Ministry of Justice chief operating officer James McEwen has been chosen as the next boss of HM Prison and Probation Service.
McEwen will be the permanent successor to Amy Rees, who left HMPPS in the spring to be acting MoJ perm sec – and who has subsequently been appointed as chief executive at Homes England.
McEwen will take over from interim HMPPS chief executive Phil Copple on 13 October. Copple is leaving the organisation after a 35-year civil service career that he began as a prison officer.
McEwen’s new role will give him oversight of the operational delivery of prison, probation and youth custody services across England and Wales.
He will also be leading work to fix the prisons capacity crisis, reduce pressure on probation, improve youth custody, and ensure that punishments handed down to offenders cut crime and that streets are made safer as part of the government’s Plan for Change.
Last month, Dame Anne Owers’ review of prison capacity described the crisis as “systemic” and called for the creation of an independent advisory body for the sector to look at strategies and challenges to remedy the situation.
Owers said measures taken by the new Labour government over the past 12 months, including the early release of some categories of offender after they had served just 40% of their sentence, had “provided a breathing space, but not a solution”.
She said plans to cap the projected rise in prison numbers at around 95,000 would still be a challenge for the Prison Service, while early-release measures would put “significant additional pressure” on the Probation Service and other community services.
McEwen began his civil service career in 2002 at the Department for Work and Pensions. He went on to work at the now-defunct Department of Energy and Climate change before joining the MoJ in 2016.
Since then, McEwen has held a variety of roles, including deputy chief executive of the Legal Aid Agency and group finance director.
In addition to serving as the MoJ’s COO, McEwen has been joint head of the Government Finance Function since 2024.