Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, whether she plans to implement the recommendations from the Criminal Justice Joint Inspection into the police and CPS's response to rape post-charge in full; what her timetable is for implementing those recommendations; and if she will make a statement.

This question was answered on 7th March 2022
The CPS has welcomed the recent Criminal Justice Joint Inspection (CJJI) report on how well the criminal justice system serves survivors of rape and has largely accepted all the recommendations within it that relate directly to their work. They will use the report’s findings and recommendations to further inform their response to rape prosecutions and to build on the significant work undertaken so far, which has focussed on the following three main areas of work:

• better collaboration with the police from the very start of an investigation, taking an offender-centric approach to case-building;
• supporting prosecutors and expanding the size of specialist units so that they are properly resourced to respond to these challenging and complex cases; and
• improving the support given to victims, and recognising the trauma they experience.

On the timeframes for implementing the two recommendations relating to communicating with victims, the CPS has already commenced a vital programme of work to improve how they communicate with victims. As part of this, the CPS has commissioned crucial research into victims’ needs to understand what victims need and want, so the CPS can serve them better. This research is part of a fundamental review into how the CPS can improve communication with victims. Although this three-phased programme is underway, the CPS will require time to complete it, to ensure that it fundamentally improves the quality of communication with victims. The CPS’s full response to the report and its recommendations can be found here.