Appointment of Dame Anne Owers as the new IMBs National Chair

The Secretary of State for Justice has announced the appointment of Dame Anne Owers for a tenure of 3 years

Dame Anne Owers has been appointed as National Chair of the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs) from 1 November 2017.

Dame Anne is currently the Chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), shortly to become the Independent Office for Police Conduct, at which point she will be stepping down. Dame Anne was Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons between 2001 and 2010 and chaired a review of prisons in Northern Ireland in 2010 to 2011.

She was also a non-executive director of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. She currently chairs Clinks (the infrastructure body for the voluntary sector working with offenders) and the Koestler Trust. She was a member of the advisory group to the recent Lammy review of race and criminal justice.

Secretary of State David Lidington said:

"I welcome the appointment of Dame Anne Owers as the first National Chair of the Independent Monitoring Boards. She will play a vital role in ensuring we are accountable to the public for our prisons and ensure that they are safe and secure and are able to transform lives.

"It is important to improve the transparency about how our prisons are running and provide assurance that they maintain proper standards of care and decency."

Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs) provide statutory, independent oversight, monitoring the treatment and care of prisoners and detainees. They operate in prisons, young offender institutions, immigration removal centres, some short-term holding facilities and on flights for those being removed from the UK.

This appointment has been made in line with the Commissioner’s Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies.

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