(2) how many directors of offender management have been appointed in England and Wales; how many staff are employed by each; what percentage of staff employed by each was previously employed (a) in HM Probation Service, (b) in HM Prison Service background and (c) elsewhere.
The principle duties of each director of offender management in England and Wales includes delivery of the departmental strategic objective of protecting the public and reducing reoffending through driving the effective integration of the work of all agencies in localities and across the region. While a key element of this work is to optimise the integration of the prison and the national probation service at local and regional levels, to protect the public, reduce reoffending and improve performance they are not directly responsible for the supervision of front-line probation as this is the responsibility of the probation chief officers via relevant probation boards or trusts.
There are 10 directors of offender management in post in England and Wales. The remaining region is currently being filled by an interim appointment.
Currently over 500 staff operate in the regional structure undertaking core work and delivery support work. Numbers in post vary from region to region depending on size and operational set up. The staff are predominantly Prison Service staff who were part of the former Service’s Area Office Support Network. The regional offender managers offices were a newer organisation with smaller numbers of staff, comprising of a mixture of Prison Service and national probation service secondees.
The information on exact percentages would incur disproportionate costs to obtain this as all of the DOMs would need to be contacted and they would then need to go further afield in order to obtain this information.
During the design phase of the regional restructure, it was recognised that to operate effectively, it is imperative that the newly created regional teams reflect and utilise the skills, competencies and experience from all parts of the agency and existing fast-track arrangements across the Ministry of Justice. Secondees will continue to be sought into the regional structure from probation to maintain the benefits of probation expertise in the regional offices.