Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many and what proportion of (a) homicide and (b) attempted homicide cases was the threshold test applied in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Management Information is available showing the number of pre-charge legal decisions when the Principal Offence Category allocated at the first consultation was homicide and whether the final consultation completed against the suspect involved application of the Threshold Test.
Data can be provided from April 2019 to the end of September 2023 and the tables below show this information for each year and the financial year 2023/24 to date.
Table 1 - Legal Decisions | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | April - September 2023 |
Threshold Test | 840 | 850 | 971 | 1030 | 524 |
% Threshold Test of Legal Decisions | 47.5% | 49.0% | 53.0% | 54.2% | 54.1% |
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Table 2 - Decisions to Charge | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | April - September 2023 |
Threshold Test | 836 | 848 | 968 | 1026 | 523 |
% Threshold Test of Legal Decisions | 59.8% | 58.8% | 62.1% | 64.3% | 65.6% |
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Table 3 - Decisions to NFA/OoCD | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | April - September 2023 |
Threshold Test | 4 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
% Threshold Test of Legal Decisions | 1.1% | 0.7% | 1.1% | 1.3% | 0.6% |
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Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System | |||||
Principal Offence Categories comprise a range of offences. These cannot be separated to report suspect outcomes by specific offence.
Legal decisions are to charge, take no further action (NFA), or recommend an out of court disposal (OoCD).
Following the receipt of a file from the police requesting a CPS charging decision, several consultations may take place before the final decision whether to charge or not is taken by the reviewing lawyer. The first consultation may result in a legal decision outcome or in an action plan that needs to be sent to the police for further investigation or additional evidentiary material to allow a charging decision to take place.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many and what proportion of (a) children and (b) adults prosecuted under joint enterprise provisions in the Crown Prosecution Service Joint Enterprise Pilot 2023 for (i) homicide, (ii) attempted homicide and (iii) other offences were assessed under the modern slavery National Referral Mechanism.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The methodology of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Joint Enterprise Pilot 2023 is set out on their website at: www.cps.gov.uk/publication/crown-prosecution-service-joint-enterprise-pilot-2023-data-analysis.
This involved the application of a local ‘flag’ to joint enterprise homicide and attempted homicide cases which were then manually reviewed and certain case features were counted. The number of cases in which the defendant was assessed under the modern slavery National Referral Mechanism was not counted during the pilot and it is not possible to extract further management information from the local ‘flag’ centrally.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what steps she is taking to support external stakeholders to contribute to the next annual review of disclosure.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
In conducting any review, it is essential we involve operational partners and stakeholders affected by the changes.
The 2023 update to the Attorney General’s Guidelines has been focused on digital evidence and a working group was established with representatives including the Crown Prosecution Service, Serious Fraud Office, HM Revenue and Customs, National Crime Agency, police, Ministry of Justice, and Home Office. In addition, specific sessions were held with the legal defence community.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Annual Review of Disclosure, published on 26 May 2022, when the next annual review of disclosure will be carried out.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Publication of the next Annual Review is due shortly. Given the 2022 review of disclosure was extensive, the current review has focused on the disclosure of digital evidence. I will write to the honourable member with the updated guidance as soon as the revisions are published.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, with reference to the Code for Crown Prosecutors, how many and what proportion of joint enterprise (a) homicide, and (b) attempted homicide charges in the Crown Prosecution Service Joint Enterprise Pilot 2023 that used the Threshold Test subsequently recorded an application of the Full Code Test.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The methodology of the Crown Prosecution Service (“CPS”) Joint Enterprise Pilot 2023 (the “Joint Enterprise Pilot”) is set out on the CPS website: Crown Prosecution Service Joint Enterprise Pilot 2023: Data Analysis | The Crown Prosecution Service (cps.gov.uk).
The methodology involved the application of a local ‘flag’ to joint enterprise homicide and attempted homicide cases which were then manually reviewed and certain case features counted. The number of cases in which the Threshold Test in the Code for Crown Prosecutors was applied was not counted during the Joint Enterprise Pilot and it is not possible to extract further management information from the local ‘flag’ centrally.
Informed by the results of the Joint Enterprise Pilot, the CPS has updated its case management system in order to commence a full national monitoring scheme in the spring. A new mandatory national Joint Enterprise Monitoring Code ‘flag’ will enable the CPS to extract management information from such cases centrally, including whether the Threshold Test was applied when a defendant was charged.
The Code for Crown Prosecutors is clear that the Threshold Test may only be applied after a rigorous examination of its five conditions. This ensures that it is only applied when necessary and that cases are not charged prematurely. Any decision to charge under the Threshold Test must be kept under review and the Full Code Test must be applied as soon as practicable.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, in how many and what proportion of the joint enterprise (a) homicide and (b) attempted homicide cases in the Crown Prosecution Service Joint Enterprise Pilot 2023 was the threshold test applied.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The methodology of the Crown Prosecution Service (“CPS”) Joint Enterprise Pilot 2023 (the “Joint Enterprise Pilot”) is set out on the CPS website: Crown Prosecution Service Joint Enterprise Pilot 2023: Data Analysis | The Crown Prosecution Service (cps.gov.uk).
The methodology involved the application of a local ‘flag’ to joint enterprise homicide and attempted homicide cases which were then manually reviewed and certain case features counted. The number of cases in which the Threshold Test in the Code for Crown Prosecutors was applied was not counted during the Joint Enterprise Pilot and it is not possible to extract further management information from the local ‘flag’ centrally.
Informed by the results of the Joint Enterprise Pilot, the CPS has updated its case management system in order to commence a full national monitoring scheme in the spring. A new mandatory national Joint Enterprise Monitoring Code ‘flag’ will enable the CPS to extract management information from such cases centrally, including whether the Threshold Test was applied when a defendant was charged.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many convictions for paedophilia were referred to her Department under the unduly lenient sentence scheme in 2023.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) receives requests to refer sentences under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme to the Court of Appeal and publishes annual reports on the outcomes of the requests which it refers.
The annual report for 2023 has not yet been published. The latest annual report, for the year 2022, was published on 17 October 2023 (see Unduly lenient sentence annual case outcomes data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)).
The AGO also releases weekly statistics of requests to refer sentences. Weekly statistics for 2023, including requests to refer sentences for offences involving paedophilia (such as indecent images of a child, rape of a child under 13, and sexual assault of a child under 13) can be found at Outcome of unduly lenient sentence referrals - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many and what proportion of female civil servants in the Crown Prosecution Service were employed on temporary contracts in each of the last three years.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
For the financial year ending 31 March 2021, of all female civil servants employed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), 6.1% (274) were employed on temporary contracts. This equates to 4% of all CPS workforce headcount.
For the financial year ending 31 March 2022, of all female civil servants employed by the CPS, 5.9% (279) were on temporary contracts. This equates to 3.9% of all CPS workforce headcount.
For the financial year ending 31 March 2023, of all female civil servants employed by the CPS, 2.9% (147) were on temporary contracts. This equates to 1.9% of all CPS workforce headcount.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, which policies under each arms length body reporting to their Department fall within the scope of the Environmental principles policy statement, published on 31 January 2023.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The duty, which came into force on 1 November 2023, does not require the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) nor its superintended bodies (the Crown Prosecution Service, the Government Legal Department, the Serious Fraud Office, and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate) to maintain a comprehensive list of policies within scope of the duty.
The AGO and the bodies it superintends do not lead on policy.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what targets her Department has set to help achieve the Government's commitments on net zero.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
As part of the greening government commitments framework, set for the period between April 2021 to March 2025, the Attorney General’s Office’s overall and direct emissions reduction targets are 49% and 25%, respectively.