May 9, 2007: New Ministry of Justice Launched

From today, all responsibilities for criminal law and sentencing, reducing re-offending, and prisons and probation will transfer from the Home Office to the new Ministry of Justice. which has been built around the existing Department for Constitutional Affairs. The core components of the new Ministry of Justice include

• The National Offender Management Service: administration of correctional services in England and Wales through the Prison Service and the Probation Service, under the umbrella of the National Offender Management Service.
• Youth Justice and sponsorship of the Youth Justice Board
• Sponsorship of the Parole Board, the Inspectorate of Prisons, the Inspectorate of Probation, Independent Monitoring Boards and the Prison and Probation Ombudsman.
• Criminal, civil, family and administrative law: criminal law and sentencing policy, including sponsorship of the Sentencing Guidelines Council and the Sentencing Advisory Panel and the Law Commission.
• The Office for Criminal Justice Reform: hosted by the Ministry of Justice but working trilaterally with the three CJS departments, the Ministry of Justice, Home Office, Attorney General's Office.
• Her Majesty's Courts Service: administration of the civil, family and criminal courts in England and Wales
• The Tribunals Service: administration of tribunals across the UK.
• Legal Aid and the wider Community Legal Service through the Legal Services
  Commission.
• Support for the Judiciary: judicial appointments via the newly created Judicial Appointments Commission, the Judicial Office and Judicial Communications Office.
• The Privy Council Secretariat and Office of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
• Constitutional affairs: electoral reform and democratic engagement, civil and human rights, freedom of information, management of the UK's constitutional arrangements and relationships including with the devolved administrations and the Crown Dependencies.
• MoJ corporate centre: focused corporate centre to shape overall strategy
  and drive performance and delivery.

The government argues that the new Ministry exists "for one purpose only – to improve the justice system for the public." This improvement, it is argued:

"will be measured by better outcomes in penal policy; fewer offenders re-offending; more effective public protection from dangerous offenders; a system where the public have confidence that the punishment fits the crime; a system more connected to the communities it serves; a system that victims believe understands and looks after them; quicker outcomes in the family and civil courts; greater confidence on the part of the public in the way that our justice institutions operate; fair and accessible electoral arrangements; constitutional reform successfully and consensually effected."

The Ministry states that:

"We will achieve these important outcomes, firstly, by bringing many of the organisations, agencies and stakeholders who have to work together to deliver a successful justice system, under the responsibility of one ministry. For example, having the courts, the prisons and probation and responsibility for criminal law and sentencing under one ministry means the process of driving better results from sentencing becomes much easier."

"Better results include greater public confidence that the courts are passing sentences that really do connect with the problems of crime that local people have to face. Those connections are made in a real and profound way not just by ministers but by those who make the system work for the public, whether as policy-makers or as deliverers."

Following the Queen's approval to new Ministerial appointments, 10 Downing Street announced the ministers in the Ministry of Justice will be:

• Rt Hon Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC (Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice)
• Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP (Minister of State)
• Rt Hon David Hanson MP (Minister of State)
• Rt Hon Baroness Ashton of Upholland (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
• Gerry Sutcliffe MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
• Bridget Prentice MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
• Vera Baird MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)