The Home Secretary is giving details of his plan to get young offenders jobs when they are released from prisons and other institutions.

Jack Straw is to explain at a Prison Service conference how the government's "welfare to work" scheme will be applied to young people in custody.

He is expected to announce pilot projects to test ways of training young offenders with the skills they will need to find and hold down a job after their release.

The 11 prisons and young offenders' institutions selected for the pilot will receive extra money to pay for the changes.

"Welfare to work" is a nationwide project central to the Labour Government's promise to get 18 to 24-year-olds off benefit.

Instead of being allowed to continue claiming Jobseekers' Allowance and housing benefit, young people are offered four options.

They can take a job offered through the scheme, sign up for training or further education, take part in voluntary environmental or community work - or face heavy cuts in their overall unemployment payments.

Funded by £5bn created by a windfall tax on privatised utilities, the government has promised "welfare to work" will get 250,000 young and long-term unemployed people back to work.

The Home Secretary's announcement on special provisions for young people with a history of offending comes a day after Prison Service Director Richard Tilt announced a £3m pilot with similar aims.

He told the Prison Service conference in Harrogate of "firm political backing" for schemes aimed at changing young people's criminal behaviour.

Mr Tilt said the cash for his pilot scheme was being split between six custodial establishments. Of these, two are female prisons and four are institutions for juveniles and young offenders. Each is receiving around £500,000.

"The opportunity is there for the service to make a change in the quality and impact of our regimes," Mr Tilt told the conference.

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