Criminal justice update

Report: 4
Date: 24 April 2006
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report provides an update on the work being carried out by the Department of Criminal Justice with the ultimate aim of bringing more offences to justice.

A. Recommendation

That Members note the contents of this report.

B. Supporting information

National Strategy for Police Information Services (NSPIS) Custody and Case Preparation

1. The MPS and PITO have reviewed the response from SunGard Vivista (SGV) to the ‘Request For Proposal’ issued to SGV on 16 December 2005, and all parties are in a position to proceed to signature of contracts once Home Office funding is confirmed for the national NSPIS programme.

2. National NSPIS funding is subject to a current government high level spending review, and this includes the funding allocated to the MPS. The MPS is reliant on confirmation of available funding before proceeding to contract in order to avoid becoming contractually liable for significant programme costs that are intended to be borne by the Home Office.

3. The MPS NSPIS project team, PITO and SGV continue to prepare for the planned roll out of NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation across the MPS commencing in September 2006 subject to funding being confirmed. The roll out preparation encompasses work in respect of business change, technical design and requirements, management information, training, implementation planning, communications, custody infrastructure works and support requirements.

Performance

4. Sanction detections

• The overall sanction detection rate is currently 17.6% against a 2005-6 target of 16.6%

5. OBTJ

• The MPS has achieved a financial year to date figure of 142,993 OBTJ in January 2006 against the performance year to date target of 133,504.
• The London achieved figure (including British Transport Police and City of London Police) is 173,581 (12 month figure) against a target of 160,205.

These are broken down as follows for the performance year to date:

• Appendix 1 shows a chart demonstrating OBTJ breakdown
• Appendix 2 shows a chart detailing recorded crime patterns for London

6. PYO

PNC Performance Results against the 71-Day Target:

• Current MPS performance is that the average arrest to sentence time for PYOs between September and November was 89 days. An improved position, but significantly outside target.

Statutory Charging (charging too early)

7. Statutory charging involves the MPS and the CPS working together to ensure that the best evidence available is obtained and that offenders are charged with the right offence. ‘Working together’ is a key issue that requires good communication between the CPS and MPS. Boroughs have been asked to raise issues around the performance of Duty Prosecutors with their CPS Unit Head. If the issues cannot be resolved locally then Operation Emerald will liaise with more senior members of the CPS.

8. The CPS is developing their performance management framework. Integral to this is a new product, Prosecution Team Performance Monitoring (PTPM). By using this, the issue of ‘charging too early’ can be identified allowing both the CPS and MPS the opportunity to make local interventions. ‘Charging too early’ represents at worst, failed prosecutions, and at best significant work to recover the viability of the prosecution.

9. Prosecution Team Performance Monitoring is in its infancy and it is too early to assess/ scope whether or not ‘charging too early’ is a significant problem.

10. The London Criminal Justice Board (LCJB) is committed to the concept of ‘Front-loading’ and work is being progressed together with the Prime Ministers Delivery Unit. This, together with tools such as PTPM, will address concerns in regard to ‘charging too early’.

11. Duty Prosecutors are currently receiving a ‘Proactive Prosecutors Training Course’. Part of the course addresses the issue of early charging.

12. Emerald Warrants Management System (EWMS)

• There are currently 9,815 fail to appear (FTA) and Bench warrants outstanding.
• This represents a 28.2% reduction for the financial year.

13. EWMS, version IV, has been implemented and boroughs are in the process of back record converting additional information including, gender, ethnicity and whether a warrant is court to court or police to court bail. Searches by ethnicity are not available to any police officers / staff. This information is only available to monitor disproportionality by the Performance Directorate.

14. The ability to identify whether a warrant has been issued as the result of FTA from a police station or from a court will assist in identifying weaknesses within the system, allowing improvements to be made.

15. Emerald is working with the Office of Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR) to develop a policy for dealing with out of force warrants, nationally.

16. The first two meetings of the LCJB enforcement sub-group have taken place with representatives of Emerald Warrants Management System in attendance.

Future developments

17. EWMS IT links have been developed between the MPS and the City of London Police. The anticipated go live date is April 2006.

18. There has been development of cross-agency FTA warrant management with Her Majesty’s Court Service, who also have responsibility for enforcement of Non Payment of Fines warrants, breaches of Community Orders and asset warrants. Consideration is required on how we move forward with the introduction of the National Enforcement Service.

Asset recovery

19. The issue regarding clarification of the asset recovery target is addressed below:

• The asset recovery figures are different in two reports. The OCJR set a target for the LCJB to recover £10m worth of assets. This was included in the LCJB targets.
• When the MPS policing plan was submitted to the MPA the figure was agreed at £5m. The MPS have been working to the £5m target.

Detections

TICs

20. Performance on TICs continues to show a substantial improvement. This is due mainly to the efforts of Operation Emerald. In 2005 the ‘Improving the MPS Detections through Effective Leadership’ seminars were delivered to all Uniform Sergeants. Part of the session included a drive to convert arrests into further TICs.

In September 2004 the Operation Emerald’s Detections Team began ‘Operation Wipe-The-Slate-Clean’, this was rolled out across the MPS in 2005. ‘Wipe-The-Slate-Clean’ seeks to convert a single detection for one VOLUME crime, into several detections, and this has had a significant impact you performance.

• April 1st 2004 to March 16th 2005 - 9083 offences detected by way of TIC.
• April 1st 2005 to March 16th 2006 - 16127 offences detected by way of TIC.
• This equates to a year on year increase of 77.5%.

Increasing detections

21. The introduction of the Corporate Emerald ‘Cannabis Warning’ Form 67 has been approved and is currently with MPS procurement services awaiting printing and publication. It is anticipated it will be available to all MPS staff by early April.

22. The Investigation Team continue their latest round of training and assisting borough staff through site visits. The aim being to increase detection rates.

23. The Detections Team is now engaged with the Home Office on a Pathfinder project, targeting Prolific Persistent Offenders for offences ’Taken Into Consideration’. This is a National pilot involving several other police areas. The MPS have committed themselves to two pilot sites, Southwark and Waltham Forest. This will be supported by the MPS ‘Wipe the Slate Clean’ initiative.

24. Training on Home Office Counting Rules now sits within the first five weeks of training that recruits receive at Hendon Initial Training School. This follows advice from the Emerald Detections Team.

25. A member of the Detections Team together with the Borough Commanders from Waltham Forest and Greenwich will be meeting their counterparts from West Midlands (one of our ‘Family’ police areas). West Midlands are currently the ‘League Leaders’ in Sanction Detections. The aim is to garner best practice.

26. The newly formed Operation Emerald Territorial Policing (TP) Crime Management Unit (CMU) is a centre of excellence in respect of crime reporting and recording. It is a central point of reference and information for Borough CMUs. It acts as a liaison between boroughs and the Data Accuracy Team - Crime and conducts reviews of Borough CMUs to promulgate best practice. The TP CMU assists Borough Crime Managers and CMUs, thereby contributing towards improvement in MPS performance, data quality and National Crime Reporting Standard compliance.

Effective Trial Management Programme

27. There are a number of factors that affect the effective trial rate. ‘Cracked’ trials and vacated trials do have an impact but are not counted toward either measure. It is for this reason that the ineffective and effective trial rates do not equate to 100%.

28. There are twelve categories where a trial may be deemed as ‘cracked’ and twenty-five categories where a trial may be deemed ineffective (28 in crown courts). These categories are broken down into court, prosecution and defence reasons.

29. The vacating of trials before the trial date is a tool used to prevent a case not ready and ‘fit for purpose’ from becoming ineffective on the day of the trial. They are also used to make better use of court time. The use of and number of vacated trials will effect and defer effective trial numbers.

30. For these reasons it is important to focus on ineffective trial rates. It provides the ability to target the root causes of trial failures that impact on the effective trial rate.

31. Police non-attendance at court is being managed through the Police Performance Meeting process. The figure, however, continues to improve reducing by 45% when comparing Nov-Jan 2006 against the corresponding period last year. It constitutes 1.9% of total trials and represents 7.5% of total ineffective trials.

32. Non-attendance is examined locally and reasons consist mainly of officers not being warned correctly or being required at a higher court.

Current Trial management performance

• Ineffective Trials Magistrates Court 23%
• Effective Trials Magistrates Court 40.4%
• Ineffective Trials Crown Court 11.4%
• Effective Trial Crown Court 58.5%

Charts detailing this information are available in Appendix 3 and Appendix 4

‘Signing on bail’ at Police Stations

33. ‘Signing on bail’ is a bail condition issued at courts whereby defendants have to sign on at their local police station, usually on a daily basis.

34. Defendants should sign a bail form prior to leaving the court, this is then sent to the signing on station. However, some BOCUs report that over 25% of these forms arrive after the defendant has appeared at the police station.

35. Some BOCUs report at least 50% of defendants fail to sign on at all. Other than the defendant’s signature, there are no other security checks to ensure that the person signing on is the person bailed from the court. Such failures place an enormous administrative burden on Station Reception Officers, the investigating officer, CJU and the CPS. The Anti Bureaucracy Unit (ABU) estimate perhaps £6M of opportunity costs is associated.

36. In 2000 it was estimated that approximately 600 persons were found to be signing on bail. However, in November 2004 a telephone survey of just 26 BOCUs (out of 32) was conducted and found that there were over 3500 persons then signing on bail.

37. There is a significant impact upon our front counter services. It contributes to queues and a hostile environment – issues pertinent to the citizens’ focus agenda.

38. There is little evidence that by making a defendant sign on bail at a police station that either levels of re-offending are reduced or that the defendant is induced to attend their trial.

39. In November 2004, following extensive consultation with key stakeholders, the ABU proposed changes to the system whereby police would only apply for the condition following a consultation with the CJU Manager of the BOCU where the person would be signing on.

40. A joint letter from the Head of the CPS in London and AC Godwin to Lord Justice Thomas, Senior Presiding Judge for London, fully supporting this initiative and suggesting more stringent and powerful bail conditions are set instead of signing on, has been drafted and awaits further action.

No Witness, No Justice

41. The CPS continues to co-locate their staff within Witness Care Units. London is currently in negotiation with the National No Witness, No Justice project regarding the final sign off and review procedure for the Witness Care Units within London. Training for Witness Care Unit staff continues and they are currently being made aware of their responsibilities contained within the Codes of Practice for Victims of Crime.

The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime

42. Operation Emerald continues to produce training packs and briefings for all staff in relation to the Codes of Practice for Victims of Crime. Link officers have been identified on each Borough to promote the Code to frontline staff. The Office of Criminal Justice Reform is pleased with the progress the MPS are making in preparation of the introduction of the Code on 1 April 2006.

Relationships between Borough Criminal Justice Groups and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships

43. Waltham Forest and Hackney Boroughs were approached for a view on the issue of how relationships were developing between local BCJGs and CDRPs.

Hackney:

• There are significant overlaps between the membership of the BCJG and CDRP. As a result, common objectives are taken forward in each forum.
• The local CDRP has been involved with the local BCJG in planning and process development.
• One issue where collaborative working is being used is to overcome the reluctance locally by magistrates to issue ASBOs to ‘kerb crawlers’.

Waltham Forest:

• The link between the BCJG and CDRP on this borough is not firmly established. Each views the other has having a different focus and different issues within criminal justice.
• The local CDRP has a mechanism in place to engage with the public whilst there is no such mechanism within the BCJG.
• However each group recognises the need to link in order to better understand the others roles and issues.

44. It is clear that the relationships between these two groups differ from borough to borough and are conspicuously reliant upon individuals taking forward common agenda items.

LCJB update

45. The London Criminal Justice Board’s confidence strategy identifies four work streams, one of which is engaging with our communities.

46. Part of this work stream will include the development of a community engagement strategy, working with others such as the MPA and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships to ensure the Board is appropriately responding to the concerns and needs of communities.

47. There has been an initial meeting with representatives of the MPA and others to discuss how to take this work forward. The draft targets for the LCJB are attached as Appendix 5.

List of abbreviations

ABU

Anti Bureaucracy Unit

ASBO

Anti Social Behaviour Order

BCJG

Borough Criminal Justice Group

BOCU

Borough Operational Command Unit

CDRP

Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership

CJU

Criminal Justice Unit

CMU

Crime Management Unit

CPS

Crown Prosecution Service

ETMP

Effective Trial Management Programme

EWMS

Emerald Warrant Management System

FTA

Fail To Appear

MPS

Metropolitan Police Service

LCJB

London Criminal Justice Board

NSPIS

National Strategy for Police Information Services

NWNJ

No Witness No Justice

OBTJ

Offences Bought to Justice

OCJR

Office of Criminal Justice Reform

PITO

Police Information Technology Organisation

PTPM

Prosecution Team Performance Monitoring

PYO

Persistent Young Offender

SGV

SunGard Vivista

TP

Territorial Policing

TIC

Taken into consideration

C. Race and equality impact

It is acknowledged that there is a variation in confidence in the criminal justice system across black and minority ethnic communities/people. In order to address this, the London Criminal Justice Board has set up an Independent Advisory Group to look at the issues and how confidence can be improved. Andrew Morley of the LCJB is developing processes to enhance the role and to drive this work forward.

D. Financial implications

There are currently no financial implications.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Chief Superintendent George Clarke, Territorial Policing, MPS

For more information contact:

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

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