Crown Prosecution Service Annual Report 2009 - 2010

Director's letter to the Attorney General

I am pleased to report to you on the performance of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) during 2009-10.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC

The past 12 months has seen the merger between the CPS and the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO). In April 2009, the Law Officers' Departments' Strategic Board agreed that the CPS would be combined with the RCPO to create a new public prosecution service. Following a programme of detailed work, the main aspects of the merger were implemented on 1 January 2010 when I was appointed as the Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions (DRCP), in addition to being Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Since 1 January there has also been a single management structure and all members of RCPO staff have become CPS employees. On that date David Green QC, who had been DRCP since RCPO's creation, became Director of the Revenue and Customs Division (now Central Fraud Group) within the merged prosecution service.

Merging RCPO and CPS should safeguard and improve the already high quality work done in both services on serious and complex cases. For example, the merged organisation is able to provide a clear, single route for the prosecution of cases and has a strengthened ability to respond quickly to changes in priorities and new forms of crime. The merger will also deliver increased value for money.

As the DPP, I am under a statutory duty to publish a Code for Crown Prosecutors, and following public consultation, the sixth edition of the Code was published in February 2010. The Code has been revised in order to take into account the recent changes in law and practice, as well as the merger with RCPO. The main changes are:

• additional public interest factors tending both in favour of and against prosecution;
• provision for exceptional situations which allow a decision to be made not to undertake a prosecution on public interest grounds before all the evidence in the case is available for consideration by the prosecutor;
• an explanation of how the CPS takes decisions in cases which require the DPP's consent;
• greater clarity on the prosecutor's role in considering out-of-court disposals;
• a better explanation of the Threshold Test and the circumstances in which it is applied;
• a re-working of the section which explains that, in rare cases, where a new look at the original decision shows it was wrong, the CPS will re-consider a decision not to prosecute.

The Code for Crown Prosecutors is one of two key documents that govern the CPS. The other key document is the Core Quality Standards. I have introduced Core Quality Standards for the CPS which set out what constitutes a quality prosecution service, and defines for the public how the CPS works and what level of service they can expect. The commitment to publish Core Quality Standards was made in the document: "Public Prosecution Service - Setting the Standard", which was published in July 2009 and set out my vision for the prosecution service.

The Core Quality Standards cover 12 areas of CPS work that have the greatest impact on the public. They are not intended to be exhaustive of everything the CPS does, but they comprise a statement of the functions and the quality of service expected. The standards draw upon best practice and reflect our legal and professional obligations. The draft standards were subject to both internal and external consultation, and the final Core Quality Standards were published in March 2010.

A performance management framework has been introduced for 2010-11 to support the Core Quality Standards. The framework will require us to ensure the quality of casework is consistently high, with further challenge added through the introduction of peer review. Data from existing key corporate databases will also form part of the performance management framework. By linking quality measures with hard performance data, the Service will be able to report progress against the delivery of all the 12 standards.

The statistics on the number of defendants prosecuted by the CPS are set out in detail in Annex C. They highlight that 110,146 defendants were prosecuted by the CPS in the Crown Court, which was an increase of 6% in 2009-10 over the previous 12 months period. However, there were 872,585 defendants prosecuted in the magistrates' courts in 2009-10 which represented a 6% decline on the previous 12 months period.

We have improved our efficiency and made significant savings. As part of the CSR 2007 settlement the CPS agreed to make £69 million value for money savings by 2010-11. This target was subsequently increased by an additional £14 million in 2009-10 following the RCPO merger. Following the General Election, a further £16 million in savings is sought in 2010-11, and the CPS is now undertaking work on the next Spending Review, the outcome of which is to be announced in Autumn 2010.

At the end of March 2010, the CPS employed a total (note 1) of 8,316 people (note 2). The CPS is increasingly diverting staff to the frontline and the total includes 2,972 prosecutors, 4,781 caseworkers and administrators. Of these, 1,033 are prosecutors able to appear in the Crown Court and higher courts, and 446 associate prosecutors able to present cases in magistrates' courts. More than 90% of all staff are engaged in, or support, frontline prosecutions.

Note 1: Total includes over 300 staff who transferred from Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office.

Note 2: Full time equivalent figures. Data are provisional and subject to change. The figures quoted here were correct at 1 April 2010.

The CPS extended its current contracts with Logica and Global Crossing for ICT services through to 2015. This incorporates the Transforming Through Technology (T3) programme.

The T3 programme brings together technological change and business change to enable the CPS to achieve its aim of modern, efficient, paperless working. It comprises three main strands: Electronic Case Working; Knowledge & Information Management; and Infrastructure improvement. It will enable the Service to routinely work on, and share, electronic case information within the Service and externally.

We have been looking at the quality of our in-house advocacy in the Crown Court. The Advocacy Quality Management Project has been implemented to assess, monitor and maintain the highest standards of advocacy performance. This has been underpinned by a network of specialist Advocacy Assessors. These Group Assessors began assessing advocates in October 2009, in accordance with agreed and consistent standards, based on the revised National Standards of Advocacy. The CPS has also engaged the services of suitably qualified External Assessors who are required to independently quality assure the performance of the Group Assessors and conduct a proportion of assessments themselves. The process of assessing in-house advocates started in October 2009, and between then and March 2010, 683 assessments were completed across the full range of advocates and 94.28% were assessed as having met or exceeded the required standard.

The CPS has taken forward the Optimum Business Model (OBM) through using LEAN based principles to identify inefficient procedures and highlight examples of good practice within the magistrates' court process. These revised processes have provided substantial improvements in the timeliness and preparation of casework ahead of court hearings in magistrates' courts. Following the introduction of OBM in the magistrates' courts, in conjunction with the need to reduce costs, we undertook a review of Crown Court processes and systems and developed a Crown Court OBM. A key issue has been to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clarified so we can ensure we have the right people at the right grade doing the right job.

In 2009-10, 326,000 cases proceeded to charge, of which 259,000 (79.4%) resulted in a conviction. The CPS continued to work with the police on improving the statutory charging arrangements to reduce delays and bureaucracy. The Modernising Charging Programme was set up with the police to improve accessibility of charging arrangements; establish new joint performance standards; and a realignment of the offences for which the police are authorised to charge without referral to the CPS. It is currently being piloted in five areas and the Home Secretary, the Right Honourable Theresa May MP, announced in June 2010 that the new statutory charging arrangements, whereby the police charge more cases, will be introduced nationally from November 2010.

Victims and witnesses have a central role to play in the prosecution process. I recognise that the CPS relies on the evidence of victims and witnesses, without whose co-operation, prosecutions may not be able to take place, and justice would not be served. During 2009-10, we continued to improve the service offered by Witness Care Units, with a particular focus on the recommendations and areas for improvement detailed within the Joint Thematic Review (note 3) of Victim and Witness Experiences in the CJS. Witness attendance for the year increased to 87%; up by 1% from the previous year.

Note 3: HMICA, HMCPSI and HMIC

Delivery of 'Direct Communications with Victims' (DCV) is a key statutory commitment under the Victims' Code and performance in relation to the timeliness of communications sent to all victims, including those classed as vulnerable or intimidated, has continued to improve. In October 2009, HMCPSI published a report of their findings of a follow-up audit of CPS performance relating to DCV, and as a result the CPS is working to improve the quality and frequency of its communications to victims. This work will continue in 2010-11.

The second CPS Violence Against Women (VAW) report on prosecution performance was published in December 2009, indicating improved VAW prosecutions in 2008-09. VAW Guidance, Prostitution Guidance and ACPO/CPS Rape Guidance were published in 2009-10. Regional rape workshops were held in June 2009 and a joint ACPO/CPS support team visited every Area by March 2010, whilst the Chief Executive and I started Area VAW visits in January 2010.

I have also been encouraged by the work that the CPS continues on local engagement through the Area-based hate crime scrutiny panels, Group-level community involvement panels and, at national level, the community accountability forum (CAF). Additionally, in 2009-10, the CPS has been testing closer community links through the Community Prosecutor approach so that we receive and make better use of local information about crimes of concern to local communities. This is currently being evaluated, and although the Community Prosecutor as originally envisaged will not proceed, the experience and knowledge gained should help inform our use of local information and achieve the relevant Core Quality Standard.

The CPS will undergo a period of significant change in the years ahead, in common with other public services, as we strive to provide a quality service to the public against the necessity of making continuing significant savings. It is important that the CPS responds positively, quickly and authoritatively to the challenge, and I am confident that with my senior management team we will do so.

KEIR STARMER QC
Director of Public Prosecutions

Underlying data for Annual Report 2009 - 2010