Attorney General's Office

Keynote Speech to CPS London 'In The Public Interest'

The Rt Hon the Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC
Attorney General

Good afternoon. I am really pleased to be able to join you this afternoon and speak to you at this exciting time for the CPS in London. I am also delighted that there are so many representatives here today from the CPS' partners in London.

I would first of all like to reinforce what the Director of Public Prosecutions said earlier today about the importance of the CPS being a much more locally responsive prosecution service. It is essential that the CPS and criminal justice agencies engage with local communities. As the DPP said, the concept of the Community Prosecutor and Community Prosecution should be an essential part of the CPS as a modern world class prosecution service.

The CPS staff here will know the enormous strides that the CPS has made in the last 10 years. It is a transformed organisation that now has the confidence to engage with its partners and communities in the way that it is doing at the conference today. However, it is worth repeating the journey that the CPS has made in recent years. Its milestones include:

• Taking a far larger role in respect of supporting victims & witnesses through initiatives including the creation of Witness Care Units and the Prosecutors Pledge;

• Assuming responsibility for charging in serious cases, and increasingly being involved by the police to provide advice during the investigative phase;

• Taking the statutory power to issue conditional cautions to offenders;

• Delivering its Single Equality Scheme setting out how the CPS delivers fair and just decisions irrespective of race, disability, gender, sexuality and gender identity, religion or belief and age;

• Encouraging prosecutors to become far more visible and accountable for the decisions taken;

• Developing a role in assisting the courts when sentencing;

• Working with its criminal justice partners to reduce bureaucracy, streamline the process and reduce delay in the magistrates' courts;

• Developing the CPS' skill and knowledge to prosecute terrorism and organised crime successfully; and

• providing a more attractive career structure for CPS staff through developing the roles of Higher Court Advocates, Associate

Prosecutors, specialist prosecutors, and the role of Business Managers.

This is significant progress that the CPS has made. However, we are not complacent and the CPS still has a huge amount of work to do. The next step the CPS must take is to become much more engaged with local communities through its Community Prosecutor approach.

Other criminal justice agencies are taking similar action. It is therefore important we work together if we are going to make communities safer and raise public confidence in the services we provide.

Partnership is at the heart of the themes and approaches we are discussing here today, which
make this a challenging time for everyone, but also one that is genuinely exciting for the wider Criminal Justice System and offers real opportunities.

The development of Community Prosecution, supported by the appointment of Community Prosecution Co-ordinators across the London boroughs is a natural extension of the partnership arrangements we have worked so hard to embed in recent years. I often say that so much of what we have achieved in reforming the criminal justice system, reducing re-offending and making our communities safer has been done through the strength of partnerships.

We need to look across agency boundaries and build system-wide approaches. In this sense the
whole is very much greater than the sum of its parts.

I was Criminal Justice Minister at the Home Office when Local Criminal Justice Boards were set up to develop partnerships at a strategic level and continue, both as Attorney General and as sponsor for the London Board, to pay a close interest.

Since that time we have continued to build the partnership approach. The London Board has established Borough Criminal Justice Groups and, importantly, we are increasingly transferring our partnership building approach to the operational level.

The Community Prosecutor approach is an extension of that, and a development that should be particularly welcomed. It is a key part of mine and the DPP's ambition to build a modern prosecution service for 21st century communities.

What we - or rather you - are doing here makes sense. It is about being responsive to the needs of the communities you, as public servants, work to serve.

It is about modernising our services, being open and transparent and giving our frontline staff the opportunity and confidence to work in ways which meet particular local needs.

London is one of the largest and most diverse cities in the world. We have over 8 million people across the metropolitan area and - although we are making progress all the time - there are complex problems in terms of crime and anti-social behaviour. What works in Enfield will not necessarily work the same way in Camden. This is recognised by the Community Prosecutor approach, which recognises that one size does not fit all. It must be adaptable to local circumstances if it is to make sense and really add value to the community.

There is enormous potential in closer working between the CPS and other agencies at a local level. But this potential can only be realised when it is driven according to local need.

I am enthusiastic about what can be achieved through a more joined up approach with the 600 plus neighbourhood panels across the city, and by locating integrated prosecution teams in police stations in every borough.

Better sharing of information and improved understanding of the community will mean better informed casework decisions. It will mean better working together to solve problems. And, by building effective mechanisms for receiving and acting upon feedback from communities we should be able to further drive up public confidence in the work of prosecutors and of the CJS more widely.

Of course, there are already many examples of good practice of partners working together. We
want to build on these through Community Prosecution and make community engagement an integral part of what a modern prosecutor does.

For example in Sutton - and for those here today from Sutton I hope I have got this right - the vast majority of overnight remands at the court on Mondays centred around a particular nightclub. Rather than just keep prosecuting the symptom. The CPS discussed with the police what evidence they required to challenge the licensing arrangements at the venue.

The Borough Council were keen to find a good, unchallengeable reason, to revoke the licence, and the CPS and police are assisting that process. The venue knows that a powerful group, the police,
community representatives, and now the CPS are focussed on them. In the meantime, it has reduced offending because the club has enhanced security, but the venue knows that its licence is in jeopardy. That is one example. But I know there will be many similar examples across London.

I hope that this afternoon's session proves to be useful and builds a framework in which Community Prosecution will make a real difference, and I hope this day is a successful start to the work in London.