Richard Ottaway MP: Press releasses

PRESS RELEASE

16 December 2003

OTTAWAY DEMANDS GOVERNMENT ACTION ON LONDON CPS

Richard Ottaway, Conservative MP for Croydon South, has written to the Solicitor General about the continuing problems in the London Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) (see letter below).

This follows the publication of the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate's report on the CPS in London. The report concludes that bringing prosecutions to court continues to be inefficient and costly.

Richard Ottaway says:-

"This has worrying implications: offenders are not brought to justice, witnesses become de-motivated and victims lose confidence in the criminal justice system."

"The most worrying aspect of the Inspectorate's Report is that, between October 2002 and March 2003, 69.5% of trials listed for Magistrates Courts had to be adjourned to another day at the last minute."

"Obviously this is a tremendous waste of everyone's time and the tax-payer's money. I call on the Government to take action now to put our judicial system on much firmer footing."

Ends.

For further information please call 020 7219 6392.

Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP
Solicitor General
Law Officer's Department
Attorney General's Chambers
9 Buckingham Gate
London SW1E 6JP

16 December 2003

Dear Harriet

You will recall our past correspondence over the effectiveness of the CPS in London. As you are aware, the Inspectorate has carried out a re-inspection and recently published their report.

Let me be the first to acknowledge that there have been some improvements. However the position is still far from satisfactory.

There has been more money, more staff recruited, changes to structure and an improvement in morale. However, many of the recommendations in the original report have been only partially implemented and those were made on the basis of performance that was "in many cases, at a very low level".

The consequence is that bringing prosecutions to court continues to be inefficient and costly with the result that offenders are not brought to justice (narrowing the justice gap), witnesses are de-motivated and victims lose confidence in the criminal justice system.

The under-achievements seem to stem from problems with
" Case ownership and management eg. pro-active monitoring and chasing data required to bring a case to court
" Staff quality eg. skills, training
" Effective and timely intervention by managers to identify and remedy inadequate case preparation

In short, the benefits to the achievements are not yet seen in courts.

Case ownership

There is insufficient review of cases resulting in
1. cracked trials where the defendant changes plea to guilty, or prosecution lays a lesser charge or the prosecution offers no evidence - in any case the trial does not take place at the last minute despite a trial being listed and a court 'booked'.
2. ineffective trials where the case is not ready for trial so although 'booked' it has to be adjourned to another day at the last minute.
3. discharged committals where the case is sent from the magistrates to the Crown Court but are thrown out because the paperwork for the committal to the Crown Court is not completed within the time limit.

Obviously all these points are highly wasteful of everyone's time and the tax-payer's money. We also have a situation in the magistrates' courts where primary disclosure is often not served in time for the court hearing, resulting in defence requests for adjournments.

Para 9.7 draws attention to the significant proportion of ineffective summary trials and para 9.9 produces the extraordinary statistic that between October 2002 and March 2003 69.5% of trials listed were ineffective in magistrates courts.

Staff Qualities

There is still a high proportion of casual staff and so a high level of turnover in the administrative grades. This results in inexperienced staff working on files and a high burden of training for staff who could otherwise be more productive themselves. Para 5.11 draws attention to personnel problems.

In the magistrates courts the sessions covered by CPS staff lawyers average on 55.2% and in the Crown Court, it was only 52.5% of the agreed targets. The balance of prosecutions are handled by agents and there is still widespread concern about the quality or preparedness of some of the agents. Agents continue to handle the majority of magistrates courts trials and agents do not always receive their papers in sufficient time to prepare for the court.

All this points to a rickety judicial system which needs further attention and I would be grateful for your comments.

It is a year since first I raised this with you, since when little has improved. Under the circumstances I feel it necessary to draw this to the attention of a wider audience.

Yours sincerely