Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will publish a timetable for a data sharing agreement between the (a) Crown Prosecution Service, (b) courts, (c) police and (d) other criminal justice agencies; and if she will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of not having such an agreement.

There are several data sharing agreements that exist between Criminal Justice System (CJS) agencies for specific purposes, and we are working with CJS agencies to further improve how data is shared. For example, we have run a pilot to link data between probation, prisons and police to enhance data driven decision-making by probation practitioners and are developing a cross-CJS dataset that brings together data from the Crown Prosecution Service, courts, police, prisons and probation services to better inform policy decisions.

We know there are several economic benefits to improving the flow of data across the CJS. The Ministry of Justice is currently working with Home Office and AGO/CPS on joint proposals to improve the flow of data across the system.