Update on ‘Narrowing the Justice Gap’ action plan

Report: 06
Date: 13 March 2003
By: Commissioner

Summary

The purpose of this report is to provide details on the development by the London Criminal Justice Board of the plan required for the Government’s ‘Narrowing the Justice Gap’ initiative.

A. Recommendations

That the Committee

1. notes the contents of the report and give feedback on the draft ‘Narrowing the Justice Gap’ plan for the London Criminal Justice Area;
2. note that any proposed changes will need to be referred to the London Criminal Justice Board for consideration.

B. Supporting information

Introduction

The New Justice Gap Target

1. The Home Office has set a new Public Service Agreement (PSA 3) target to improve the delivery of justice by increasing the number of crimes for which an offender is brought to justice to 1.2 million offences by 2005-06 (as compared with 1.025 million offences brought to justice in the year ending March 2002).

2. The Government has stated that it expects to see a greater improvement in the worse performing areas.

3. The PSA target includes a special focus on the efficient processing of cases through court. There is a requirement across all agencies to reduce the proportion of ineffective trials.

How much improvement is needed?

4. Delivering this equates to a performance improvement of just under 6% each year for the next three years across the system as a whole.

5. The Government has set a local justice gap target for each Criminal Justice Board, which should be a top priority in each local delivery agreement. For 2003/04 the target is 5% for every Board. In future years the target will be graduated to reflect how well each CJS area has performed.

6. Based on current performance quoted for the Metropolitan Area of London (which includes the City of London police area) this requires 6183 additional offences to be brought to justice in 2003/04. Brought to justice in this context means conviction, caution, or offences taken into consideration by a court. In those areas piloting the use of penalty notices for disorder (includes Croydon in the MPS) the issue of a penalty notice will count as a brought to justice outcome.

7. The MPS is arguing for the performance of the Metropolitan and City of London forces to be separated out. A response is still awaited on this issue. The MPS view is that the contribution of each force to the 6183 target should be clearly established and progress towards achievement tracked.

What are CJS Practitioners being asked to do?

8.

• Focus on bringing more offenders to justice
• Develop a local inter-agency Narrowing the Justice Gap Plan, setting out how you will improve your performance
• As part of this, implement the Persistent Offender Scheme locally

9. The Government states that the focus of the plan is to be decided locally. It will need to address the most pressing local obstacles to bringing offences to justice.

10. Local areas are expected to identify three or four priorities for action in the coming year, one of which must be the implementation of the Persistent Offender Scheme.

11. The expectation is that local Criminal Justice Boards will own them.

Development of London’s ‘Narrowing the Justice Gap’ plan.

12. The London Criminal Justice Board (LCJB) is overseeing drafting of the plan. The Metropolitan Police Service input is being developed by staff from the Criminal Justice Office within the Department of Criminal Justice.

London’s Draft Plan

13. A draft plan has been submitted to the ‘Narrowing the Justice Gap Task Force’ at the Home Office. The draft plan is attached at Appendix 1.

14. The NJG Taskforce meets on 24 February 2003 to appraise the area plans. Details of the criteria against which the plan will be assessed are attached at Appendix 2. General feedback on the plans and priorities set is expected in early March. In the event that a plan is deemed unacceptable the Home Office will write to the local Criminal Justice Board requesting submission of a revised plan.

Content of the Plan

15. The draft plan contains three areas for action, the first of which is mandatory.

• Implementation of the Persistent Offender Scheme
• Victims and Witnesses
• Increasing the % of effective trials

Fit between the NJG Plan and the MPS Policing Plan 2003-04 and 3 year Strategic Plan

16. Following discussions with the MPA, the MPS has suggested that a fourth area is added which addresses improving joint working between the Criminal Justice agencies. This has been verbally agreed with the London Criminal Justice Board and the Home Office. The Criminal Justice Office (CJO) is working up the detail of this new priority.

17. Work is continuing to ensure that any targets for improvement set in LCJB plans are consistent with those set in the MPS Policing Plan.

18. The draft plan attached must be viewed as a work in progress. A further series of amendments awaits consideration by the LCJB. A separate schedule of these changes is being prepared.

Proposals to Monitor Performance against NJG priorities

Priority 1 - Persistent Offender Scheme

19. Accompanying the persistent offender scheme is a case tracking system called JTrack. This is an Internet based software package that allows persistent offender cases to be tracked from arrest to disposal. MPS and CPS staff are being trained in the use of the system.

20. The system has the ability to produce a range of management reports. The type and frequency of report has yet to be finalised but the needs of the MPA will be considered in the deliberations. The CJO has received a request to allocate some training places for MPA staff and this is being actioned.

Priority 2 – Victims and Witnesses

21. There is a paucity of management information relating to victim and witness satisfaction and confidence issues. In light of this a key area of work is to develop new measures for this and to have baseline information by 31 August 2003.

22. Targets have been set around reducing the number of trials that fail because of witness non-attendance. The Greater London Magistrates Courts Authority and the London Group of Crown Courts collect this information as part of their Joint Performance Monitoring regimes. This information will be made available to the MPS for use in performance meetings between the Department of Criminal Justice and BOCUs.

23. Arrangements can be made to provide this information to the PPRC.

Priority 3 – Increasing the percentage of effective trials

24. The Greater London Magistrates Courts Authority and the London Group of Crown Courts collect this information as part of their Joint Performance Monitoring regimes. This information will be made available to the MPS for use in performance meetings between the Department of Criminal Justice and BOCUs.

25. Arrangements can be made to provide this information to the PPRC.

Miscellaneous issues relating to the London Criminal Justice Board

Link between the LCJB and MPA

26. The MPS has supported the concept of the MPA being part of the Board. The issue of how to link the MPA to the future development of strategic priorities, targets and associated resources needs further discussion with the LCJB.

Type/Level of MPS Resources/Funds to support the LCJB

27. The MPS makes no monetary funding contribution to the LCJB. The costs involved are staff costs to attend LCJB meetings and carry out any actions resulting from meetings.

28. The LCJB is attended by Commander (Criminal Justice). The LCJB meets monthly.

29. The LCJB has an Executive Secretariat which carries out any work required by the Board. This group meets monthly. The MPS representative is the Superintendent (Criminal Justice Office).

30. Staff may be requested to carry out specific projects. In 2002-03 the MPS seconded a Chief Inspector to work alongside a member of staff from the GLMCA to examine cracked and ineffective trials in the magistrate’s and Crown court. This secondment was for six months. The lessons learned from this project are being rolled out through the Effective Trials sub-group set up to support the Narrowing the Justice Gap Plan.

31. Staff from the CJO are working on each sub-group of the NJG plan. It is not possible to quantify the time that will be required for this work.

C. Equality and diversity implications

Establishment of Advisory/Consultative Arrangements by the LCJB

1. This work is still ongoing and the MPS Diversity Directorate is assisting the Department of Criminal Justice in this. The MPS will recommend to the LCJB that any strategy fits with the principles contained in the draft MPA Communication Strategy and Implementation Plan 2002-05.

The Department of Criminal Justice is working with PIB to develop data and appropriate analysis in this area. This will allow this critical area within criminal justice to be better understood and appropriate action to be taken

D. Financial implications

1. Jtrack (paragraph 19) is a Home Office initiative and is a piece of software supplied at no cost to the forces using it. There will be a cost incurred, however, around the training of approximately 120 staff in the use of the system. The training is 4 hours in length.

2. There will also be an ongoing cost around data input and there is also ongoing project support from Directorate of Information and the Department of Criminal Justice. It is not possible to quantify the costs at this time. No new money is being made available for this and the Home Office regards the PO scheme which JTrack supports as 'core business' and forces will consume their own costs.

E. Background papers

None.

F. Contact details

Report author: A/Superintendent Bert Moore, CJO, MPS.

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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