Press Release Search
Search for press releasesFrom Improvement to Reform
20 July 2006
A bigger more accountable frontline and a smaller more strategic headquarters is the key proposal for urgent change at the Home Office, Home Secretary John Reid announced today. This radical reform programme will focus the Home Office on its core purpose of protecting the public.
The plan sets out how the Home Office will save £115 million per year by 2010 by reducing the size of its headquarters, with an unprecedented move of staff from the centre to the frontline. The review of the Home Office also proposes the setting up of an immigration and nationality agency to drive up performance and help secure our borders.
- In the action plan From Improvement to Transformation the Home Secretary sets out his vision of a transformed Home Office that is fully equipped to deal with the challenges the department faces in the 21st century. We will:
- Define public protection as the core purpose of the Home Office and set six new objectives to guide its work
- Make immediate changes to the Home Office’s leadership team to strengthen its Board at Director level, underpinned by a longer term programme to develop the departments top 250 leaders
- Reshape the structure and governance of the Home Office
- Launch a radical reform programme of the department, designed to transform the culture, skills, systems, processes and data of the department.
John Reid said:
“Today we set out our plans to reform the Home Office so it meets public expectations and delivers on its core purpose – protecting the public. This will not be an easy task. This is the start of a long term programme of reform which will require consistency, commitment and endurance. I am determined to create a Home Office in which the public can have confidence and that is fit to meet the challenge of the 21st century.”
Permanent Secretary, Sir David Normington said:
“Our plan is ambitious. We are changing the top team and clarifying accountabilities including between Ministers and officials. We are shifting resources and responsibility to front line services. We want significant reform across all parts of the Home Office. I absolutely share the Home Secretary’s determination to transform this department to one that serves the needs of the public in the modern age.
The six new objectives guiding the work of public protection are:
- Protecting the nation from terrorist attack;
- Cutting crime, especially violent and drug-related crime;
- Enabling people to feel safer in their homes and daily lives, particularly through more visible responsive and accountable local policing;
- Rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the law abiding majority and the victim;
- Managing offenders, so as to protect the public and reduce reoffending; and
- Securing our borders, preventing abuse of our immigration laws and managing migration to boost the UK
Key aspects of the reshaping of the structure and governance include:
- Creating a new top team with better leadership and delivery skills. All directors will be skills assessed by September, and there will be an intensive development programme to address any gaps.
- Reducing the size of the department’s headquarters and devolving more responsibility to the front line. For example, we will devolve from the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) headquarters responsibility for casework and operational decisions. NOMS HQ will get progressively smaller, reducing by half by 2010. This will mean an overall reduction in Headquarter staff by 30% (2700 posts) by 2008 and a further 600 posts by 2010.
- Launching a far-reaching reform programme to create a Home Office with skilled people, reliable systems and accurate information and data. This will include a comprehensive strategy to manage risk, a new quality assurance scheme for management information, and a streamlining of the statistics published by the Home Office.
The Home Office reform plan, together with the review of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) to be published shortly, highlights the need for fundamental change in the way we deal with the challenges of increased immigration.
To achieve this IND will become a shadow agency by April 2007 with clear strategic objectives set by the Home Secretary and the operational responsibility to drive improvements.
Alongside this the Cabinet Office has today published a Capability Review of the Home Office. The review is part of the wider civil service reform agenda. It provides an assessment of the capability of the Home Office and identifies key areas for improvement. The Home Office reform plan took into account the findings of the Capability Review.
Notes to editors:
- The Home Office Reform Plan, From Improvement to Transformation, is available on www.homeoffice.gov.uk/reform. The Capability Review of the Home Office will be available on www.civilservice.gov.uk/capabilityreviews (new window)
- Plans for rebalancing the criminal justice system will be published on Thursday 20 July.
- An external audit of progress in delivering the reform will be conducted in December and annually thereafter.
- In his letter to the Home Secretary of 15 May, the Prime Minister set out a number of priorities for the Home Office. The Home Secretary, in his statement to Parliament on 23 May, identified five key areas for improvement in the Home Office: performance; services; leadership and skills; problems of fragmentation and silos, exacerbated by weak communications; and systems and processes.
- The Capability Review of the Home Office is part of the civil service reform agenda. The reviews consider a Department’s leadership, strategy and delivery capabilities. The review assessed the Home Office’s senior management (Board and Directors) against these areas. The Capability Review has played an important role in informing the Department’s wider change agenda. The Home Office Capability Review report is being published alongside those for the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education and Skills.
