HMPPS Small Grants Scheme Knife Crime Prevention project at HMP High Down
Knife crime remains a growing concern across the UK. While the prison environment offers opportunities for engagement in purposeful activity and rehabilitation, existing programmes often fall short in addressing the deeper, underlying causes—such as why individuals choose to carry knives, what leads them to use them, and the profound impact on victims, their families, and the offenders’ own communities. To address this gap, HMP High Down plans to deliver a series of educational and motivational sessions in partnership with a VCSE organisation specialising in knife crime prevention. These sessions will include inspirational talks and targeted education around the consequences of knife crime, aiming to foster reflection, accountability, and behavioural change.
- Opening date: (Midnight)
- Closing date: (Midnight)
Contents
Summary
HMP High Down plans to deliver a series of educational and motivational sessions in partnership with a VCSE organisation specialising in knife crime prevention. These sessions will include inspirational talks and targeted education around the consequences of knife crime, aiming to foster reflection, accountability, and behavioural change.
The programme will primarily focus on individuals convicted of knife-related offences but will also be open to others—particularly those with links to gang culture—who may be at risk of involvement in violent crime.
HMP High Down have identified an ever-increasing crime that more and more men are being sent to prison for, but not always given the opportunity to reflect and understand the impact of their actions.
Expected outcomes:
Participants will understand what led them to carrying a knife
· Participants will understand what led them to using the knife
· Participants will understand the impact this has had on families
· Participants will be able to use / be trained in passing this knowledge and understanding to other prisoners in the future, therefore enabling peer led training as we move forwards.
Expected structure of the sought activities: each individual activity and the overall length of the project:
This programme is expected to be delivered over a period of 6 to 12 months to ensure that all individuals affected by knife-related offences have the opportunity to engage meaningfully and benefit from its educational impact. The aim is to raise awareness of the risks and consequences associated with carrying and using knives.
HMP High Down is open to flexible delivery models; however, they recommend small-group workshops to encourage open discussion, peer learning, and personal reflection.
Requirements for the providers
Providers should have experience in understanding knife crime and violence in the community. Preferably they would have contacts in the community with lived experience people who have been perpetrators of knife crime at some stage in the lives but have now turned their lives around.
The provider will need to pass HMPPS vetting after being awarded a grant. Individuals with lived experience may facilitate sessions, provided they are accompanied by a vetted member of their organisation who has completed the necessary security clearance.
Benefit for the service users
The service users will be enabled to reflect on their own actions, preventing them from returning to prison and being able to pass their experiences on to others.
It will also enable them to understand the impacts their actions (sometimes impulsive) can have on the wider families of both victims and perpetrators.
The grant is the best option at this stage as it allows High Down to pilot and test the idea of this particular service delivery which will baseline future service delivery.
Activities will run between 1 February 2026 and 31 January 2027, with delivery dates agreed upon at award stage (vetting time considered).
The funding available for this award is £20k
The total grant amount will be paid in advance, provided that the grant recipient has given sufficient assurance that the grant will be used for the stated purpose.
Eligibility
The award is open to VCSE (Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise organisations)
The voluntary sector organisation(s) or consortium receiving the grant from HMPPS, should be a registered charity or social enterprise.
Any organisation applying for funding must demonstrate that it meets the due diligence criteria before any award is made. The funding will only be given to organisations where their annual turnover is at least twice the amount of the funding that they are seeking.
Grant funding cannot be used to deliver core services which HMPPS should be delivering.
Objectives
· Make a meaningful impact on the lives of individuals seeking positive change.
· To improve people’s experience of prison and probation through the rehabilitation activities.
· To support an individual’s rehabilitation and desistance journey; and
· To improve our knowledge about what activities, work to support people and to encourage rehabilitation and desistance.
Dates
Activities will run between 1 February 2026 and 31 January 2027, with delivery dates agreed upon at award stage (vetting time considered).
The applications will be open from 17 November 2025 to 5 December 2025 3pm.
How to apply
In order to submit a compliant application, applicants must complete all questions in the Apply for a Grant application form. Please note and do not exceed the word counts for each answer. Any information that is included once the word count is exceeded will not be evaluated and will not count towards the evaluated score. Responses must not include diagrams, tables, images or similar.
Applicants are permitted to submit clarification questions via email to HMPPSGrants@justice.gov.uk. For transparency, this advert will be updated throughout the competition to include any responses to questions asked by applicants.
Further information from clarification questions:
No further information.
To be eligible for funding under this grant applicants must achieve the minimum threshold score of 3 averaged across all technical questions otherwise they will be removed from the competition process. The scoring criteria is outlined below:
Score Interpretation
5 Exceeds the requirement. Exceptional demonstration shown for the proposal, how the project will be delivered, and extensive past experience detailed.
4 Satisfies the requirements and has minor additional benefits. Above average demonstration across all questions.
3 Satisfies the requirements. Demonstrates understanding and ability to a satisfactory standard.
2 Satisfies most of the requirements with some minor reservations relating to the experience, understanding and/or ability. Whilst mostly the question has been answered in a satisfactory way, one element has been omitted/offers insufficient evidence.
1 Major reservations about the experience, understanding or ability demonstrated, with little to no evidence to support the questions. More than one element has been omitted.
0 Does not meet the requirement. Does not comply or offer sufficient information to demonstrated experience, ability of understanding. Significant elements of the question has been omitted or not addressed to a satisfactory standard.
The Authority reserves the right to ask clarification questions about any elements of an application. These questions will not give applicants the opportunity to expand on the response and may only be used where applications contain minor errors or to clarify where the information presented is unclear.
The grant, if awarded, shall be awarded to the Applicant(s) who:
· has submitted an application in compliance with these instructions
· meets the eligibility criteria
· meets the minimum quality threshold of 3 questions
· achieves the highest technical score
Due diligence checks will be carried out before the award can be made. These checks may include, but are not exclusive to, financial, brand, assurance, and charitable status.
Supporting information
Conflicts of Interest
The Authority is required to prevent conflicts of interest occurring in this competition and may disqualify applicants if an actual or potential conflict of interest occurs in connection with the competition which cannot be satisfactorily avoided or mitigated. The Authority may disqualify any applicant which attempts (or whose advisers attempt) to influence the competition in any way.
MoJ Disclaimer
The Authority shall not be committed to any course of action as a result of:
• issuing the competition documents
• communicating with an applicant or an applicant’s representatives or agents in respect of this competition exercise; or
• any other communication between the Authority (whether directly or by its agents or representatives) and any other party.
All applicants accept and acknowledge that by issuing the competition documents the Authority is not bound to accept any bid and reserves the right not to award or conclude a grant for all or any of the costs for which bids are invited.
The Authority reserves the right to apply its discretion on the amount of funding that is to be awarded to the successful applicant(s). If only part of the application is acceptable, in terms of the stated deliverables, then the Authority may only award funding on that basis.
The Authority reserves the right to amend, suspend or terminate all or any part of the competition or its documentation at any time during the ITT.
The instructions in this advert, together with any other tender documentation are designed to ensure that all applicants are given equal and fair consideration. Applicants should read the instructions carefully to ensure they understand them and the conditions of participation before submitting their applications.
Failure to comply with these instructions regarding submission of the application response may result in its rejection. The Authority may reject Tenders which are substantially and materially incomplete, non-compliant, inconsistent, or vague.
Applicants should answer all questions as accurately and concisely as possible. Applicants are solely responsible for ensuring that their applications are free from error and accept that these cannot be modified after the submission deadline.
Costs incurred in submitting applications will be borne by applicants and will be defined as ineligible expenditure under the terms of the grant.
All information supplied by the Authority to applicants must be treated in confidence (unless already in the public domain) and must not be disclosed to third parties other than as is necessary for the purposes of preparing a Tender.