Crown Prosecution Service Annual Report and Resource Accounts 2006 - 2007

Letter from the Director to the Attorney General

I am pleased to report to you on the performance, reform and resource profile of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) during 2006-07.

Ken Macdonald QC

This year has seen some substantial challenges for the Service: realising the benefits of Charging and the Advocacy Strategy; dealing with increasingly serious, organised and terrorist crime; looking at options for Area restructuring; implementing Simple Speedy Summary Justice and working to make the CPS a more outward-facing, pro-active and accountable organisation.

The Charging programme is now fully embedded across all 43 CPS Areas. The success of this Programme has clearly demonstrated the key role that CPS prosecutors play within the Criminal Justice System (CJS), and this year we have provided pre-charge advice in 584,216 cases - an increase of over 143,000 cases compared with 2004-05. Our prosecutors, both in police stations and through our 24-hour telephone service, CPS Direct, are working in partnership with the police to ensure that the right charging decision is made at the right time, building strong cases and reducing the number of unsuccessful outcomes and ineffective trials.

The latest results from the Advocacy programme are also extremely encouraging and show us on course to exceed all of our original targets in this fundamental area of our work. The CPS now has 838 prosecutors able to present cases in the higher courts and 390 Designated Caseworkers (DCWs) able to present cases in the magistrates' courts. As a response to this progress, we intend to significantly raise the bar next year and to keep on raising it until the CPS is truly a service of prosecuting advocates. As part of this initiative, we are introducing a new career plan for our lawyers that places advocacy at the heart of the required skill-set. I am personally very proud of this transformation and I believe that it sets us on the right path to build a great and enduring national institution - a prosecuting authority that can be respected by the public for taking responsibility and delivering justice in a fair, consistent and wholly transparent manner.

The three central Casework Divisions have expanded during this reporting year and they continue to build on their excellent reputation. The Organised Crime Division is as good as any group of serious crime prosecutors in the world, the Counter Terrorism Division has an outstanding international reputation, and the Special Crime Division has won considerable respect for the care with which it brings the most sensitive of cases. As you know, these Divisions work with partners, both UK and international, to strengthen our response to the type of high profile and complex case that impacts directly on the public's confidence in the CJS. Their achievements during their short history are remarkable.

Following the decision not to proceed with the rationalisation of police force structures, the CPS has undertaken an internal review of its own structures. In consultation with yourself, the Solicitor General, CPS staff and our key partner agencies, we have now begun a programme of restructuring that will create 14 Area Groups designed to respond, at a local level, to increasingly complex crime. Building on the excellent work of the central Casework Divisions, each Area Group will include a complex casework unit that pools local expertise to provide a better public service and will, with clear leadership from the Area Group Chairs, drive up the quality of our casework across England and Wales.

In response to the National Audit Office report on the effective use of magistrates' courts' hearings, the criminal justice Ministers published the paper 'Delivering Simple, Speedy Summary Justice'. The CPS has embraced the issues highlighted in this paper and, working with our CJS colleagues, we have introduced a number of trials to help us identify and implement new processes that will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our magistrates' court work. We have also looked at the effectiveness of our internal office procedures, and we will be continuing to rollout the efficiency measures identified through this optimum business model project.

The CPS is now much more accountable to the public, listening to all sections of the community and explaining our work and our decisions as a matter of course. During 2006-07 the CPS launched a Single Equality Scheme, which consolidates the work that has already been undertaken to promote equality and diversity for our staff and on behalf of all of the people that we serve. The CPS has built, and will continue to build, on the positive results of its recent community engagement pilots by making use of community engagement panels, liaising with community groups and by making its work more accessible and more easily understood through its profile in both local and national media. This year has also seen much progress for our staff, with individual performance being recognised in the national press, lawyers participating in live charging announcements and, for the first time ever, the appointment of a new Chief Executive from within our own ranks. This latter development is a particular milestone and I look forward to the day when a Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is also appointed from within the Service. The top team has been further strengthened this year with the appointment of new Directors for Human Resources (HR) and Policy, the latter also being an internal promotion.

There will undoubtedly be a further series of challenges in 2007-08. We will be taking a close look at the findings of the recently published Capability Review, and my team is fully committed to progressing the resulting action plan. Following the announcement of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR 2007) settlement, we will also need to drive out further efficiencies for the benefit of the CPS, the CJS and the public as a whole.

I am full of admiration for the people of this great Service and for everything that they have achieved over the past few years. I have no doubt that we can count on the same level of commitment, skill and innovation during the coming year, and this will take us even closer to achieving our mutual aim of a world-class public prosecution service.

Ken Macdonald QC
Director of Public Prosecutions