International Law

New structure for the Ministry of Justice

By John Hirst

Today, 1 April 2008, the Director General of the Prison Service ceases to be. Instead, Phil Wheatley, has become the new Director General of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) which merges the Prison Service with the Probation Service.

The new structure will be overseen by the Corporate management board. Unfortunately, perhaps, the corporate management board is chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Suma Chakrabarti. And he has got no experience in this field whatsoever.

The new structure, according to the NOMS website, entails the Corporate management board working with five new business groups: Corporate Performance; Democracy, Constitution and Law; Access to Justice; National Offender Management Service; and Criminal Justice.

Each of these five business groups is headed by a Director General. I cannot help thinking that this creates too many chiefs and not enough indians. It will be pointless the MSM asking any of these big wigs what their job entails because "The terms of reference for the board will be formally signed off in late April". There's nothing like ruffled feathers as chicken heads run around without their bodies...

This Director General is no more...

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on March 31, 2008 (boomark / email).