women we’ve placed at Iceland is 20% better than the wider workforce. Fewer sick days, less churn. When you factor in recruitment fees, agency costs and the expense of constant turnover, the numbers stack up very quickly.
With GXO, one of the senior leaders I was working with calculated that by bringing us on board and dropping one of their four agencies, they’d save a fortune even after paying our fee. And because we’re a not-for-profit charity, the fee you pay supports the charity. You’re not paying per person placed. You support the work, and we place as many people as you need.
I’ve also been speaking to organisations you wouldn’t immediately think of, like KPMG. They might not be able to put someone behind a financial desk, but they have cleaners, drivers, security staff, facilities teams. The opportunity is broader than people realise.
How does this connect with the retail sector specifically?
Retail is one of the biggest employers in the UK and it should be more interested in this than almost any other sector. Churn is one of the biggest costs retail organisations face. If you can bring workers in, support them and help them build a career, you’ve potentially got an employee for life.
I’ve already seen it happen. Some of the people I placed at Iceland as retail assistants are now supervisors. One is going for assistant manager. That trajectory — being brought in, trusted, given a chance, and then promoted — that’s what makes this different from agency work.
And there’s the DEI dimension too. Businesses talk about being inclusive, about hiring people with disabilities, people from different backgrounds. But the 89,000 people in prison, and the 50,000-plus who cycle in and out of the system every year, are rarely part of that conversation. They should be. They’re all coming back into society. I’d rather they came back with a job.
What would you say to retailers who are still hesitant?
Do you want to do it? Yes or no? If it’s no, it was great talking to you. But if the answer is yes, then let’s have an honest conversation, limit the risk as far as we possibly can, run a trial, and see what happens.
The men and women we work with don’t want to go back to prison. They want to be partners, parents, contributors. They just need a chance. And for any business that takes that chance properly — not with a job fair and an application that goes nowhere, but with a real, guaranteed offer — the returns, human and commercial, can be transformational.
Find out more about the Second Chance Partnership here
Photo credit: phoebecowley.com
