National Offender Management Service: Information and Communications Technology

Paul Holmes
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of arrangements for co-ordination of information and technology systems available to the Probation Service.

Maria Eagle
The assessment of Information Technology (IT) systems available to the National Probation Service (NPS) is co-ordinated by the NPS ICT Board, supported by the ICT Business team who consider the systems available.

Senior probation managers are regularly consulted about the adequacy of current IT systems as part of a wider consultative process intended to support business planning.

IT system development takes place with the authority of the NPS ICT Board—once a project has been commissioned, there is a requirement to submit a monthly report, detailing progress to date, the current financial position and highlighting any significant risks or issues facing the project.

A recent example of arrangements for co-ordinated delivery of an IT system within NPS is the NOMIS Programme, which encompasses five projects, three of which will directly benefit the probation service, as follows:

Probation Case Management System (PCMS) will replace a variety of probation systems with a centralised version based on a redevelopment of the existing Delius system;

A data sharing system will be developed and implemented, enabling staff in both probation and in the prisons, to share core information required to support Offender Management; and

The two existing Offender Assessment Systems (OASys), used by prisons and probation, will be replaced by an improved, centralised system that will also have an interface with PCMS.