Eight years ago, Mark Johnson was living on the streets of central London, sleeping in the doorway of one of the austere townhouses just south of the Strand. A drug addict with a conviction for violent robbery, he was getting by as a petty thief.

Today, Johnson walks the same streets in a smart pair of shoes, having turned his life round. One of the doorways he used to sleep in is now home to the Aldridge Foundation, the charitable trust set up by Rod Aldridge, founder of Capita, the outsourcing business.

In the 18 months since he left Capita under the cloud of the “loans to Labour” scandal — he admitted making a secret, personal £1m loan to the party — Aldridge has dedicated his life to tackling Britain’s social injustices. He decided that the criminal-justice system was a good place to start.

Aldridge is combining his business skills and personal wealth with Johnson’s ideas and experiences. Together, the two are setting out to reform the nation’s attitudes to dealing with former criminals, believing that business and entrepreneurship could hold the key.

“Once you’ve made a mistake, even at a very young age, it’s very difficult to get a job,” said Aldridge. “Certain professions, you can never get into. One person I met through this scheme had gone to university and wanted to be a journalist — he had been turned down in every situation he had been in. Another person applied for a university place and was told to come back in 10 years.

“To me, that’s not right. If you have paid your price, if you have made the step to want to change, you have to be given the chance.”

The Aldridge Foundation is not the only body trying to give offenders another chance in the workplace. National Grid launched a pilot scheme in 2000, in which 50 young offenders from Reading prison trained as forklift-truck drivers.

Some 1,000 people have now passed through the system, which has been extended into other firms, including engineers such as Amec and Balfour Beatty, the logistics group DHL, and Fountains, the forestry company. Only 7% of the scheme’s members have re-offended, compared with a national average of over 70%.

“The scheme has never been a charitable thing,” said Mary Harris from National Grid.

“We couldn’t find enough forklift-truck drivers so we had to look harder. The people we are employing through this are all as good or better than the people we find through normal methods. If that wasn’t the case, it simply wouldn’t make sense.”

Johnson got his chance through the Prince’s Trust. He emerged from a rehab centre in 2001, free from drugs for the first time since the age of 11.

In an earlier attempt to get back on the rails he had trained as a tree surgeon, but because of his drug habit he couldn’t hold down a job. With the aid of a £3,000 grant from the trust he set up a tree surgeon’s busi- ness in Dorset, called Treewise.

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