Presumably, this is the same reform agenda which a few years ago led to an overhaul of the correctional system, intended to merge prisons and probation to manage offenders from the moment they are charged until well after they are released.

It was called the National offender Management Services (Noms), and cost millions to set up and run. Figures show the cost of running the service is now almost £900m a year.

The probation workers' union, Napo, claims that the budget has risen by 556 per cent since 2005.

Over the three years of its life, Noms has cost the taxpayer more than £1.5bn.

Now, the Government has effectively scrapped it.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has just announced that he is creating a new "directorate of corrections" to oversee the prison and probation systems.

Although Noms will continue in name, to avoid the Government being accused of abandoning it, the initial intentions behind it have all but disappeared.

It was meant to involve the appointment of a designated "offender manager" for every jailed offender. Now it is to be scaled back. A computer system, which was meant to link prisons with probation, will apply to prisons only.

This bureaucracy has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds and has delivered virtually nothing.

If these are the sort of reforms Mr Brown was urging his Cabinet colleagues to pursue, we would all be better off if they ignored him.

Popular Alliance Comment:

Sort of sums this government up really. All too happy to adopt liberal ideas that are doomed to failure. All to keen to put a spin on everything. And worst of all, all too happy to waste taxpayers money.

You can be tough on crime without costing the earth. Build more prisons and make them basic. No thrills, no high costs to run. Make prisoners serve their sentence.

Link to article HERE