The number of grant applications made to the Fund has continued to increase dramatically this year. Only seven months into our financial year, we have already received over 1,000 applications, compared to 1,376 in the whole of last year. This increase in applications is on the back of an all-time high level of grant expenditure last year.
Our welfare, training and education grants are made, through the Probation Service or Third Sector organisations focussed on prison leaver rehabilitation, to prison leavers who live in the Greater London area and it is our aim to fund all eligible applications. The significant increase in applications that we are seeing is likely as a result of the Early Release Scheme that was introduced in September 2024 to address the chronic over-crowding in the prison system.