Alison Gomme, who is married with a daughter, comes from being in charge of two Birmingham prisons.

Mrs Gomme arrives at an interesting time for the Manx prison service. Top of the 'to do' list is the move to the new ?40m jail at Jurby.

A number of other issues need to be cleared up too, with the Prison Officers Association smarting over their remuneration for travelling to Jurby and training matters, including being giving adequate training at the new prison whilst running the existing facility.

There is also the 'smoking in jail' issue, currently the subject of a legal challenge. And there are the challenges of operating such state of the art systems such as video conferencing to save unecessary trips to Douglas.