Issue 47  21st July 2018

Only 9% of crimes end with suspects being charged or summonsed in England and Wales, Home Office figures suggest.

In the 12 months to March, 443,000 crimes resulted in a charge or summons out of 4.6 million offences - the lowest detection rate since 2015.

Data also shows police closed nearly half (48%) of all cases because no suspect could be identified.

We conclude that disclosure failures have been widely acknowledged for many years but have gone unresolved, in part, because of insufficient focus and leadership by Ministers and senior officials. This was not aided by data collected by the Crown Prosecution Service which might have underestimated the number of cases which were stopped with disclosure errors by around 90%.

We do not propose any fundamental changes to the legislation, or the principles of disclosure, but failings have arisen in the application of those principles by police officers and prosecutors on the ground. There needs to be: (1) a shift in culture towards viewing disclosure as a core justice duty, and not an administrative add on; (2) the right skills and technology to review large volumes of material that are now routinely collected by the police; and (3) clear guidelines on handling sensitive material.

Finally, the Government must consider whether funding across the system is sufficient to ensure a good disclosure regime. We note that delayed and collapsed trails that result from disclosure errors only serve to put further strain on already tight resources.

Potential jurors can now confirm their availability, request a different date, or authorise someone else to respond for them online, meaning they no longer have to fill out and post cumbersome paper forms.

A scathing report by a group of MPs today raises serious concerns about the government’s ability to achieve its unprecedented court modernisation. The Public Accounts Committee says HM Courts and Tribunals Service has already fallen behind on the £1.2bn project, appears not to understand the impact on court users, and is still unsure exactly what it hopes to achieve.

The committee’s report, published today, states the programme is ‘hugely ambitious’ and on a scale never attempted anywhere in the world – digitising paper-based services, moving cases online, introducing virtual hearings, closing courts and centralising customer services.