NewsArchiveprob

A leaked letter from National Probation Service Director Roger Hill to Chief Officers of Probation appears to suggest that they are forbidden to lobby against the proposals to restructure the Service... more

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October 20, 2005: Privatising Probation: Napo's Response

Commenting today on the publication of the Home Office’s consultation paper on the Management of Offenders, Harry Fletcher, Assistant General Secretary of probation union Napo said... more

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October 20, 2005: Probation: 'Vibrant Mixed Economy' or Privatisation?

The Government has now published its consultation paper on the future of probation in England and Wales, titled “Restructuring Probation to Reduce Re-Offending”. The consultation paper proposes... more

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October 14, 2005: Napo Call: End Probation Crisis

At its 93rd Annual General Meeting, probation union Napo's chair Rob Thomas was highly critical of Government plans for the National Offender Management Service and opposed oppose moves to dismantle and privatise the Probation Service... more

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October 20, 2005: Privatising Probation: Napo's Response

Commenting today on the publication of the Home Office’s consultation paper on the Management of Offenders, Harry Fletcher, Assistant General Secretary of probation union Napo said... more

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October 19, 2005: New 'Victims' Code'

A new code that will give victims statutory rights for the first time was laid before Parliament today. The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime sets out the services victims can expect to receive from the criminal justice system including... more

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August 31, 2005: New Probation Statistics

New quarterly probation statistics have just been published by the Home Office. The statistics are provisional, pending publication of ... more

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July 22, 2005: Probation Pilot for Compulsory Unpaid Work

The National Probation Service has launched a series of projects as part of the Government’s drive to make Compulsory Unpaid Work more visible, and to promote greater engagement with local communities. The pilot schemes will operate in... more

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July 19, 2005: Just Published - Prisons and Probation Ombudsman's Annual Report

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Stephen Shaw opened 224 investigations into deaths in custody last year, according to his Annual Report which... more

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July 2, 2005: NOMS Chief Exec's Sudden Resignation

In a surprise move, Martin Narey, chief executive of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), is resigning to join children's charity Barnardo's. In November 2004, Mr Narey had emphasised that he would remain in post at NOMS, though there had been some media speculation about the continuing problems at the body which has merged the prison and probation services... more

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May 28, 2005: Probation Performance Achieves New Record

A culture of performance measurement with a framework of targets has gripped the public sector, not least the criminal justice system. The National Probation Service (NPS) has been part of that culture. The NPS has just released up-to-date information on its performance in 2004/05... more

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May 25, 2005: Number of Offenders Recalled to Prison Trebles

The number of offenders being recalled to prison after being released on licence in the community has more than trebled in the last five years, according to 'Recycling Offenders Through Prison', a new report from the Prison Reform Trust. The number is set to increase... more

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May 13, 2005: Lord Woolf: Probation is "Key to Tackling Reoffending"

Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, delivered the Cambridge University Institute of Criminology's first Radzinowicz Lecture, on 'Making Sense of Sentencing', yesterday. Lord Woolf stated that it was critical what happens to the offender following sentence... more

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April 25, 2005: Probation Union Napo Calls for End to Tagging

Probation Union Napo has called for the scrapping of the electronically monitored curfew order which is administered by private security companies. In a briefing paper, Napo argues that the electronically monitored curfew order... more

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February 2, 2005: Investing in Probation

Probation Boards in England and Wales will receive an average 10.7 per cent budget increase in the next financial year, Prisons and Probation Minister Paul Goggins announced today. The increase for individual boards ranges from... more

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January 13, 2005: Management of Offenders and Sentencing: Probation Response

Responding to the publication of the Management of Offenders and Sentencing Bill, Harry Fletcher, Assistant General Secretary of Napo, the Probation Union, gave an unambiguous analysis of the Bill's potential impact...more

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January 13, 2005: Changing Correctional Services and Sentencing

The government publishes the Management of Offenders and Sentencing Bill today. The Bill builds on changes already underway with the establishment of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and changes to the sentencing framework...more

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December 1, 2004: Napo and POA Resign From NOMS Board

Yesterday Judy McKnight, Chair of probation union Napo and Colin Moses, Chair of the Prison Officers Association resigned from the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) Board. Ms McKnight has published a copy of her resignation letter to Home Office Prisons and Probation Minister Paul Goggins. Her letter reads:

“I am writing formally to register my resignation from the NOMS Board with immediate effect.

As both Colin Moses and I have stated from the outset, it is only possible for us to continue on the Board if we can be there as representatives of our respective trade unions. Unfortunately, you have not been able to agree to our request.

As members of the Board on an individual basis it is clear that we do not have an equivalent status to other Board members. For instance, should we be unable to attend a meeting, we are unable to send deputies or be issued with Board papers.

There have also been a number of public references to the fact that the unions are represented on the NOMS Board. Martin Narey's interview in the Guardian on November 17th was one of the latest examples. This article stated:

"The board is a very large vehicle chaired by the minister in an attempt to bring together all parties. We are moving into a situation where we are going to have different providers. So we have the head of the public sector there, a representative of the private sector and the three main trade unions. This is a genuine attempt at real consultation."

This statement implies that the trade unions have equal status on the Board to other members, including not only the head of public sector prisons, but also the representative of private sector prisons. This is not the case.

It would, therefore, appear that our position as Board members is advantageous to NOMS management in seeking to convey to staff and to the public an impression of a commitment to consultation.

However, from our perspective, the reality has felt very different.

We say this particularly when it has just been announced that steps are now being taken to speed up the effective dismantling of the Probation Service in order to provide for the purchaser/provider split that is necessary for contestability, along with the announcement that a group of prisons will be identified for market testing in the next few weeks. These announcements, in respect of both the Probation Service and the Prison Service, have ignored the outcome of the consultation that has taken place to date.

Although we are resigning from the NOMS Board for the reasons set out above, we nevertheless hope that we can jointly discuss with you how best to provide for real consultation and discussion between us on developments in respect of NOMS.

Ensuring that the views and concerns of staff are properly heard and addressed is vital to the successful management of change. We therefore trust that we can meet with you at an early date to discuss how consultation should take place between us in a way which ensures that the views of our members are fully and properly taken into account in the decision making processes of NOMS.”

A leaked account in The Guardian of a meeting at Downing Street on November 18, 2004 indicates that an announcement naming prisons for market testing is to be made in the near future. It also suggests that NOMS staff will consider which areas in probation are suitable for market testing. It is suggested that there will be a focus on probation hostels, accredited programmes and drug testing and treatment orders. NOMS chief Martin Narey and Home Office ministers deny that contestability, as market testing is known, equates to privatisation, though others including Richard Garside of the Crime and Society Foundation have argued that contestability is very much about privatisation.

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October 15, 2004: Regional Offender Managers Are Here

Regional Offender Managers (ROMs) have arrived in England and Wales. ROMs are part of the move towards a radical new system aimed at more effective management of offenders. Ten new ROMs - one for each of the nine English regions and another for Wales - have been appointed and will commence work in November 2004. They will report to National Offender Manager Christine Knott, and will direct work in their regions to develop the concept of offender management in both the Prison and Probation Services to ensure that work done with an offender in custody is built on when they are released into the community. According to the Home Office, ROMs will play a pivotal role in driving forward major reforms to the way offenders are managed both in prison and by the Probation Service as recommended in the Carter Report, published earlier this year.

The Home Office has confirmed that by 2006-2007, the ROMs will:

Hold the budgets for the probation areas and prisons in their regions.
Commission services from prisons and local probation boards and hold both prisons and probation areas to account for their performance.
Improve performance by developing 'contestability' - allowing alternative service providers to compete for work so that regions obtain the very best value for money in managing offenders.

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October 13, 2004: Probation Staff Raise Concerns

Napo general secretary Judy McKnight in her speech to the Napo conference, voiced the concerns of Napo members about the way in the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has been introduced. She stated that:

“…the only business case that could be produced for NOMS is one that says that by bringing the Prison and Probation Services under a common umbrella, it provides a bigger market for the private sector to come in and make profits from the delivery of criminal justice.”

Ms McKnight stated that Napo would work jointly with the Prison Officers’ Association and other criminal justice system unions “to fight any, and every, attempt to privatise the delivery of justice.” Napo saw “no case, no rationale, to show that NOMS will improve service delivery, reduce re-offending rates or contribute towards reduced prison numbers” though Napo wanted to work with the Government on measures that truly addressed those objectives.

Ultimately, Napo’s view was that “… no case could possibly be made to establish a link between privatisation and improved service delivery”.

Noting that NOMS chief Martin Narey has sough to assure probation staff that contestability is not about privatisation, and that contestability has also led to some contracts coming back in house, Ms McKnight questioned the price of contestability:

"What price would we be expected to pay in terms of professional standards? In terms of the quality of training? What price is being paid already to the principles of diversity?"

While welcoming Mr Narey’s assurances on diversity and his promised action to ban the far right British National Party in NOMS, Ms McKnight noted that diversity as a commitment is not mentioned anywhere in the Carter's report which led to the creation of NOMS.

Ms McKnight also noted that in private prisons wages are 25 percent lower than those in their public sector counterpart.

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October 9, 2004: Minister Speaks to Probation Officers

Continued investment in the Probation Service should give rise to improvements in offender management, according to Home Office Prisons and Probation Minister Paul Goggins. In a speech to probation union NAPO’s conference, he described further investment in probation as fundamental for ensuring effective supervision of offenders by the new National Offender Management Service (NOMS). New funding will bring the total number of probation staff to 21,000 and continues year-on-year increases in staff numbers.

According to Mr Goggins:

"This Government has invested heavily in the Probation Service – this year spending some £300 million more than in 1997, and increasing staff numbers by over 5,000 in the same period. This investment is set to continue with further recruitment of front line and support staff. By 2006 the workforce will have increased by fifty per cent. But I want to be unambiguous about our expectations for this new money. I want to see a return on this investment, through a reduction of reoffending and more effective management of the offender through prison and in the community. The Probation Service has a vital role to play in this goal as a key part of a single Offender Management Service."

However, Mr Goggins also noted that there would be no retreat from current policies, including contestability (seen by some as a euphemism for privatisation).

"… I want to be clear that we are pressing ahead with reform, including further improvements in performance, the introduction of contestability, closer work with prisons and more partnerships with the private and voluntary sectors. This will be vital if we are to successfully introduce the new sentences under the Criminal Justice Act."

"The ability to deliver high quality offender management, in collaboration with others, has been powerfully evident in the development of Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements. While still relatively new, it is clear that the MAPPA represent a world-leading system for the management and supervision of dangerous offenders, and protects the public better than ever before. The ways of working that have been developed under MAPPA provide a blueprint for close co-operation between the Probation Service and other agencies, including the Prison Service and Police."

Mr Goggins' full speech to the NAPO confernence can be downloaded here.

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September 29, 2004: New Funding for Probation and Prisons

Home Secretary David Blunkett has announced new funding for prisons and probation in England and Wales. The new funding is part of an 8.4% increase - around £320 million - in spending on the Prison and Probation Services next year.

This sum adds to the significant funds already committed to prison and probation. It includes the recruitment of 1650 frontline staff and 150 support staff - to be recruited across all 42 probation areas over the next two years. It will bring the total number of probation staff to 21,000, and continues the year-on-year increases in new probation staff.

According to the Home Office, the aim is to ensure that “both custody and community punishments are modern and can address the needs of society and offenders by reducing re-offending and cutting crime”.

The Home Secretary outlined the policy thus:

"Providing modern and effective prisons is central to this Government's objective of reducing re-offending, protecting the public and sending the right signal to those for whom punishment in the community has failed to redeem their behaviour. I am committed to increasing places in prisons and probation to ensure that there is a prison place for all those serious and persistent offenders who need it and an effective community alternative for less serious offenders."

Although England and Wales already have proportionally the greatest number of prisoners per head of population in Western Europe, the current plan is to further increase prison capacity, taking the number of new prison places to over three-and-a-half thousand. Mr Blunkett stated that around £100 million of money in 2005-06 will pay for the start of a programme creating 1,300 new prison places. This is in addition to 2,400 new places due to be added to capacity over the next 18 months from the existing expansion programme.

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September 2, 2004: Satellite Tracking for Offenders Arrives in the UK

Home Secretary David Blunkett announced today that satellite tracking will be used to monitor offenders in three pilot areas in England: Greater Manchester, Hampshire and the West Midlands. All three areas will test the technology with prolific offenders and domestic violence offenders. Greater Manchester will also test the technology with sexual offenders, and Hampshire with young prolific offenders. This is the first time this technology has been used in offender management in Europe.

The technology utilises a satellite Global Positioning System to monitor offenders. The offender’s movements can be tracked in real time - appearing as a location on an ordinance survey map to within two metres. Offenders will be tracked following release from custody or as part of their compliance with a new community penalty (the ‘exclusion order’) which the Courts can impose to prevent an offender going to specific locations.

The pilots will run for 12 months, after which the government will decide whether to extend satellite tracking to the whole of England and Wales. The pilots will be evaluated by Home Office appointed researchers.

According to the Home Office, the new technology will help deter offenders from breaking the law, while providing extra intelligence to public protection agencies about the movements of ex-offenders to ensure they can intervene swiftly if necessary. The cost of tracking offenders will depend on how intensive the tracking is and on how many offenders are made subject to tracking. The government has budgeted £3million to cover start up costs, evaluation and project management. The estimated average cost per day for each offender tracked is £68. The pilots are taking place under the current electronic monitoring contracts. The current suppliers are Securicor, Reliance and Premier.

Probation Service Director General Steve Murphy stated that the National Probation Service is already effectively managing offenders subject to electronic tagging:

"Introducing satellite tracking represents the next step in monitoring offender movements whilst they serve the community element of any sentence. This testing of satellite tracking will enable probation staff and police forces to work even more closely in protecting the public."

According to the Home Secretary:

"This technology will allow us to be equally tough with offenders released from prison using the latest technology to ensure they are sticking to the conditions of their licence and staying away from crime… This technology will allow us to develop and promote the tough community sentences which are vital if we are to prevent re-offending and give non-violent offenders a chance to serve an effective sentence in the community. The public have to be confident that this ‘prison without bars’ works and that it gives the police and probation services the tools they need to protect them. This will build on the success of electronic tagging in monitoring offenders.

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August 1, 2004: Government Climbdown a "Victory for Common Sense" says Napo

The government has pulled back from an imminent move to a regionally based probation service, following wide resistance to from probation union Napo and many probation boards. They consistently opposed the moves to radically restructure the Probation Service by splitting it into two parts, offender management and interventions, in order to create an artificial purchaser/provider split. These proposals involved dismantling the current Service based on 42 Probation Areas, and transferring the management of the offender management part of the Service to ten Regional Boards and moving the interventions work to a new national employer.

Judy McKnight, Napo General Secretary, welcomed a “victory for common sense” which showed that the Government had learned from the near unanimous opposition to the original restructuring plans for the Probation. She commented:

"Napo has consistently supported the need for strategies that reduce prison numbers and reduce reoffending. The wholesale reorganisation of the Probation Service in order to expose it to the threat of privatisation, was never the way to achieve that vision."

“Napo believes that the continuation of an integrated Probation Service, working in partnership with local communities, properly resourced, and free from the threat of privatisation, should be the lynch pin for the future delivery of an effective community focused justice system."

Martin Narey, Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service said:

“I concluded, and Ministers agreed, that designing a new organisation at this pace could severely impact on performance in the Probation Service.”

He also noted that the current interim model did not signal a change of direction and that he plans to push ahead with ‘contestability’ – seen be some to effectively mean a degree of privatization of probation. In Narey’s own words, “we can consider giving the private and not-for-profit sector an opportunity, working for the Probation Board, to take over all the functions of a probation area”.

However, his statement did not rule out the threat of further restructuring in future.

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July 30, 2004: New Inspection on Probation and Domestic Violence

A new report on probation intervention aimed at Reducing Domestic Violence has just been published. The thematic inspection by HM Inspectorate of Probation on National Probation Service (NPS) Work with Domestic Violence Perpetrators was the second of the thematic inspections within the new Effective Supervision Inspection programme. Chief Inspector of Probation Andrew Bridges comments in the Inspection that the Council of Europe has stated that domestic violence:

“is the major cause of death and disability for women aged 16-44, and accounts for more death and ill-health than cancer or traffic accidents. The National Probation Service plays an important role in trying to make an impact on this offending”.

It therefore causes concern that the inspection findings reveal that there is much need for improvement, and no room for complacency. Just over a third of the cases inspected paid sufficient concern to victim safety.As Andrew Bridges comments, responding to the recommendations of this report will be a challenge against the backdrop of the introduction of National Offender Management Service and the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The overall aim of the inspection was to:

“determine the extent to which the NPS contributes to the reduction of harm to primary and secondary victims of domestic violence”

More specifically, the inspection aimed to determine the extent to which, in relation to domestice violence, the NPS:

identifies all relevant cases consistently
assesses accurately the risks/criminogenic needs of offenders
delivers effectively evidence-based interventions to address risk and criminogenic need
reduces the risk of harm to victims and others
gives priority to victims' concerns
addresses race, gender and other aspects of diversity for both victims and perpetrators.

The inspection is well worth a detailed reading. However, key findings included:

Some probation practitioners were aware of the power and control issues underlying domestic violence and the offender’s capacity to minimise their violence, and attribute its cause to the victim’s behaviour. They demonstrated persistent efforts to address these issues in their work with offenders. Other practitioners, however, lacked this awareness and persistence, and were often inclined to take perpetrator accounts at face value.
Management oversight of cases was sufficient in less than half of cases.
There was a lack of appropriate interventions for domestic violence offenders to address their specific criminogenic needs.
Though judgements about the acceptability of absences were mostly appropriate, breach action was not always taken within national standards timescales. Only two-thirds of cases were offered appointments in line with national standards. With domestic violence cases home visits can be an essential part of the casework because information can be gleaned and the case manager can get a more rounded picture of the home life of the offender.
Information about breach of civil court or restraining orders was not passed promptly to relevant authorities.
There was a lack of specialist resources available to assist case managers. Case managers often did not motivate the offender to address their offending. Sometimes this resulted from a failure to fully address domestic issues during supervision.
The quality of pre-release work was poor.
Insufficient was done to respond to changes in the risk of harm status.
The quality of risk management plans was poor.
The risk of harm to children from domestic violence was not addressed sufficiently.

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July 28, 2004: More Sex Offenders? MAPPA Reports Published

42 local annual reports outlining the work of Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) were published today. Each individual area report can be downloaded here.The MAPPA provide the statutory framework for inter-agency co-operation in assessing and managing violent and sex offenders in England and Wales, and ensure much closer supervision of offenders. The Criminal Justice and Court Services Act (2000) established the MAPPA and placed them on a statutory basis.

Under the arrangements, Police, Probation, Prisons and other key agencies combine forces to manage the risk posed by dangerous offenders. Those ‘critical few’ offenders that pose the highest risk are referred to a Multi-Agency Public Protection Panel (MAPPP), where their cases are regularly scrutinised by senior representatives of local agencies. In the last year, 39,622 offenders were covered by MAPPA arrangements, 2,152 of whom were referred to MAPPP.

The total number of MAPPA offenders has fallen from 52,809 in 2002/3 to 39,492 in 2003/4. This is because for 2003/4 the basis for counting Violent and Other Sex Offenders was changed to a community based figure, rather than including offenders in custody. This ensures that all categories now reflect the supervision of offenders in the community.

The total number of registered sex offenders has risen from 21,413 in 2002/3 to 24, 572 in 2003/4, an increase of almost 15%. This was not unforeseen, as the length of time offenders remain on the register is determined by the length of their sentence. This registration requirement currently varies between 5 years and life. As a result, the number of registered sex offenders is cumulative.

Paul Goggins, Minister for the Correctional Services, commented:

"In the MAPPA we have a system of managing and monitoring dangerous offenders that is world-leading, and succeeds in protecting the public better than ever before. The arrangements have enabled Police, Probation and Prisons, with the committed involvement of partner agencies, to work at their very best in supervising dangerous cases through active co-operation with each other… The small proportion of offenders that pose the highest risk are more closely scrutinised than ever by the Multi-Agency Public Protection Panels (MAPPPs). And only a very small proportion – this year as low as 1 per cent – of offenders referred to MAPPPs are charged with serious further offences."

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July 20, 2004: Probation's new Annual Report 2003/04

The National Probation Service (NPS) for England and Wales has just published its Annual Report for 2003/04. Key points include:

A total of 13,136 offenders completed accredited programmes in 2003/04 (double the number in 2002/03).

The number of Drug Treatment and Testing Orders (DTTOs) increased from 6,000 to 9,000.

More than 50% fewer of those given a new order or licence dropped out of programmes in 2003/04 than in 2001/02. Reasons for dropout in 2003/04 were familiar; the most commonly stated reason was breach of order or licence revoked.

The national standard for victim contact work is that probation should offer face-to-face contact between the victim and a member of the probation service (or their agent) within 8 weeks of the offender being sentenced. The NPS target is to make initial contact within that timescale in 85% of eligible cases. This was exceeded in 2003/04 when 91% was achieved.

The year has seen greater use of electronic monitoring for both adult and juvenile offenders. The use of the Home Detention Curfew (HDC) to allow early release from custody has increased, with the maximum period on HDC extended from three months to four and a half months.

The electronic monitoring of a curfew is now part of the Intensive Control and Change Programme (ICCP), for 18 to 20 year olds which was introduced in April 2003 and which will be expanded to more areas of England and Wales.

Alongside ICCP, provision was made for a combination of community punishment and electronically monitored curfews for those with lower criminogenic needs than those in receipt of ICCP.

The year 2003/04 has seen major advances in the use of Offender Assessment System (OASys), the risk and needs assessment system for adult offenders developed jointly by probation and prisons. A year ago, most probation areas were using a paper version of OASys. All areas are now live on e-OASys. Electronic OASys allows information to be shared across an area. With the electronic system has come a greatly enhanced ability to evaluate data from all 42 probation areas. The electronic input of OASys information has permitted a much more sophisticated and timely analysis of probation work.

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June 7, 2004: New National Offender Manager Appointed

The Home Office has announced that Christine Knott, CBE, has been appointed the first National Offender Manager for England and Wales. Ms Knott, currently Chief Officer of Greater Manchester Probation Area, will report directly to Martin Narey Chief Executive of the new National Offender Management Service (NOMS).

This represents an important step forward in the setting of the new single service supervising the “end-to-end management” of all offenders. It is envisaged that the Prison and Probation Services will form a fully integrated and regionalised structure within five years. Ms Knott will take over the procurement and management of national contracts for custodial places and the provision of programmes in the community and in custody.Her responsibilities will include:

Management of the soon to be appointed 10 Regional Offender Managers in the nine English regions and Wales
Delegated responsibility for a substantial budget for managing offenders in custody or in the community and for ensuring that the necessary services and interventions are available
Ensuring the regional infrastructure for supporting offender management is robust
Over time, playing a crucial role in developing “contestability” across the correctional services to ensure best value for money

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June 1, 2004: National Offender Management Service (NOMS): It's Official

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) was officially established today (1 June, 2004). Surprisingly, particularly in view of the scale of the new service, this date almost escaped media notice - the only mainstream press comments being short pieces in the Independent and the Scotsman.

NOMS, headed by Chief Executive Martin Narey, will be a single service, with around 65,000 public sector staff and an initial budget of £3.2 billion. The government states that NOMS’s central purpose is the reduction of re-offending through more consistent and effective offender management. The Carter review of correctional service in January 2004 stated that if government failed to act to rebalance the system we would, by the end of the decade, have 93,000 people in prison and 300,000 on community sentences. The government believes that by rebalancing the system the prison population can be held at around 80,000.

According to Home Office Prisons and Probation minister Paul Goggins, NOMS:

“provides a once in a generation opportunity to revolutionise the way we treat offenders and challenge offending behaviour.”

Probation staff union NAPO disagrees. It takes the view that:

“NOMS is not about merging the prison and probation services; nor about creating a new streamlined single employing body, to oversee the management of offenders. NOMS is actually about increasing the number of employers involved in offender management. It is about pitting these employers - pu blic, private and voluntary sector - against each other, in a competitive framework dubbed "contestability", in order to drive down costs.” (NAPO NOMS campaign bulletin no. 9)

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May 19, 2004: More Money for Probation

Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Correctional Services Paul Goggins MP has announced that local Probation Areas will be awarded an extra £16.1m. The money will provide:

an increase of 1 per cent to each of the 35 non-metropolitan probation areas, totalling £3.3m
£3.5m for the seven metropolitan areas (including £1.3m for London)
a further £2.3m to improve services in London (making a total of £3.6m or 3.9 per cent additional funding for London)
£6m additional capital funding for investment in new buildings or the refurbishment of existing properties
£1m to cover new revenue costs that the extra capital spending will entail

In addition, areas will receive funding to recruit 780 Trainee Probation Officers (TPOs) and 365 Probation Service Officers (PSOs), so that the Probation Service is equipped to deliver new community sentences that will be brought in as part of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduces a new sentencing framework and replaces current community and custodial penalties with the Community Sentence, Custody Plus, Custody Minus, and Intermittent Custody. It is anticipated that the current workload of the National Probation Service will rise from 205,000 offenders daily to approximately 245,000 when all the provisions are implemented. The new National Offender Management Service (NOMS), which brings together the management of the Prison and Probation services, is critical to the successful delivery of the Act and more information about the changes is contained in the Government’s response to the Correctional Services Review, Reducing Crime, Changing Lives.

TPOs undertake a two-year degree course that combines academic and practice learning and leads to the award of the Diploma in Probation Studies and qualification at NVQ Level 4. PSOs operate at NVQ Level 3 and have a variety of in-service training courses to equip them to deliver services such as enhanced community punishment, accredited programmes and basic skills assessments. They also have the opportunity to study for the Certificate in Community Justice.

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May 15, 2004: Vision for the National Offender Management Service

Martin Narey, Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), has outlined his vision for NOMS. Within five years, he wants to see a Service which:

Enjoys the confidence of Ministers, sentencers, offenders and the public at large
Engages with sentencers locally and nationally, and provides them with professional, appropriate and timely advice both in individual cases, and on the impact and outcomes of their collective sentencing decisions
Provides genuine end to end management of offenders, whether in custody or the community, which appropriately balances the need for punishment and the protection of the public with helping offenders to address the causes of their offending
Working with partners in other agencies, and service providers in the public, private and voluntary sectors, offers sentencers and offenders a coherent and comprehensive range of support and interventions designed to reduce reoffending
Harnesses the commissioning role of Regional Offender Managers in ways which rewards success, encourages innovation, improves choice and delivers the best possible service for the budget we are given
Demonstrably reduces reoffending and crime
Is confident and has a genuinely diverse workforce at all levels which is proud to work within NOMS

Narey believes that NOMS “will see a significant expansion of community penalties that… will persuade sentencers to use custody less frequently”. In his view,

“The biggest and most important change with NOMS however will be the transition of Probation Officers into Offender Managers, managing offenders under community penalties but also, for the first time, having a significant influence on what happens to an offender in prison.”

While prison governors will continue to be entirely accountable for the running of their prisons, Narey expects the Offender Manager to be consulted in deciding which prisoners are, for example, put on offender behaviour programmes.

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May 12, 2004: Probation Protest

1200 staff from throughout England and Wales lobbied against plans to merge the probation and prison services into the new National Offenders Management Service (NOMS). The rally reflected widespread concern amongst probation staff about the transition to NOMS, due to commence on June 1, 2004.

The rally was organised by Napo, the trade union representing over 7500 probation and family court staff. Napo believes that NOMS will mean greater bureaucracy and confusion. According to a Napo statement:

“The Probation Service was last reorganised in April, 2001, is chronically underfunded and understaffed and does not need yet another reorganisation. Staff also feel they are being cajoled into accepting the changes with the threat of contestability or privatisation if they do not meet arbitrarily set targets.”

Napo general secretary Judy McKnight told the rally:

"Today our fight is not just about seeking to preserve our standards and ethos and values, and yes, all those issues are at risk again, but it is also much more. It is about the opposing destruction of the service in its entirety, by splitting it in two, and casting it out to the wolves of the private sector."

Speakers from the three major political parties who opposed the planned merger included Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews. He argued that offenders were best dealt with via rehabilitation rather than punishment and prison. If NOMS moved away from this principle, it represented a “ghastly Orwellian idea."

The Home Office plans to introduce “contestability” by 2009 and allow private organisations and voluntary agencies to compete with the public sector, The Home Office perspective suggests that developing a market will enable value for money for the taxpayer and reduced offending, and ensure that the service can benefit from private sector input.

Napo sees the move to allow this as effectively introducing privatisation, and inherently problematic in that public protection may be compromised by private firms cutting corners. Members of Parliament were urged by Napo to sign an early day motion which endorses the work of the Probation and Prison Services and urges that these be properly funded to allow them to carry out all their statutory duties free of the threat of contestability. According to a Napo press release:

"The Probation Service was last reorganised in April 2001, is chronically underfunded and understaffed and does not need yet another reorganisation."

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May 5, 2004: Early Day Motion on the new National Offender Management Service

The following Early Day Motion (EDM 1119) on the new National Offender Management Service has begun to circulate:

"That this House has deep concerns about the structure of the National Offender Management Service, particularly the lack of organisational detail; strongly endorses the work of both the National Probation Service and Her Majesty's Prison Service; and therefore calls upon the Government to ensure that both services receive adequate public funding for their purpose and that the process of contestability is not used as a threat to staff or voluntary sector providers."

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