4 National Offender Management Service
The creation of NOMS
169. The National Offender Management Service
(NOMS) was set up in 2004 in response to criticisms by Lord Carter
of Coles of ineffective policy-making at the Home Office. Briefly,
its aim was to ensure "end-to-end" offender management
throughout the criminal justice system by bringing the Prison
and Probation Services into one organisational structure. Its
annual budget is £4.5 million.
170. Cordell Pillay, of Napo, the probation officers
union, endorsed the idea behind the creation of NOMS but was critical
of the practice:
From the outset there was not a clear structure or
framework for NOMS, so there is no clarity from the probation
perspective and no clarity from the prison perspective. …There
was no serious planning in relation to it. There was no real consultation.
…We do not know who had overall responsibility for probation,
who had overall responsibility for prisons. It tended to change
from day to day, and that is at the top level. If you think about
it lower down, probation officers and prison officers would say
that they have seen very little change in terms of seamless sentencing
or even in relation to working together….I think we have
missed the opportunity to look at the best practices within prison
and the best practices within probation, and bring them together
in terms of working within a prison setting...[185]
171. The Prison Reform Trust submitted that NOMS
had, to date, failed sufficiently to break down the barriers between
the different criminal justice services or reduce the insular
nature of the prison environment.[186]
Peter Olech of the Public
and Commercial Services Union, which represents non-prison officer
staff of all grades, was more positive, although believed NOMS
was too novel to truly assess:
I think it is early days for NOMS, but, I think,
from our union's point of view, the move into the Ministry of
Justice was beneficial, it makes sense and we are starting to
see some projects where it makes sense, for example the creation
of a single MoJ procurement division, a single MoJ IT division
that have efficiencies and economies and commonsense attached
to them… think NOMS is early doors in terms of assessing,
but we support the principle [of end to end offender management]
and it has got to be worked through.[187]
172. We have seen no evidence that the creation
of the National Offender Management Service has achieved the seamless
end-to-end management of prisoners that was intended. We believe
this may be due, in part, to the wider lack of clarity over the
aim of imprisonment. We continue to be concerned about the absence
of clarity of purpose in regard to the criminal justice system
generally and this creates particular problems for the Prison
Service.
THE OFFENDER SUPERVISOR ROLE
173. As a consequence of the introduction of
the offender management system some prison officers have become
'offender supervisors.' Offender supervisors are assigned to all
prisoners who "come within the Offender Management Model"
which includes prisoners serving an indeterminate sentence for
public protection, offenders who pose a high risk of harm, prolific
offenders and some others. The offender supervisor's role is to
assist the prisoner in carrying out the sentence plan of offending
behaviour work set by the prisoner's probation officer or offender
manager. In written evidence the Ministry of Justice commented
on the model as follows:
The [Offender Management] model enhances the role
of prison officers by adding a new dimension to their traditional
residential and security role; involving them in work to address
offending behaviour and preparation for release.
The role of Offender Supervisor in custody uses the
skills of the prison officer to engage and motivate offenders
towards achieving their sentence plan objectives and to liaise
with other prison, probation and Third Sector staff to ensure
compliance with the sentence plan. During the middle phase of
longer periods in custody, the Offender Supervisor becomes central,
acting as the agent for the Offender Manager [probation officer
overseeing the offender].[188]
The submission went on to say: those officers who
are appointed to the role of Offender Supervisors receive formal
training in the role and the use of risk and needs assessment
tools. In addition they form part of a multi-disciplinary team
and through joint working gain a greater understanding of evidence
based decision making and risk management.[189]
174. The offender supervisor role is not an innovation.
The Ministry of Justice's submission notes that the role is already
known by a number of names including case supervisor, case worker,
mentor and personal officer. Personal officer schemes usually
see a named officer assigned either on arrival or shortly after
arrival at the prison. A personal officer is the first port of
call for a prisoner and is expected to help with anything from
sentence planning to food requirements to bereavements. The innovative
aspects are the formalisation of relationships between a named
prison officer and a named probation officer (who oversees an
offender's entire sentence, in custody and in the community) and
the targeting of the role at a specific group of prisoners.
175. The Chief Inspector of Prisons wrote:
Inspections of [the end-to-end offender management
model]…in prisons, jointly with the Inspectorate of Probation,
have revealed a mixed picture. In some prisons, [the offender
supervisors' tasks are]…exclusively provided by seconded
probation staff; in others, prison staff lack the training to
carry out the motivational interviewing essential to the role,
or to carry out assessments of risk. Neither is likely to ensure
that offender management is both effective and embedded in the
work of the prison.[190]
176. A number of contributors to the e-consultation
complained about the lack of time offender supervisors or personal
officers (personal officer is still the usual term amongst those
living or working in the criminal justice system) had to spend
with the prisoners in their charge, and the risk that this can
reduce the role to a 'box ticking' exercise:
To have the ability to help rehabilitate prisoners
officers need the skills and the time to do so. The whole culture
within our prisons has turned into a "tickbox" exercise
where the most important thing for governors and managers is that
targets are met because if it says on paper that things are all
well and good then they must be mustn't they??... The point I'm
trying to make is stop tying our hands with pointless targets,
mountains of pointless paperwork, and stop taking away resources
from the frontline as it were.[191]
177. Another contributor, who described him or
herself as a prison officer, felt disengaged:
What is…very clear is that NOMS only plays lip-service
to rehabilitation in prisons- there is no investment, there is
no time.[192]
178. Bobby Cummines, of UNLOCK, also told us
that personal officer schemes had to be given sufficient priority
and noted the potential gravity of the consequences when the role
was undervalued as in the murder of Zahid Mubarek, a prisoner
in HMYOI Feltham, who was murder by his racist cellmate. Mr Cummines
told us that the inquiry had found that prisoners in Feltham had
been assigned personal officers but "it was in name only,
it was not really happening in the prison, but they were ticking
the boxes that it was."[193]
179. One witness, Danny Afzal, spoke of the personal
impact upon him of a personal officer failing properly to complete
paperwork while otherwise engaging and working with him during
his custodial sentence:
I remember having a personal officer and when it
came to my parole hearing and they opened the basic statement,
which is the history of my behaviour in the prison, there was
nothing in it at all. I felt hard done-by that even though officers
did engage me on a personal level no reports were written, and
I got refused parole. Sometimes prison officers need to have a
set amount of work to do.[194]
180. Mr Afzal's comments on what he perceived
as an unprofessional attitude to the role of personal officer
(plus criticism of a "no trouble, no report" approach)
were supported by Charlie Ryder, an ex-prisoner, in his endorsement
of an article by prisoner Paul Sullivan writing in a newspaper
for prisoners 'Inside Times':
I would have an officer warder who would act as a
personal officer to up to 20 inmates. This would be at least 50%
of his or her allotted time and inviolate time as every job would
be audited and have a job description (not fitted in as and when).
It would be the officer warder's job and responsibility. Too often
failures by warders are blamed on inmates. The personal officer
would be the only uniformed staff to write reports on his or her
inmates. To cover other areas (workshop, education) he or she
would liaise and then write a balanced report. At present, most
writing is based on ignorance and prejudice, but by professionalising
the system, by ensuring more self-reflection and accountability,
and updating skills with relevant qualifications…we begin
to professionalise the system.[195]
181. The offender supervisor role has the
potential to become the "key figure" in a prisoner's
rehabilitation. Yet, if an officer is responsible for too many
prisoners, this will destroy an excellent opportunity for engagement
and make the role a box-ticking exercise. The Ministry of Justice
must commit resources to training officers in the offender supervisor
role and limiting their responsibilities to a small number of
prisoners. Otherwise this welcome development will be a waste
of time and resources.
182. The undermining of the offender supervisor
role has not improved relationships between prison officers and
management. We regret this. The Ministry of Justice should aim
to allot offender supervisors, or personal officers, to all prisoners
serving over two years.
185 Q 243 Back
186
Ev 151 Back
187
Q 118 Back
188
Ev 120 Back
189
Ev 121 Back
190
Ev 72 Back
191
25 March 2009 Back
192
26 March 2009 Back
193
Q 192 Back
194
Q 208 Back
195
Q 187 Back
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