Helen Edwards

Helen Edwards is the Director General Criminal Justice, in the Ministry of Justice. She took up this post on 1 April 2008, after Phil Wheatley assumed her previous position of Chief Executive of National Offender Management Service (NOMS). Previously she was Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service, at the time a part of the Home Office in the UK. She took over as NOMS Chief Executive on 10 November 2005 following the resignation of Martin Narey, who left to take up the post of Chief Executive of Barnardo's, the children's charity.

Helen joined the Home Office in 2002 as Director of the Active Communities Directorate. Since January 2004, she has held the post of Director-General of the Communities Group where she was responsible for the Home Office's work on volunteering, the voluntary and community sector, race equality, faith, community cohesion and civil renewal.

Helen previously worked at Nacro, the national crime reduction charity, where she undertook a variety of roles over an 18-year period including that of Chief Executive. Before Nacro, Helen worked for the Save the Children Fund in the London Borough of Lambeth having originally trained and worked as a social worker for East Sussex County Council. She is a Trustee of the Washington-based Eisenhower Foundation.

Helen has a first degree in social science from the University of Sussex and a Masters degree from University of Warwick. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and recently received an Honorary Doctorate from Middlesex University.

External links

* [http://www.noms.gov.uk National Offender Management Service]