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National Probation Service

I am sorry that I did not answer the noble Lord's question before, but the professional head is Michael Spurr, who is the chief operating officer I was talking about. He was recently appointed and supported by the DOMs themselves. As I already said, he was appointed following full independent competition. The senior operational probation staff work directly to the Michael Spurr. Under each of the DOMs, there is a senior probation officer alongside a senior Prison Service officer. I have already said that the DOMs themselves have a lot of experience in a number of different fields. I am not sure that it is not a bit over-simple to look at the background of each individual DOM and say, "He’s a prison person or a probation person". These are people of great experience, who will play a vital role in the new system. I have already pointed out how much extra resource this Government have put into the probation service as proof of how important we see it as part of this end-to-end management structure.