Catalogue description Records created or inherited by the National Offender Management Service

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) responsible for the correctional services in England and Wales (there are separate arrangements in Scotland and Northern Ireland). NOMS operates through providers and partners in the public, private and third-party sectors to manage offenders in an integrated way. The aims of NOMS are to: protect the public; transform the way offenders are punished and managed; reduce re-offending; and cut crime.

NOMS was created on 1 June 2004 following a review of correctional services which identified key gaps in the work of prisons and probation, and also identified changes in sentencing that had led to increases in prison and probation workloads. NOMS combined parts of the headquarters of both the National Probation Service and HM Prison Service with some existing Home Office functions. Its structure saw the appointment of Regional Offender Managers (ROMs) for each of nine English regions and Wales. The actual management of public sector prisons remained, however, with the HM Prison Service which reported separately to its own Director General.

On 9 May 2007 the Home Office's correctional services element was moved to join the former Lord Chancellor's Department in the newly created MoJ. In January 2008, the Secretary of State for Justice announced major organisational reform which resulted in the Director-General of HM Prison Service becoming the Chief Executive of NOMS and assuming responsibility for both the National Probation Service as well as HM Prison Service and management of contracts for private sector operation of prisons and prisoner escorting. Also as part of this change, the Chief Executive post was re-classified as Director-General and ROMs were replaced by Directors of Offender Management (DOMs) in each of the government regions in England and Wales, combining responsibility for prisons and probation services in their region.

In 2017 some of the agency's functions transferred to the Ministry of Justice and it changed its name to HM Prison and Probation Service.