Last March you asked me to review correctional services in England and Wales.

We found that considerable progress had been made in the way we manage offenders. Over the last seven years there have been significant improvements in both the Prison Service and the National Probation Service. However, we now need to find more effective ways of using scarce resources if we are to further reduce crime.

We have found an urgent need for the different parts of the criminal justice system to work closer together. At its simplest, each part of the system has little regard for the consequences of its actions on the other parts. This means that resources are not always used effectively. Further, few of the players are focused on the overall aim of crime reduction.

You will see in the attached report that we recommend far reaching reforms, which build on recent improvements and the new sentencing framework set out in the Criminal Justice Act (2003).

It is essential that judges and magistrates have a full range of tough, credible and effective sentences that are properly enforced. This includes income-related fines for low risk offenders, more demanding community sentences and greater sanctions for potentially persistent offenders (including satellite tracking). As now, custody needs to be reserved for the most serious, dangerous and highly persistent offenders.

The judiciary, through the new Sentencing Guidelines Council, needs to ensure that, in the short term, the most effective use is made of prison and probation capacity. In the medium term, decisions about building new prisons or expanding community interventions need to be informed by much clearer evidence on what works to reduce crime.

Despite recent improvements, a new approach is needed in order to break down the silos of prison and probation and ensure a better focus on managing offenders.

To implement these wide ranging reforms significant changes will need to be made. The Report calls for a new National Offender Management Service (NOMS) responsible for reducing re-offending. It separates the case management of offenders from the provision of prison places, treatment services or community programmes (whether they are in the public, private or voluntary sectors).

12/03 019631 / Kutak VF 1905.70 Managin