Winning the DL100 was a real springboard
Winning the best Digital Leaders Citizen services app followed by the overall annual Digital Leaders award in 2015 was a fantastic result for Unilink and has been like a springboard giving the business lift-off to the next level. It was an amazing evening; two awards in one night. It was fantastic to win in the Citizens app category but also to be judged the overall winner was quite overwhelming not to mention a stunning surprise! Following on from this award Unilink won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation in 2016 and the MD was invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace where he met Her Majesty, the Queen. These awards have drawn more attention to Unilink and as a consequence this year, 2017, the company is experiencing 75% growth in turnover and employing many more staff; currently doubled to 65 up with many more posts still to be filled.
It was the recognition of Unilink’s innovative products and services that helped to propel Unilink to this success. The Digital Leaders award was driven by customers supporting Unilink because of our excellent customer service.
Prisons have been much in the news lately and Unilink have devised innovative products and services for prisons, which allow them to be operated more safely and efficiently by combining offender management and prisoner self-service into one product. This has been backed up by an independent report from York University which showed the both prisoner and prison officers valued the product and that there was a reduction in adjudications and even, following release, a reduction in reoffending. The reason is that prisoners operating self-service have to take more responsibility for themselves: they have to apply for jobs, do shopping, check their bank accounts, transfer money for phone calls, book family visits and so on.
Following on from the award, Unilink is making fantastic progress implementing multi-million pound projects in the UK and Australia, which will enable both countries to operate safer more rehabilitative prisons. The latest establishment to take Unilink’s products is Berwyn in Wales, a new prison designed to be especially good for education and turning round prisoners’ lives. This new site allows prisoners to have technology to access Unilink’s prisoner self-service and education to improve their future life chances.
All of this success began with the Digital Leaders awards back in 2015. This assisted Unilink’s marketing hugely and was a key enabler of Unilink’s success.
About Unilink
Unilink specialises in developing solutions for criminal justice. Unilink has over twenty years’ experience of working in the Justice Sector and possesses particular expertise in biometric applications and innovative software solutions. World leader in Offender Self-service applications, over the years Unilink has pioneered several award winning innovations:
