Offence data for all offences and fraud and forgery cases

Request

I need the following data in relation to numbers of referrals received by the Crown Prosecution Service from police forces in England and Wales in the calendar years 2010-2023 and information about what happened in those referrals, in relation to (a) all offences, and (b) fraud and forgery offences.

All offences - Values for each calendar year from 2010 through to 2023

• Pre-charge referrals received from police forces
• Legal decision: Charged
• Legal decision: No prosecution
• No prosecution: insufficient evidence
• No prosecution: not in the public interest

Fraud & Forgery Offences - Values for each calendar year from 2010 through to 2023

• Pre-charge referrals received from police forces
• Legal decision: Charged
• Legal decision: No prosecution
• No prosecution: insufficient evidence
• No prosecution: not in the public interest

Response

The CPS holds some information within the scope of your request. Please see attached Excel spreadsheet ‘DATA 12594’. Please consider the data in conjunction with the definitions and data caveats set out on the data sheet.

Table one shows data for pre-charge referrals received, and the outcome of those referrals for all offences for each year from 2010 to 2023.

We are unable to provide pre-charge referral data for fraud and forgery offences as the Principal Offence Category is not allocated at the time the referral is received, but we can provide some data for fraud and forgery offences in relation to the outcome of the referrals. The CPS began to record this data from late 2018, therefore table two provides data for each year from 2019 to 2023.