Pre-sentence Reports
(asked on 29th November 2024) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) standard delivery, (b) fast delivery, and (c) oral pre-sentence reports have been produced in (i) Wales and (ii) England in each of the last 10 years.
Pre-sentence reports (PSRs) provide an expert assessment of the nature and causes of the offender's behaviour, the risk the offender poses and to whom, as well as an independent recommendation of the options available to support the independent judiciary in deciding the appropriate sentence. The decision on whether to direct the preparation of a PSR and any adjournment to produce that report is, along with the sentence itself, a matter for the independent judiciary. Since 2014, the following numbers of PSRs have been produced in Wales and England:
Wales
Type | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Wales total | 10,470 | 10,385 | 9,297 | 8,134 | 7,915 | 7,357 | 6,097 | 6,221 | 5,943 | 6,488 |
Standard Delivery PSR | 1,230 | 976 | 603 | 425 | 413 | 438 | 433 | 520 | 442 | 585 |
Fast Delivery PSR written | 4,942 | 5,593 | 4,257 | 4,004 | 3,903 | 2,796 | 2,882 | 3,306 | 3,339 | 3,680 |
Fast Delivery PSR oral | 4,298 | 3,816 | 4,437 | 3,705 | 3,599 | 4,123 | 2,782 | 2,395 | 2,162 | 2,223 |
England
Type | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
England total | 131,462 | 148,893 | 138,999 | 121,508 | 105,313 | 95,647 | 61,980 | 82,436 | 77,297 | 84,880 |
Standard Delivery PSR | 32,523 | 24,774 | 8,993 | 4,314 | 3,292 | 2,848 | 2,132 | 3,028 | 3,119 | 4,374 |
Fast Delivery PSR written | 64,078 | 76,934 | 58,720 | 45,411 | 39,419 | 41,833 | 39,970 | 59,217 | 55,036 | 61,979 |
Fast Delivery PSR oral | 34,861 | 47,185 | 71,286 | 71,783 | 62,602 | 50,966 | 19,878 | 20,191 | 19,142 | 18,527 |
Excludes breach, deferred sentence and court review reports (for further details please see the guide to offender management statistics, available at: Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK).
Between April and June 2020, the number of cases processed at the criminal courts was substantially reduced as a result of the operational restrictions that were put in place on 23 March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the impact of these operational restrictions continued into subsequent periods, the figures in more recent periods have recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
The figures for England include a handful of pre-sentence reports prepared by the National Security Division (NSD), which was introduced in 2021 under the Probation Reform Programme and is specifically tasked with the enhanced monitoring of terrorists, serious organised criminals and very high-risk offenders.
Data quality: The figures in these tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Data source: National Delius case management system
Information on the numbers of PSRs for England and Wales is published as part of the Ministry of Justice’s official statistics available at: Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.