Memorandum submitted by NOMS, Ministry
of Justice
Q 275:
A key programme in the NOMS Agency changes is
the Specification Benchmarking and Costing programme. This programme
seeks to be clear about the work that Directors of Offender Management
(who should be in place by April 2009) will purchase from Prisons
and Probation. It is expected to deliver a more consistent quality
standard and enable costs to be compared more effectively. There
are significant cost pressures in NOMS currently and the savings
that may be achieved are intended for internal reinvestment to
enable the continued delivery of community and custodial services
in the Criminal Justice system. I made it clear in my evidence
that I believed any reinvestment from the NOMS budget would require
an active government policy of reducing the prison population.
Current policy is a prison building programme and a prison population
at, and often above, capacity. Without creating headroom in a
planned and sustained way (say a cap of 75,000) reinvestment is
not a realistic proposition.
DOMs have a key role to play with Local Area Agreements,
influencing LAs to incorporate targets (and consequently investment)
that reduces re-offending.
It also remains my view that reducing re-ofending
should be a statutory duty (not an optional target) for local
authorities and other government department—such an approach
would guarantee investment.
Q 280:
Sentencing should be an independent function,
much is rightly made of this, it is equally true that sentencing
decisions have a direct resource consequence. This is a very tricky
area for discussion and sentencers fiercely defend their independence.
I think (and the community courts should tell us this) that greater
community involvement in the sentencing process would probably
divert more people on to community orders—and has the potential
for reinvestment through that route.
Roger Hill
Director of Probation
September 2008
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