Sir Martin Narey

Biography

Sir Martin Narey was appointed non-executive board member at the Ministry of Justice in August 2015.

After a brief career in the NHS, Sir Martin began training to be a prison governor in 1982 and worked at a number of prisons before moving into a succession of Whitehall posts. This period included work on timeliness in the criminal justice system and led to the introduction of the so called “Narey Courts” which succeeded in significantly reducing court delays. He returned to the Prison Service in 1996 and became Director General (CEO) in 1998.

In 2003 he became the first CEO of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). During this period he received the Chartered Institute of Management’s Gold Medal for Leadership, the first public sector recipient of this single annual award for ten years.

He left NOMS in 2005 to become Chief Executive of Barnardo’s where he stayed for five years, during which time he chaired The Campaign To End Child Poverty, and saw Barnardo’s grow by 40% to become, once again, the UK’s biggest children’s charity. Since leaving Barnardo’s in 2011 he has advised the government about adoption and other children’s issues, including the reform of social work education. He chairs the National Adoption Leadership Board, The Portman Group and The Brain Tumour Charity and he sits on the Council of the Advertising Standards Authority.

He was made a Knight Bachelor in 2013 in recognition of his services to vulnerable people.