CPS Response to HMCPSI report on the inspection of the quality and timeliness of charging decisions made by the CPS’s out of hours service, 18 September 2025

His Majesty’s CPS Inspectorate (HMCPSI) have today issued a report following their inspection of CPS Direct.

The report examines the quality and timeliness of charging decisions delivered by the CPS out-of-hours service, as well as the assurance processes in place within CPS Direct.

The report acknowledges that CPS Direct provides generally high-quality and timely charging decisions. The report also recognises that CPS Direct has worked hard to transform their service and align its service provision more closely with CPS Areas and Directorates, thereby providing the Service overall with a dynamic charging service. This has enabled CPS Direct and the Areas to provide a ‘surge response’ when required for high volumes of police referrals, for example, during the serious public order incidents across the country following the Southport murders in 2024. It also recognised good governance and stakeholder working.

The report identified areas of key strengths practice, and concludes that:

'In our judgement the public can be assured that CPS Direct is consistently making the right decisions to charge or to take no further action on cases. They are performing well and delivering good quality in several crucial aspects of their work but there are some aspects to improve that would improve the overall prosecution process. The decisions they make are timely in the vast majority of cases, despite the pressure on them as an on demand national out of hours service.'

The findings also showed that:

• Decisions made by CPS Direct are correct
• Instructions to those colleagues in court at first hearing are strong
• There is good consideration of bail and custody in the advices we produce
• There is well -reasoned rationale for those cases where the prosecutor decided the suspect should not be charged.

Inspectorates’ Recommendations

CPS Direct acknowledges that there is still work to do. The report makes two recommendations for improvement as well as one compliance point.

Recommendations

1. By December 2026 CPS Direct to consistently provide to the National Joint Charging Board a breakdown of the National File Standard non-compliant file that were rejected at triage and those that were accepted with remedial work carried out during the CPS DIRECT three-hour SLA period.
2. By September 2026, CPS Direct to have improved the quality of the case strategy and analysis in their Pre-Charge reviews and the quality of action plans and by December 2026 the CPS to have carried out assurance to evidence the improvement.

Compliance points

1. CPS Direct to improve the accuracy of the data collected in respect of the timeliness of allocation and prosecutor review parts of the service level agreement.

The CPS accept all recommendations and compliance points and have already initiated work to address the areas identified in the report.