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Written question asked by Vera Baird (Labour) on Tuesday, 18 April 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 24 April 2006. It was answered by Mike O'Brien (Labour) on Monday, 24 April 2006 on behalf of the Solicitor General.

Crown Prosecution Service

Question
To ask the Solicitor-General what steps he plans to take to improve the Crown Prosecution Service's performance in ensuring that trials and hearings in magistrates courts go ahead at the time allocated.
Answer

The Crown Prosecution Service is involved at a local and national level in a number of projects and programmes to improve the effectiveness of trials and other court hearings. The CPS has contributed to the successful roll-out of the Effective Trial Management Programme”” across all 42 areas and to a continuing reduction in the number and proportion of ineffective trials.More recently, the CPS has been contributing to a review of the magistrates court led by Lord Justice Thomas, the Senior Presiding Judge, which is focused on streamlining cases through magistrates courts. TheCPS is playing an active part in this project, part of the Criminal Justice, Simple, Speedy, Summary Initiative””, recently announced by the Lord Chancellor.Due to performance improvement flowing from the joint police/CPS charging initiative, and changes to the process applied by the court at the start of proceeding, it is intended that many more cases will be ready to proceed at the first hearing. This will rely on the right charge having been preferred; victim and witness needs assessments having been undertaken; witnesses' dates to avoid having been obtained should they be required to give evidence; any special measures having been identified; and advance information having been served on the defence and the court.The revised process is about to be trialled at four magistrates court centres, prior to wider roll-out, following evaluation. The process should incentivise the guilty defendant to enter a plea at the earliest possible stage. In those cases where the defendant intends to contest the allegations, the process should also enable the court to isolate the triable issues with the parties and adjourn the case for trial, with the shared expectation that it will proceed to trial on the date fixed without further adjournment.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
64889; 445 c817-8W;445 c817-8W
Session
2005-06
Subjects
Crown Prosecution Service
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk