National Offender Management Service - Role

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:

Probation Services to Court

The Agency commissions the provision of information, advice and reports on offenders to service court appearances and sentencing processes. It also ensures information is available to sentencers on the availability of services, the costs and benefits of interventions and sentence options.

Offender Management

The Ministry sets strategic policy and direction for the delivery of end to end Offender Management by the Agency. The NOMS Agency commissions and operates Offender Management services which ensure offenders are managed in a consistent, constructive and coherent way during their entire sentence, whether in a custodial or community setting.

Custodial Services

The Ministry sets strategic policy and direction for adult custodial services and prison capacity. Public sector prisons are run by the NOMS Agency. Individual public sector prisons are managed through SLAs agreed between Directors of Offender Management in NOMS and Governors. Private sector prisons operate under contract to the NOMS Agency. The Agency is responsible for managing the prison population, including Prisoner Escort and Custody Services, maintaining the existing estate and building prison capacity. With ethical walls between the purchaser and provider, it lets, through a competitive process, and manages Service Level Agreements and contracts awarded to public and private sector organisations to build prisons and deliver custodial services. In addition, the NOMS Agency is commissioned by other organisations, in particular by the Youth Justice Board to provide secure accommodation places and attendance centres for young people, and by the Border and Immigration Agency to provide services to immigration detainees.

Offender Interventions

The Ministry sets strategic policy and direction for use of intervention services. The NOMS Agency commissions and directly provides interventions which implement sentences and orders of the courts and reduce offender risk of serious harm, address offender needs, and resettle and rehabilitate offenders across custody and the community. The Agency contracts Electronic Monitoring as a sentencing and court service utilised by Agency providers, the UK Border Agency, Youth Justice Board and counter terrorism operations.

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

1) Align supply with demand.

2) Increase efficiency and effectiveness.

3) Improve performance and public confidence.

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.