Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what provision is made for the inspection and scrutinisation of prosecutions carried out by (a) the BBC, (b) transport companies, (c) the police and (d) local authorities.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has a responsibility to take over all prosecutions instituted by the police, with the exception of prosecutions for specified offences that are uncontested. The CPS is inspected by HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and superintended by the Law Officers, as is the Serious Fraud Office. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services has a statutory duty to inspect the effectiveness and efficiency of police forces in England and Wales in the delivery of their functions, including the provision of information to support prosecutions.

Prosecutions instituted by other bodies are usually (and loosely) described as private prosecutions and there are no arrangements for inspecting them. The Justice Select Committee’s report Private Prosecutions: Safeguards, published in October 2020, recommended that organisations which bring significant numbers of private prosecutions should be subject to inspection. The Government’s response, published on 4 March 2021, was that we were not persuaded that such an inspection regime would be proportionate, bearing in mind the Committee’s conclusions that ‘existing safeguards in place to regulate private prosecutions are effective at filtering out weak claims’, and that ‘the judicial process that applies to all prosecutions ensures that private prosecutions are rigorously tested’.