Home Office
The Home Office building on Marsham Street, London.
Management and Policy Development
The Home Office is the government department responsible for ensuring we live in a safe, just and tolerant society by putting public protection at the heart of all we do. We are responsible for the police service and the justice system in England and Wales, national security and immigration. The Office for Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR) is the cross-departmental team that supports all criminal justice agencies in working together to provide an improved service to the public.
There are a number of Operational Research teams supporting the various Home Office and OCJR functions through providing research and analysis for a range of issues relevant to management and policy.
The department is an exciting place to work with a clear focus on evidenced-based policy making. Many of the questions posed by our policy colleagues and Ministers can only be answered by high quality modelling, led by OR analysts and economists. Questions like:
- How can we make a rounded assessment of performance in policing and ensure that the money that the police service receives is used effectively?
- Which police areas are performing badly and from which others areas can they learn lessons?
- How might we use Horizon Scanning techniques to assess the impact of future trends on Home Office business?
- How many prisons should we build over the next 10 years to cope with the increasing prison population? How might we effectively reduce the prison population without having an adverse effect on crime?
- How can we improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the asylum processing system? How might this reduce asylum support costs?
Operational Research in the Home Office
The range of work we undertake reflects the whole spectrum of Home Office functions, using high-level economic analysis, operational research and modelling to provide an objective, scientific evidence base to support executive decision making in policy, strategic planning and delivery areas.
What to Expect
There are currently over 50 OR analysts within the Home Office and the OCJR. There are OR teams in several parts of the Home Office, including the corporate centre, the UK Border Agency, the Office for Criminal Justice Reform, the Crime Reduction and Community Safety Group and the National Offender Management Service.
The atmosphere is friendly and informal, with a mixture of academic backgrounds making the Home Office a very stimulating place in which to work. Some external work is also funded and hence, on some projects, staff may find themselves specifying and then managing the work of private sector consultants or academic researchers.
Back to site navigation links