National Offender Management Service

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is a department of the Home Office responsible for the correctional services in England and Wales (separate arrangements exist in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was created by combining parts of the headquarters of the National Probation Service and Her Majesty's Prison Service.

Creation

NOMS was created on 1 June 2004 following a review by Patrick Carter (now Lord Carter), a Labour Party 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 their 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, efficency 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 in full.

External Links

The Home Office Website's section on NOMS