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

Ministry of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

(MOJ) responsible for the correctional services in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

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 ...

. 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 ...

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' 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 offense, other than through a ...

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

recidivism Recidivism (; from 'recurring', derived from 'again' and 'to fall') is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been trained to Extinction (psycholo ...

. 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 in the newly created Ministry of Justice. In January 2008, the then

Secretary of State for Justice The secretary of state for justice is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Ministry of Justice. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. Since the office's inception ...

Jack Straw John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretar ...

, announced major organisational reform which resulted in the Director-General of

, Phil Wheatley, 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 served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth da ...

, 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 an ...

(2004 to 2005) * Helen Edwards (2005 to 2008) * Phil Wheatley as Director-General (2008 to 2010) * Michael Spurr (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