Business Plan 2013-14 1/11 Crown Prosecution Service Business Plan 2013-14 Attorney General’s Foreword: The priority for all involved in prosecuting is to provide the service the public deserves – independent, professional, effective and efficient. The last year has seen sustained progress in shaping the CPS to continue to meet this considerable challenge into the future – not least in the transformation to digital working. In 2013-14 there will need to be further progress in digital working for Crown Court cases and a focus on achieving greater integration and compatibility between the computer systems of the CPS, courts and police. From my regular visits to CPS offices I see first-hand how people within the Service are adjusting to challenges while continuing the vital job of prosecuting with commitment and professionalism. The work the organisation is undertaking to build on best practice and embed standardised ways of working will support that commitment and professionalism, helping the CPS to deliver a consistent service while reducing its costs. The Service can only achieve its goals through working collaboratively with its partner agencies across our criminal justice system, such as supporting the criminal justice efficiency plan – in which the CPS plays a key role. I look forward to this continuing through the important reforms of the system planned for the year ahead, and welcome the leading role the CPS is playing in improving the criminal justice response to cases of child sexual abuse. I endorse the hard work the CPS is undertaking to embed the Government’s programme of reform through investing in the continuous development of its people, rationalising its estate costs and further submitting its decisions to the transparency and accountability the public increasingly expect – and deserve. On this last point I look forward to seeing the new Victims’ Right to Review arrangements further contributing to the public’s confidence in our justice system. This plan sets out the right priorities for the CPS to meet the challenges it faces and I look forward to working with the Service over the year ahead. Dominic Grieve Attorney General for England and Wales 1/11 Director of Public Prosecutions & Chief Executive’s Introduction Our mission is to deliver justice through the independent and effective prosecution of crime, fostering a culture of excellence by supporting and inspiring each other to be the best we can. In 2013-14, this will mean building on the progress we have already made in modernising how we work and embedding real change in the way criminal cases are prosecuted, whilst maintaining the quality of our service. At the heart of everything we do are our people and the values we all live by. We have set out new values for our organisation – values that we have discussed and agreed on, and values that will inform all we do. These values are already integrated into our personal performance and development systems, and in the year ahead, we will be embedding them into our business. Quality will continue to be delivered through our Core Quality Standards. Working with our criminal justice partners, we will build on the strong progress we have made over the last year to modernise the service we offer victims and witnesses. In 2013-14, our new Victims’ Right to Review arrangements and Independent Assessor of Complaints will further underpin the service we offer. These developments, in turn, reinforce our values of openness and respect. Our plan and all of the activities within it are geared to supporting the CJS Efficiency Programme, which is a key building block of the Government’s wider CJS Reform Programme. We will continue to drive the transformation of the prosecution process from reliance on paper to modern digital processes. We have re-shaped our digital business programme and during this year, we expect paper to be phased out in nearly all cases at magistrates’ courts and see real progress in the Crown Court. Our commitment to drive up efficiency has also seen us develop a new business model for our organisation that will be embedded over the coming year, we will develop and work to more standardised practices built on the best way of doing things throughout the organisation and we will work in teams that are more resilient. We are clear that embracing such best practice offers us a firm basis for consistent and efficient prosecuting into the future - allowing us to make necessary reductions in our costs while continuing to provide the quality service the public deserves. We are confident that through the work this business plan outlines, the CPS will meet the challenges we face and continue to improve the service we provide to victims, witnesses, and the public we serve. Keir Starmer Director of Public Prosecutions Peter Lewis CPS Chief Executive 2/11 Our Values Our mission is to deliver justice through the independent and effective prosecution of crime, fostering a culture of excellence by supporting and inspiring each other to be the best we can. We are values-driven and for us this means: We will be independent and fair We will prosecute independently, without bias and will seek to deliver justice in every case. We will be honest and open We will explain our decisions, set clear standards about the service the public can expect from us and be honest if we make a mistake. We will treat everyone with respect We will respect each other, our colleagues and the public we serve, recognising that there are people behind every case. We will behave professionally and strive for excellence We will work as one team, always seeking new and better ways to deliver the best possible service for the public. We will be efficient and responsible with tax-payers’ money. 3/11 Our Strategic Objectives To enable us to focus our effort and activity on the right things, we aim to build on the significant steps made last year to embed our strategic objectives:  to inspire our People – we will deliver our People Strategy, which promotes an inclusive culture of engagement and development of best practice, recognising individual contributions and supporting the Service’s requirement for independence, fairness, and respect;  to provide a service of the highest Quality – we have a clear and published approach to quality of service in our Core Quality Standards which set the standards which we seek to apply consistently and by which we are judged;  to provide a streamlined and flexible service delivering greater Efficiency – through our refocusing programme we will deliver efficient prosecution services which reduce our resource costs and improve productivity, based on a culture of continuous improvement;  to use Digital Working to transform our business processes– through the delivery of our Digital Business Programme – and make the most of opportunities for offering a better service that take full advantage of the efficiencies provided by new and existing technology. The environment in which we operate will change significantly over the coming year and beyond. The central challenge for the CPS continues to be ensuring the delivery of a quality service in a climate of reduced funding. Our strategic objectives, taken together, provide a coherent and cohesive focus for us. Each objective interlinks naturally with the others. Maximising the capability of our people and building capacity are critical to improving quality and delivering new ways of working, including digitisation and supporting the delivery of wider criminal justice system reform. We do not work alone and we appreciate that our strategic objectives need to be aligned with the approaches our partners are taking to manage the efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system as a whole. Through our key role in the CJS efficiency plan, digitisation will benefit everyone by improving efficiency and reducing costs. Over the course of this plan, we will use the four strategic objectives to drive our main planning outcomes and our approach to managing performance and risk. 4/11 Our Resources One of the primary principles underpinning our financial strategy is to maximise direction of resources to front line activity and our allocation of resources reflects this. Expenditure table 2012-13 Outturn* £m 2013-14 Plan £m 2014-15 Plan £m 2015-16 Indicative £m Saving on baseline % Areas 467 463.5 442.5 363.0 15% HQ 37.1 35.5 33 32.0 29% Corporate 99.4 101.8 89.4 89.0 40% Total (excluding EDC) 603.5 600.8 564.9 484.0 18% EDC = Early Departure Costs * Figures are provisional The original SR10 settlement for the CPS represented a 25% real terms reduction in the net Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit (RDEL) over the four-year period to 2014-15. Subsequent decreases in funding have meant that the reduction is actually 27% over the four-year period. Income table CPS Income 2012-13 Out-turn* £m 2013-14 Plan £m 2014-15 Plan £m 2015-16 Assumed £m 69.7 63.9 62.9 £63m (including OGD funding) In terms of recruitment, we have operated strict controls and this has led to a reduction in the number of exercises conducted. Where appropriate, we have recruited Apprentices, which has helped towards the Government commitment on social mobility and youth employment. 5/11 In 2013-14, the Service will continue to reduce costs by working closely with CJS partners at national and local levels to embed more cost effective ways of delivering the service. Key to this is the rollout of digital working, improved ways of handling early guilty pleas in the Crown Court, the abolition of committal hearings and a streamlined case administration process. We currently also forecast estate rationalisation with the aim of saving the CPS £10m by 2016, compared to 2012/13 costs. Managing our Performance CPS corporate performance is reported to the CPS Board quarterly, measuring how we meet our four strategic objectives. We also manage and report on sustainable development and salary costs as part of a wider resource management and control framework. Wider criminal justice system developments are also fed into the reporting, focusing particularly on the system-wide efficiency agenda. Area, Casework Division and HQ Directorate level performance objectives and measures are also aligned with CPS strategic objectives. In 2013-14, we will continue to develop the Core Quality Standards performance framework, which will now include a revised basket of high weighted measures and will encompass:  the quality of the service we provide measured against our Core Quality Standards by the use of a Core Quality Standards Monitoring process which is locally focused to address performance improvement;  the monitoring of overall conviction rates in both the magistrates’ and Crown Courts as one of 10 high weighted measures;  cracked and ineffective trials due to prosecution reasons as a key efficiency measure;  action to deliver our People Strategy, which will support and equip our staff for the future and lead to improvements in staff engagement. At a Service-wide level, we will report under the Government’s transparency agenda by publishing data in line with Government policy. We are required to publish data on sustainability and reduce our impact on the environment in support of the Greening Government Commitments. Finally, to comply with our public sector equality duty, we will report on the representation of our workforce and the impact of our workforce and the impact of our Employment and Prosecution policies on Protected Groups as defined by The Equality Act of 2010. 6/11 Progress Overview – What we achieved in 2012-2013 People The second year of the People Strategy (originally launched in November 2011) continued to deliver core elements of our People Strategy aimed at better performance outcomes, evidenced by our employee engagement index rising 2% to 51%. After widespread consultation, we developed a new set of CPS values clearly articulating the right culture for a changing Service. More than1,000 of our core managers investing a significant amount of their time in our Management Development Programme aimed at strengthening their management and leadership skills towards achieving nationally recognised accreditation at Level 3 and 4. Quality The DPP published the 7th edition of the Code for Crown Prosecutors that, following public consultation, provides a simpler, stripped-back statement of overarching principles that can be applied to every case. We have created a new national service for providing most pre-charge advice and decisions in an enlarged CPS Direct – thus extending established best practice in terms of levels of service and high quality decision making. A revised suite of high-weighted performance measures has been introduced that better demonstrates our performance We are developing standard operating practices that define best practice in prosecution, along with a process for continuous improvement that will complement the introduction of digital working. We have defined and developed new processes for establishing a Victims’ Right to Review. The Service achieved its highest ever conviction rate on hate crime and violence against women and girls (VAWG) including domestic violence and rape. Efficiency The CPS launched a wide-ranging review refocusing our business model and front-line organisation to ensure we can sustain and continue to improve our performance within the resources available to us. We introduced a streamlined automated process for e-procuring self-employed barristers to conduct CPS work. We made a key contribution to improving efficiency across the criminal justice system through our engagement with its CJS Efficiency Programme and wider reform delivery, including facilitating early guilty pleas in the Crown Court and drafting new Director’s Guidance to reflect changing responsibilities for charging and conditional cautioning. Digital Working We have digital prosecution working from point of arrest to nearly all magistrates’ courts. All prosecutors now have tablet PCs that they have been using extensively to present cases in court. We have continued to work closely with partner agencies and professions throughout criminal justice to maximise digital working, including serving digital information to defence practices and the Criminal Bar. 7/11 Outlook Overview – What we plan to achieve in 2013-2014 People We aim to improve employee engagement and embed our new values into the Service, specifically in terms of: o People Strategy – deliver the core programmes of work that our people said were important to them; o Recruitment – so that we recruit and select people who identify with the values to work for the new CPS; o Development – of our people so they can reach their full potential and identify and progress talented people in their Civil Service career; o Personal Performance Management – in which we align our values to the way we assess our people’s performance and development. Quality We will publish our first year of results against our new suite of key performance measures. In cases of violence against women and girls and hate crime, we will build on our achievements by aiming to improve conviction rates further and fulfilling our commitment to cross-government actions. We will address child sexual abuse via a public consultation on interim guidelines, prosecutor training, a national CPS network and an inter-agency panel assessing historic allegations. We will be working to the new Victims’ Code – we are introducing a Victims’ Right of Review (VRR) procedure alongside a revised Complaints and Feedback policy, which will be subject to scrutiny by the new Independent Assessor of Complaints via an annual report, while piloting new arrangements for directly communicating with victims. Our new national charging service will have embedded best practice standard systems across charging 24/7 and explored ways of maximising opportunities for a more modern digital service. Efficiency As part of our key role in supporting delivery of the CJS efficiency plan we will have full digital working in every magistrates’ court, through hub teams operating standard practice. Crown Court case preparation will become digital as well as working to new standard operating practices. We will have new operating structures and processes producing a more streamlined and sustainable prosecution service. We will have ensured full adoption of early guilty plea arrangements that relieve pressure on Crown Court time, having worked with Ministry of Justice/HMCTS on abolition of all committal hearings and through new allocation procedures. We will have made changes required to streamline traffic cases with police and other departments and agencies. The CPS will have continued reducing its estate with the aim of achieving the best operating model for the Service (in line with government target of 10 sq. metres per head by 2016). Digital Working With HMCTS we will define a Common Platform proposal to meet future case management requirements. Every Area will have one fully digital magistrates’ court hub team for best practice working by Sep 2013. We will introduce the new evidence management system for our largest and most sensitive cases. We will have defined our Information Communication Technology strategy for the next 5 years. 8/11 Corporate Risk CPS Corporate Risks The CPS aligns its Corporate Risk Register to the four strategic objectives. The risks reflect the consequences of a significant reduction in resources across the criminal justice system over the current Spending Review period, and identify how we should engage with our criminal justice partners to face these challenges. The CPS Board is responsible for ensuring that there are appropriate risk management arrangements in place and for proper management of corporate risks. The Audit and Risk Committee and Directors Group, on behalf of the Board, undertakes regular and detailed oversight of the risk management capability and the management of key corporate risks. All corporate risk owners are Board or Directors Group Members. Strategic Objective Corporate Risk People  The CPS will not have an engaged and energised workforce that can deliver services in an effective and agile manner by 2014. Quality   Failure to implement new business model effectively Inconsistent application of the quality and timeliness of decision making across the operational areas, affecting our overall delivery We do not fully engage or influence key stakeholders in a clear and coherent way, leading to failure to influence, reduce inefficiencies or deliver desired change.  Efficiency  Failure to respond effectively to further changes to our spending profile over the next three years Digital Working  We do not transform our business environment because of failure to embed and exploit digital working practices in the CPS and across the CJS. More Information You can find more information about the CPS at http://www.cps.gov.uk/index.html . 9/11 10/11