An assessment of the value for money provided by Coracle

Crest Advisory was commissioned to evaluate the value for money provided by the deployment in UK prisons of the Coracle Virtual Learning Environment (Osprey-VLE) - an accessible digital platform that provides users with a wide range of educational and vocational materials, self-study and development tools, and other content.

Using a robust quasi-experimental evaluation approach, aligned to HM Treasury’s Magenta Book guidance for evaluation, and monetisation approaches outlined in HM Treasury’s Green Book, we estimate that the Coracle system currently provides an annual monetisable benefit of £35,566,985 (equivalent to £16 returned for every £1 spent)  based on the deployment to 96 prisons.