Crown Prosecution Service Annual Report and Resource Accounts 2007 - 2008

Letter from the Director to the Attorney General

I am pleased to report to you on the performance and continuing reform of the Crown Prosecution Service during 2007-08.

Watch Sir Ken Macdonald QC read the letter from the Director to the Attorney General (11 Mb Microsoft movie format video) or read the text transcript.

The past 12 months have been about both continuity and improvement; building on our work to become an accountable public service and striving towards the goal of consistently delivering justice for the victims and witnesses of crime. Our efforts have been part of a clear and coherent strategy that the CPS has been committed to over the past three years.

Whilst we hold true to our responsibilities as an independent prosecution service, we have worked hard to engage with communities and with criminal justice partners to ensure that we understand, and reflect, the changing nature of our society.

This year has seen the CPS make real progress in its activities to engage with the public. Our track record on community engagement is excellent and we believe that our introduction of Hate Crime Scrutiny Panels is genuinely ground-breaking. We will ensure that we continue to learn from public scrutiny of our work, and to improve future performance. We have continued to consult on key matters of policy - such as our approach to bad driving and crimes against older people.

Victims and witnesses remain a core priority. We have reviewed our procedures for the delivery of commitments under both the Victims' Code and Direct Communication with Victims. As a Service, we have also made great efforts to explain our work and to provide information on our decisions - especially to those who have been most directly affected by crime.

We continue to work with police colleagues, in jointly staffed witness care units across England and Wales. We wanted to ensure that victims and witnesses understand what is happening with their cases and feel empowered to give their best evidence. Early indicators suggest that those who have been unfortunate enough to suffer crime now have a higher level of confidence in the system than those who have not.

I am also delighted to say that our role in Charging has delivered continued success. Since its introduction, the guilty plea rate has increased by 85 per cent in the magistrates' courts and 20 per cent in the Crown Court. This is an improvement in service from which there must be no turning back.

Our advocacy programme has also been remarkably successful. We now have 945 Crown Advocates in Crown Courts across England and Wales. We have more than 400 Associate Prosecutors whose commitment and excellence has seen their powers in the magistrates' courts extended by Parliament. The CPS is finally establishing itself as a Service of prosecuting advocates.

Partnership working is key to enabling us to deliver excellence. This means that we are always looking for ways to do things more effectively and efficiently. During 2007/08 we have worked with our police colleagues identifying savings both in terms of time and money that are consistent with sound charging decisions, but also ensure that the delivery of justice is both proportionate and effective. A new streamlined process for dealing with simple cases in the magistrates' courts is already beginning to deliver promising improvements.

The current economic environment means that public bodies have to become leaner and smarter. The CPS has already begun this work. The creation of 14 new regional Groups and the restructuring of CPS London will enable us to drive up the quality of our casework, maximise efficiencies and benefit from an increase in shared services. We have also achieved early successes in strengthening our finance function, knowing that its role will become even more important over the next three years.

We look forward to the future with confidence, knowing that the people of the Crown Prosecution Service are amongst the most committed and talented to be found in public service, or in any other arena.

Ken Macdonald QC
Director of Public Prosecutions