His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service is an executive agency of the

Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry. Lists of current ministries of justice Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia) * Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Just ...

(MOJ) responsible for the correctional services in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. It was created in 2004 as the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) by combining parts of both of the headquarters of the

National Probation Service The Probation Service (formerly the National Probation Service) for England and Wales is a statutory criminal justice service, mainly responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community and the provision of reports to the criminal cour ...

and

His Majesty's Prison Service His Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS) is a part of HM Prison and Probation Service (formerly the National Offender Management Service), which is the part of His Majesty's Government charged with managing most of the prisons within England and Wal ...

with some existing Home Office functions. In 2017, some of the agency's functions transferred to the Ministry of Justice and it received a new name.

History

Creation as NOMS

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 In economics, the theory of contestable markets, associated primarily with its 1982 proponent William J. Baumol, held that there are markets served by a small number of firms that are nevertheless characterized by competitive equilibrium (and th ...

' 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 sentence Community sentence or alternative sentencing or non-custodial sentence is a collective name in criminal justice for all the different ways in which courts can punish a defendant who has been convicted of committing an offence, other than through a ...

s as opposed to prison sentences through better management of offenders, leading to reduced levels of

recidivism Recidivism (; from ''recidive'' and ''ism'', from Latin ''recidīvus'' "recurring", from ''re-'' "back" and ''cadō'' "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of th ...

. The Government accepted these proposals.

Changes following the creation of the MOJ

On 9 May 2007 the correctional services element of the Home Office was moved to join the former

Department of Constitutional Affairs The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) was a United Kingdom government department. Its creation was announced on 12 June 2003; it took over the functions of the Lord Chancellor's Department. On 28 March 2007 it was announced that the De ...

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

Phil Wheatley Philip Martin Wheatley CB (born 4 July 1948) is a retired British civil servant, formerly the Director-General of the National Offender Management Service and before that, Director-General of HM Prison Service. Having attended Leeds Grammar Scho ...

, becoming the Chief Executive of NOMS, and assuming responsibility for both the

(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

Introduction of HMPPS

In February 2017, the then-Secretary of State for Justice,

Liz Truss Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who briefly served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth day in office, she stepped down ...

, confirmed that NOMS would be replaced by HMPPS in April that year. Responsibility for commissioning services, development of policy and setting standards passed from the agency to the MoJ.

List of Chief Executives

Martin Narey Sir Martin James Narey DL (born 5 August 1955, in Middlesbrough) is an advisor to the British Government, and a former civil servant and charity executive. He served as director general of the Prison Service of England and Wales between 1998 and ...

(2004 to 2005) * Helen Edwards (2005 to 2008) *

as Director-General (2008 to 2010) *

Michael Spurr Michael Spurr, (born 20 September 1961) was Chief Executive Officer of HM Prison and Probation Service 2010–2019. He joined HM Prison Service in 1983 as a prison officer, before training to become a Governor a year later. He became Chief Execut ...

(2010 to 2019) *Jo Farrar (2019 to 2022) *Amy Rees (2022 to present)

References

External links

*
HM Prison Service

National Probation Service
{{Authority control Prison and correctional agencies Penal system in England Executive agencies of the United Kingdom government 2004 establishments in England Penal system in Wales Government agencies established in 2004 Probation