NOMS to Stay Shock

Life can be very unfair at times. When the news broke that a list of 177 QUANGO's destined to get the chop had been leaked to the Daily Telegraph, I admit I rushed out and got a copy in the desperate hope that NOMS, the National Offender Management Service, just might be on it. But then I remembered it's now an Executive Agency and safe.

I think it was as a result of some blue-sky thinking commissioned by Tony Blair from Patrick Carter, a labour businessman, that we got saddled with this dreadful, expensive and totally unnecessary bureaucratic agency in the first place. It was said the idea was one of 'seamless end-to-end management of the supervision of offenders' and to introduce an element of contestability (or 'tension' in the system, he later admitted) and the separation of commissioning from suppliers of services. Incredibly, as initially conceived, it provided a whole new layer of management and administration between that of the Probation Service, Prison Service and the Home Office. I think I heard that their costs were equivalent to the total annual probation budget. It didn't only have a swish London Headquarters, but also a regional structure with Regional Offender Managers (ROM's).

Naturally there was to be a fantastic new computer system, snappily called C-NOMIS that would link up the two Services in order to facilitate the new era of 'end-to-end offender management'. Like all government IT projects, it went massively over-budget, was going to be years late, wasn't going to be able to do what was required and so was predictably cancelled. As a result of the subsequent outrcry, NOMS got a makeover and basically the Prison Service were allowed to take control, integrate their management structure and effectively sideline the poor old Probation Service. Only one former probation person, Roger Hill, holds a senior position as one of nine new Directors of Offender Management. 

As part of the new offender supervision landscape, the last government made all former nationalised Probation Service's become independent Trusts. The plan is that NOMS, on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and via the DOM's, will act as the Commissioning Agency for all offender services, both in custody and in the community. So this has very neatly put in place the infrastructure that will enable the new coalition government to put out to tender both prison and probation contracts in order to save money. They have just announced that ten further prisons are to be the subject of 'market testing' and the new Probation Trusts will shortly have to compete with the private and voluntary sector for some or all of their current work. It seems as if Roger Hill intends to lead the way in the South East - and he's the former probation man. 

This is a very depressing time for the Probation Service. Basically it's been the subject of a forced marriage with a macho partner that doesn't understand it's culture or methodology. In this unequal partnership the Probation Service has been effectively robbed of it's national voice. Having ceased to be classed as Civil Servants with the change to Trust status, probation chiefs can once more speak out publicly, but each will now be reduced to fighting a rear-guard action in defence of their own individual Service's. In short, a very sad and depressing political environment for practitioners to operate in.