Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 8 May 2019 to Question 249931 on Prosecutions: West Midlands, what the average time was for the CPS to reach a decision in the West Midlands in each of the last five years.

Records held by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), provide data showing the average time (in calendar days) from receipt of the pre-charge case to the decision to charge.

The table below shows the average number of days from the date a charging decision is requested by the police to the date the decision to charge is taken for the West Midlands Area in each year from 2013/14 to 2017/18.

Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System

During this period there has been a shift in the type of pre-charge decisions referred to the CPS. For example, in the period between 2013/14 and 2017/18, there was an increase of over 26% in rape flagged pre-charge decisions referred to CPS West Midlands. Rape and serious sexual offences investigations can be highly complex in nature and typically involve the review of a large quantity of evidence resulting in an increase in the amount of time required for the CPS to come to a charging decision.