National Offender Management Service

Creation

NOMS was created on 1 June 2004 following a review by Patrick Carter (now Lord Carter of Coles), a Labour-supporting businessman. Carter had been asked by the government to propose a way of achieving a better balance between the prison population in England and Wales and the resources available for the correctional services. He proposed three radical changes. Firstly, that there should be 'end-to-end management' of each offender from first contact with the correctional services to full completion of the sentence. Secondly, that there should be a clear division between the commissioners of services and their providers. And thirdly that there should be 'contestability' amongst these providers. By this means, he argued, efficiency would be increased, unit costs reduced, and innovation encouraged. Growth in the prison population, which had increased by two thirds over the previous ten years, would be constrained by giving the courts greater confidence in the effectiveness of community sentences as opposed to prison sentences through better management of offenders, leading to reduced levels of reoffending. The Government accepted these proposals.

Helen Edwards succeeded Martin Narey as second Chief Executive of NOMS in November 2005.

The emerging structure of NOMS saw the appointment of a Regional Offender Manager (ROM) for each of the 9 English regions and Wales. Their responsibilities included the negotiation and performance monitoring of Service Level Agreements with each of the public sector prisons and probation areas in their regions, and of contracts with private sector prisons. The actual management of public sector prisons however remained with HM Prison Service, reporting separately to its own Director General, Phil Wheatley.

ROMs were also given responsibility for the reduction of reoffending in their regions, effected by the development of multi-agency partnerships which harnessed the capacity of other government departments, agencies, and local authorities to influence the factors which affect offending – drugs and alcohol, accommodation, employment training and education, children and families, health, finance debt and benefit, attitudes thinking and behaviour.

Changes following the creation of the MOJ

After a period characterised by changes of political leadership, crises about foreign national prisoners, and a burgeoning prison population, on 9 May 2007 the correctional services element of the Home Office was moved to join the former Department of Constitutional Affairs in the newly created Ministry of Justice. In January 2008, the Secretary of State for Justice announced major organisational reform which resulted in the Director-General of Her Majesty's Prison Service, Phil Wheatley, becoming the Chief Executive of NOMS, and assuming responsibility for both the National Probation Service (NPS) as well as HM Prison Service and management of contracts for private sector operation of prisons and prisoner escorting. Following this the Chief Executive post was reclassified as Director-General. and NOMS was designated as an executive agency within the Ministry of Justice Subsequently, ROMs were replaced by Directors of Offender Management (DOMs) in each of the 10 Government regions in England and Wales, combining responsibility for prisons and probation services in their region.

On 1 April 2008, six probation areas' governing boards were redesignated as Probation Trusts, enjoying greater freedoms than their board counterparts but more susceptible to competition and possible loss of business should their performance prove to be intractably poor. On 1 April 2009 Jack Straw announced the creation of two further Probation Trusts.

The agency has its headquarters in Clive House, Petty France, London SW1; it moved its head office there in 2010.

Role

NOMS remains an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. It divides England and Wales into 10 areas, each under a separate Director, with other Directors appointed for specialities such as the High Security Estate. The current Chief Executive is Michael Spurr. The Agency is responsible for delivering the Ministry's Departmental Strategic Objective (DSO) 3: “protecting the public and reduce re-offending”, and supporting delivery of DSO 4: “more effective, transparent and responsive criminal justice system for victims and the public”. NOMS operates within the agreed Agency Framework Document, made in 2009. That document sets out its role:

The Agency says it will face three significant challenges over the coming years:

NOMS Agency has set out how it will meet these in the Strategic Commissioning Plans for 2010–13, which set out how the agency will provide services and meet demand for all 10 areas.

List of Chief Executive