This White Paper sets out the Government's programme of reforms to the criminal justice system in England and Wales. It is in part a response to the commitment given by the Prime Minister to learn the lessons from the highly effective and rapid reaction of the criminal justice agencies to last summer's disturbances. This Paper sets out the programme already in train across the criminal justice services to tackle delay and waste, increase accountability and transparency and improve public confidence. The White Paper sets out to reform the criminal justice system by: (i) Creating a swift and sure system of justice; (ii) Making it more transparent, accountable and responsive to local needs.
This report follows the Government's July 2007 publication 'The Governance of Britain: A Consultation on the Role of the Attorney General (Cm. 7192)' (ISBN 9780101719223) and the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee report, 'Constitutional Role of the Attorney General (HC 306)' (ISBN 9780215035462), both available below. The Committee took evidence from Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the present Attorney General, and commissioned written evidence (included as appendices to the report) from two constitutional academics with divergent views on the subject. The current debate about reforming the role stems from three major controversies in the last five years: advice on the legality of the Iraq invasion; BAE Systems and the decision to drop a Serious Fraud Office investigation; andcash for honours. The report examines the role of the Attorney General as provider and co-ordinator of legal advice (and senior legal advisor to the Crown). It also examines the role of Attorney General in individual prosecutions and its functions as a minister. The Committee lays out the main arguments for and against reforming the role in these three principal areas, hoping that the report will prove useful as a 'handbook' to the continuing debate on the role of the Attorney General.
A national initiative introduced in 2008 by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers to cut the amount of paperwork in prosecution files when dealing with straightforward cases can reduce the time burden on police forces, without diminishing the effectiveness of the magistrates' courts. But this report finds wide differences between individual police forces in how far they are complying with the guidance and lack of awareness among police officers about what to include in prosecution files. Alongside an estimated £10 million a year which the initiative could save police forces, it has the potential to reduce the size of prosecution files without increasing adjournments in court or reducing the number of guilty pleas. The Streamlined Process has not yet achieved its potential value for money, but has not had a negative impact on the progression of cases through the magistrates' courts. The project management of the national roll-out of the initiative was flawed. Almost 80 per cent of police files examined contained a disproportionate amount of paperwork and more than half of the files reviewed did not summarize key evidence to a high enough standard. The process was rolled out nationally before its pilots were completed and evaluated. Among the recommendations in the report is that, when government departments design initiatives, they must bear in mind the powers of the national and local bodies that will be driving the initiatives forward and the relationships between those bodies.
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