Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Crown Prosecution Services 6th Edition of the Directors Guidance on Charging on delays in the criminal justice system for both victims and suspects.

As set out in the Crown Prosecution Service’s 6^th Edition of the Director’s Guidance on Charging, establishing high-quality disclosure is essential to an effective Criminal Justice System, ensuring the process is fair, efficient and effective. The police play a crucial role in effective casefile preparation, including disclosure, to bring criminals to justice.

In March 2021, the CPS, NPCC and College of Policing published a joint National Case Progression Commitment which builds on work conducted by all three organisations under the National Disclosure Improvement Plan (NDIP), and under which they will jointly tackle barriers to effective case management and case progression.

This Government has given the police the resources they need to cut crime and put offenders behind bars, with an increase in total police funding by £1.1b compared to 2021/22, and over 11,000 extra officers hired as part of the Police Uplift Programme (as of 31 December 2021) to bring crime down and keep our neighbourhoods safe.

The wellbeing of police officers and staff is vitally important. It is the duty of senior leaders to ensure that officers and staff have the right support to help them carry out their important work to the standard expected by the public.  Each Chief Constable has a duty to manage and support their workforce effectively, ensuring the welfare of all officers and staff. They are held to account on behalf of the public by elected police and crime commissioners.

The Home Office, Attorney General’s Office, and Ministry of Justice are working closely together, along with the National Police Chiefs Council and CPS, to tackle delays and improve timeliness at every stage of the Criminal Justice System. The Government has recently launched Criminal Justice Scorecards at a local and national level, which bring together data from across the CJS to provide a view of cross system performance. The scorecards measure progress against the key criminal justice priority areas: improving timeliness, increasing victim engagement and improving quality of justice.