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<p>The Ministry of Justice values the scrutiny provided by the Independent Monitoring
Board (IMB) at HMP Rye Hill. The Department recognises the recruitment challenges
faced by IMBs and across the wider volunteer sector.</p><p>In response to this, the
Department has increased the funding available to IMBs by £440,000 for the financial
year 2022-23 and provided an additional £500,000 in capital funding. This additional
funding aims to help ensure that IMBs increase their complement of members. The increases
will fund structural developments to improve new member recruitment and retention,
for example, through the recruitment of Regional Support Leads, who will play a key
role in supporting recruitment to Boards through improving local outreach. A Regional
Support Lead has been recruited for the region which HMP Rye Hill is located in and
is expected to take up post in November 2022. A regional approach to recruitment will
also help streamline the recruitment process to ensure that candidates can progress
quickly and join the boards they have been recommended to.</p><p>Individual boards
have flexibility in how their members work individually and as a collective to ensure
that the welfare of prisoners is monitored effectively. In addition, a National Monitoring
Framework provides guidance to all boards on how to meet their monitoring requirements.
The IMB Secretariat continues to provide support to members and boards through training,
guidance and recruitment assistance.</p><p>The additional funding provided by the
Department has also increased communications resource to raise the profile of IMBs
and improve recruitment advertising to support member recruitment.</p>
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