Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, what the average call (a) answer time and (b) length was for CPS Direct in each year since 2012.

The call handling system used by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) provides precise timings on queuing time of all calls received. Figures on length of call have been estimated from available data.

In 2012-13 the average answer time was 2 minutes 43 seconds; 2013-14 4 minutes 18; 2014-15 12 minutes 34; 2015-16 16 minutes 05 and 2016-17 25 minutes 03.

For the corresponding years the length of call has reduced from 39 minutes 15 seconds in 2012, 29 minutes 31 in 2013, 26 minutes 52 in 2014, 24 minutes 51 in 2015 and 23 minutes 02 in 2016.

Throughout this period there have been many changes to the process of CPS authorisation of police charging making year-on-year comparisons potentially misleading.

Issues which adversely affected efficiency in the summer of 2016 have now been addressed and the current daily average answering times are below 6 minutes.