Youth offending: Former offender management head criticises the Home Office

In an interview with Young People Now, Martin Narey said changes to ministers and Home Secretaries hindered progress on his key areas of responsibility.

As chief executive of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), he was responsible for developing prison and probation services for young offenders and adults, and overseeing the work the Youth Justice Board does with juveniles.

He was leading on reforms to increase emphasis on offender management, increase the role played by the Probation Service, bring competition from the private sector into prisons, and create a balanced sentencing policy.

Since Narey's departure from the Home Office last autumn, there has been little movement on NOMS. Legislation on the reforms has yet to be published.

Narey, now chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's, said he was also "increasingly uncomfortable" with other aspects of the Home Office's work.

"I tried to persuade Home Secretaries and officials to believe, for example, that antisocial behaviour orders were not a panacea," he said.

His lack of success helped to persuade him that the voluntary sector would give him another way to make his views heard.

Narey, who was director general of the Prison Service between 1998 and 2003, said prison overcrowding needs to be reduced so that the treatment of young offenders can improve.

He added that a public inquiry into the death of Joseph Scholes, who hung himself in Stoke Heath Young Offender Institution, aged 16, in 2002, would help, but that it should look at the whole of his life. "This might tell us something about the way we respond to children in our society," he said.

The Home Office is due to publish a reform plan for its work this week.