National Offender Management Service
 |
|
| Executive Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2004 |
| Jurisdiction | England and Wales |
| Headquarters | 102 Petty France, London, SW1H 9AJ |
| Minister responsible | |
| Executive Agency executive |
|
| Child agencies | |
| Key document |
|
| Website | www |
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) responsible for the correctional services in England and Wales. It was created by combining parts of both of the headquarters of the National Probation Service and Her Majesty's Prison Service with some existing Home Office functions. The agency's headquarters are in central London.
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.
...
Wikipedia