Our work
Last year we prosecuted over 485,000 cases, with four in every five leading to a guilty plea or verdict. However, our success is not measured by the conviction rate alone. A fair trial, properly brought, may lead to a guilty or not guilty verdict. Our job is not to seek an ever-higher proportion of guilty verdicts, but to make sure that every case which satisfies the legal test set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors goes before the courts and is prosecuted independently and fairly.
Because we review every case sent to us, our work is extremely varied and can be complex in nature. We prosecute offences ranging from burglary and terrorism to domestic abuse and multi-million-pound fraud cases. What these cases all have in common is that they can have a devastating impact on victims.
Our people
We have more than 8,000 highly trained staff across England and Wales. Our duty is to make sure the right person is prosecuted for the right offence, that victims are supported and that trials are fair so that offenders are brought to justice whenever possible.
Our open recruitment process enables us to bring in diverse talent from a range of backgrounds and we support our people to thrive and develop across all our CPS professions.
Our funding
We receive the majority of our resources in the form of parliamentary funding through the supply estimate process. We also receive a smaller amount of income from court-ordered payments made by convicted defendants and from recovered criminal assets, through the Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme. We are accountable to Parliament for how we spend our funding, and we must work within the control totals that Parliament sets. Our net funding for 2025-26, as voted by Parliament, was £940 million.
We operate within the control framework set by HM Government and set out in Managing Public Money. You can find a more detailed breakdown of the control framework and our expenditure in the financial review.