Feedback and complaints
Whether you have had a good or bad experience with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), we want to hear from you.
When you tell us about good experiences it helps us identify good practice and encourages us to improve our service.
If you have had a bad experience, you can make a complaint (if you are directly involved in the matter about which you wish to complain) or give us negative feedback (if you are not directly involved in the matter).
If you want to complain, the first thing to do is to talk to your local CPS or the member of staff involved. They will try to resolve the problem immediately.
You can also complain to us directly.
Complaints Policy
We will:
- Listen to what you say.
- Investigate the problem.
- Where we have made a mistake, we will:
- Admit it.
- Apologise.
- Take action to stop it happening again.
- If we conclude that we have not made a mistake, we will explain our reasons to you.
- If you are not happy with our explanation, we will tell you how you can take the complaint further.
We will deal with feedback and complaints sensitively, fairly and thoroughly.
What can I complain about?
If you have had direct contact with the CPS and feel that the experience was bad, you can complain about it.
Sometimes people complain to us about problems with other criminal justice agencies for example, concerns about the handling of an investigation, which is the responsibility of the police or problems at court that are the responsibility of the court service.
In these cases, we will tell you how to send your complaint to the right organisation.
Sometimes problems involve more than one organisation for example, the police and the CPS.
In these cases, we will try to sort out the problem and we will work with the other organisation to provide a joint reply if we can.
How long do I have to complain?
You should complain about a problem as soon as possible.
We do not deal with complaints made about things that happened more than six months ago.
Who can complain?
If you have had direct contact with the CPS, you can make a complaint.
The complaint can be made by you or by someone you ask (in writing) to make the complaint such as:
- a member of your family
- a support group
- a legal adviser.
If you want to complain about something that happened to someone else, then we will try to give you an explanation. We will only do this if it does not affect the confidentiality of the people directly involved in the complaint or for other legal reasons. We will record your concerns as negative feedback.
