There has been a regional offender manager (ROM) for each of the nine English regions and

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

since 2004/05, when the

National Offender Management Service His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) responsible for the correctional services in England and Wales. It was created in 2004 as the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) by combi ...

within the

Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

was created to oversee correctional services in England and Wales. Their establishment was part of the process begun by the Carter Report (2003) which had recommended a new service to bring the roles 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 prisons closer together in the management of offenders. ROMS are responsible for the improvement of the performance of the providers in their respective regions with which they have service level agreements (in the case of public sector prisons and probation areas) and contracts (in the case of private sector prisons). They are also accountable for the reduction of reoffending in their regions, which they seek to effect through multi-agency partnerships between the agencies and other government departments which can influence the factors which are known to increase the likelihood of offending, such as problematic use with alcohol or drugs, inadequate or no accommodation, physical and mental health, and finance, debt and benefit problems. Following the restructure of NOMS in 2008, prison area managers and ROMS were merged into one office working to a new post, the director of offender management (DOM) in each region.Probation Update: From ROM to DOM
/ref> The two areas that piloted this (Wales and London) no longer have a ROM at all, instead the workload has been directly transferred to the new DOM.

References

{{reflist Prison and correctional agencies Penal system in England Penal system in Wales