HM Prison & Probation Services
National Offender Management Service
Preventing Victims by changing lives
NOMS: The Agency
The National Offender Management Service Agency (NOMS) was launched as an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in July 2008 and joined together the Prison and Probation Services in England and Wales.
The aim of this bold move was to integrate the work of both services thus providing a coordinated system for managing offenders in the community, in Prison and after release.
NOMS statement of purpose is:
‘We work to protect the public and reduce re offending by delivering the punishment and orders of the courts and by helping offenders to reform their lives.'
NOMS faces three main challenges to achieving their aims:
- Balancing resources between Prison and Probation
- Improving efficiency and effectiveness
- Improving the system of offender management.
Their plans include expansion of the number and quality of Prison places and the transition for all 42 Probation Areas from being managed by Probation Boards to having Trust Status by April 2010.
While offender management currently relies upon Probation/Prison partnerships with other statutory, and third sector organisations the transition to Probation Trust status will open up the possibilities for organisations to bid for sections of work which have previously been exclusive to Probation, in much the same way as some Prisons are now privately managed.
Ten Directors of Offender Management (DOM) have been appointed to allocate resources on a regional level and to ensure quality and value for money in commissioning and delivery of services for adult offender management in England and Wales.
NOMS works with, and for, staff and offenders who have diverse backgrounds, origins, beliefs and attitudes. NOMS is an Equal Opportunities employer and takes an active role in delivering services and employment that respects difference and which are free from prejudices associated with culture, race, religion, gender, sex orientation, disability and age.
While offenders can be a very diverse and challenging group there has been an urgent need to establish a single clear and consistent system of offender assessment and management across the Prison and Probation services.
The Offender Management Model was introduced in 2006 and established for the first time a national case management system for Prison and Probation. The Offender Management model for serving prisoners is predicated upon the notion of the ‘seamless sentence.' This entails a closer joint working of Prison and Probation in risk assessment, sentence planning and delivery of individual sentence plans throughout the offender's sentence.
The explicit aim of all such work is to reduce both the risk of harm they present to others and their likelihood of reoffending.
The OM model encourages continuity of oversight and increasingly new technology is being used - e.g. video and telephone conferencing - to enable Offender Managers (Community based Probation Officers) to chair Sentence Plan meetings with prisoners and Prison staff.
The Role of the Offender Manager:
Offender managers play a vital role in bridging the disparate and sometimes conflicting worlds of Prison and the community together.
Their responsibilities include:
- preparing Pre Sentence Reports for Court
- Risk assessment and risk management,
- Sentence planning and delivery
- Parole report preparation,
- Ensuring appropriate arrangements for made for release.
- Enforcement of Community Orders and Licence Supervision
For high-risk offenders this will involve referral to MAPPA (Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements), MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferencing) or working within local PPO (Prolific and other Priority Offender) arrangements or the Safeguarding Agenda in respect of both children and adults.
The OM Model in Prison
Each serving Prisoner is allocated an Offender Supervisor. This will usually be a Prison Officer or a Probation Officer/Probation Service Officer seconded to a Prison Offender Management Unit),
The Offender Supervisor's responsibilities include:
- Conducting post sentence interviews with offenders
- Gathering information to inform risk assessment and sentence planning
- Implementing the sentence plan,
- Motivating the offender to engage with sentence planning
- Liaison with Offender Manager
- Completion of OASys assessments for prisoners not yet within OM Model arrangements
OASys is the main assessment tool used by both Prison and Probation supplemented by other risk assessment tools such as OGRS (Offender Group Reconviction Score), SARA (Spousal Assault Risk Appraisal) and Risk Matrix 2000 where appropriate.
To date the OM model has been implemented for those serving Community Sentences and offenders sentenced to 12 months or more in Prison who are either:
- assessed as posing a high risk of harm to others,
- registered locally as Priority or Prolific Offenders or
- who are sentenced to an Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection.
For other offenders sentenced to imprisonment the ‘traditional' division between Prison and Probation staff in managing offenders currently persists, namely that Prison staff are responsible for sentence planning whilst the offender is a serving prisoner and Probation take over responsibility upon release.
It is intended that eventually all offenders sentenced to terms of imprisonment or community sentences will come under Offender Management arrangements. This has implications for resourcing. The intention is that ‘resources will follow risk' so that higher risk offenders will be subject to higher levels of intervention.
Currently NOMS is piloting the use of a ‘layered' OASys risk assessment tool which will identify the level of intervention required to manage the risk of harm that an offender presents; this will then determine the level and type of intervention.
The delivery of sentence plans relies heavily upon partnership working with non-Criminal Justice Agencies such as Drug Agencies, ETE, and Housing. Skills for Life, Psychological and advice agencies. This ‘Third Sector' is becoming an increasingly important to the work of NOMS; there is a thriving culture of ‘worker secondment' whereby staff from these agencies work within Prison or Probation premises.
Please see the link ‘Partnership working with Criminal Justice Agencies' for more information about the type of job opportunities that may be available.
Please click below to read about typical roles within this field
Job opportunities within Probation
To work as a Probation Officer it is necessary to hold either the Diploma in Probation Studies, a Diploma in Social Work, or an equivalent qualification however there are many other roles within Probation that do not require the qualifications required to become a Probation Officer:
Training route to qualify as a Probation Officer
Historically many staff employed by the Probation Service as a Probation Services Officer, Administrator or in any of the other roles which don't require probation qualifications have been accepted on the Diploma in Probation Studies if they wish to develop their career by becoming a Probation Officer. However undertaking the two-year training on a reduced ‘trainee' salary has been prohibitive for some. Currently the Dip PS training route for new Probation Officers has been suspended pending final decisions about the future delivery of Probation services from April 2010. It is anticipated that future training may include the NVQ route which will increase the potential for career advancement for all Probation service employees
In the light of the establishment of NOMS there is discussion about making the new qualification more flexible (possibly using a progressively layered system, moving from lower to higher levels of qualification depending the applicant's work experience and ability) and also to make the qualifications more ‘portable' between various Criminal Justice agencies.
Listed below are some examples of the most common job roles within Probation. Each job role has specific requirements in relation to previous experience and qualifications however all roles involve working with a diverse range of people and require applicants to have the following attributes:
- Good communication skills: verbal and written
- An ability and commitment to working with people in a multi cultural environment
- Ability to engage and motivate others
- Ability to organise own workload within agency guidelines
- Ability to work within a team
- Ability to work under pressure
- Ability to take directions and know when to seek guidance
- Ability to apply national standards fairly
- Good IT skills
Senior Probation Officers (SPO)
Probation Services Officers (PSO)
Legal/Breach Proceedings Officers
Job opportunities within HM Prison Service
The Ministry of Justice has a full professional competency framework which applies specifically to each post, but working there are common requirements for all job roles within the prison service which are:
- Good Communication skills - written and verbal
- Ability to engage and motivate others
- Ability to manage difficult behaviour
- Ability to work within an Anti discriminatory framework
- Ability to work within a team
- Ability to take directions and know when to seek guidance
- Good IT skills : most posts
Please click below to read about typical roles within HM Prison Service
