Criminal Justice update

Report: 12
Date: 17 May 2007
By: Assistant Commissioner Territorial Policing on behalf of the 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 the report.

B. Supporting information

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

1. Brent borough went live with NSPIS CuCP on 19 June 2007 bringing the total NSPIS “live” boroughs across the MPS to 18. This equates to just over half of the overall MPS custody estate. The Case Preparation element of the NSPIS CuCP application has not been activated as boroughs are reliant on the Libra requirements described in paragraph 3 below. The next borough to go live is Ealing on 26 June 2007 and thereafter BOCUs will continue to be taken live on a regular basis throughout the year except during main holiday periods.

2. Processes are well advanced with BOCUs scheduled to go live up until December 2007 in order to prepare them for roll out. Engagement is planned with all remaining boroughs commencing 8 months prior to each go live date in order to ensure that all necessary infrastructure is in place, training delivered and business change processes agreed.

3. In order to provide an electronic link between NSPIS Case Preparation and Magistrates Courts (other than those served by the Thames Gateway server) there is a reliance on the introduction of the new Libra magistrates court system across London together with the roll out of an interface between NSPIS Case Preparation and Libra. In order to facilitate the introduction of this interface at the earliest opportunity, the MPS is currently working with partners to test this interface. This will be followed by a live pilot in Kingston BOCU commencing in July 2007.

4. The roll out of Libra is significantly delayed and current indications are that only ten London court areas will be live by December 2007. Recent indications from CJIT are that the roll out to the remaining London Magistrates Courts will conclude in October 2008. The impact for the NSPIS CuCP roll out is that whilst NSPIS Custody is still on track to be deployed across London by 31 March 2008, the indicative date for completion of the Libra roll out is likely to extend the MPS NSPIS Case Preparation roll out to the end of 2008. The MPS NSPIS project team is currently working on a revised deployment schedule and resource requirement based on this latest information.

Performance

Sanction detections

5. The Sanction Detection rate for the performance year to date is 22.8% against the target of 24% (April 22.6%, May 23.1%).

OBTJ – MPS 07/08

6. The MPS gained 15,827 OBTJs for April 07 against the monthly target of 16,433. However, this gives a rolling 12 month figure of 200,243 against the year-end target of 197,200. Table 1 shows how these are broken down for the rolling 12 months:

Table 1 - MPS OBTJs (rolling 12 months as at April 07)

OBTJ – London 07/08

7. London (incl. City of London Police and other agencies) achieved 16,357 OBTJs for April 07 against the 16,667 required monthly to meet the 07/08 target of 200,000.

Persistent Young Offenders (PYOs)

8. The latest arrest to sentence data is from February 2007. This showed MPS related cases at 72.1 days, giving a 3-month average of 77.7 days against the Pledge of 71 days.

9. The MPS arrest to sentence data is incomplete at present for May 2007. The available data shows an average of 6 days against the target set by LCJB under the Phoenix Initiative for an average of 5 days.

10. No up to date or accurate information is available of how our partner agencies are performing against their Core Components of Phoenix.

Effective outcomes within an agreed timescale

11. This is a new measure of Efficiency and Effectiveness for Criminal Case Management from the OCJR Operational Board.

12. 2007/08 is a transition year and no targets have been set by OCJR. However, LCJB have given local targets for Ineffective Trial Rates of 19% in Magistrates Courts and 14% in Crown Courts (Table 2). Also, to achieve an average waiting time of less than 10 weeks for listed trials in Magistrates Courts. All will be assessed on a performance year to date basis rather than quarterly.

Table 2 - Effective/Ineffective Trial Rates PYTD 07/08

Warrants

13. In addition to warrant reduction targets which were met in April (para. 21), there is a raised focus on execution rates. Police Performance Meetings (PPMs) are held on a quarterly basis with borough CJU managers and data around warrants forms part of the agenda. Warrant performance targets are also dealt with at Local Criminal Justice Board level. Further to this, the London Criminal Justice Board has a warrant enforcement sub-group at which the MPS is represented. Table 3 provides a summary of warrant performance.

Table 3 - Summary of Warrant performances (see supporting material)

Licence recalls

14. This is a new target, which will ensure all agencies are accountable for performance on the timeliness of recall action.

15. The purpose of this initiative is to accelerate enforcement action in those cases where such action is considered to be appropriate. It is not intended to prompt recall in cases where the risk of re-offending can be effectively managed in the community.

16. These measures will be based on an end-to-end timescale of 6 days for standard cases measured from the decision point by the Probation Offender Manager to the arrest of the offender:

• the probation service complete the revocation request within 24 hours of the decision to recall;
• the Release and Recall Section (RRS) issue the revocation notice to the police within 24 hours (or reject the request); and
• the police arrest the offender within 96 hours in 80% of cases.

17. For high risk of harm cases the end-to-end timescale would be reduced to three days and two hours, i.e.

• Probation service initiating recall within 24 hours (as above);
• RRS processing the recall within 2 hours; and
• Police arrest the offender within 48 hours in 75% of cases.

18. The MPS performance must be set against the fact that Standard Operating Procedures etc. on this matter are still awaiting approval and publication. Also, the data provided at present by the Home Office is not broken down by Borough. These factors make it difficult to address any shortcomings.

Table 4 - MPS Licence recall performance [2]

Table 5 - National Licence recall performance [2]

Enforcement – Emerald Warrant Management System

19. The rate by which Fail To Appear and Bench warrants are being reduced has started to slow. This reflects the excellent work that has taken place over the last two years in reducing the volume into a manageable amount.

20. The current number of warrants held is 6,660. This represents a 64% reduction over the August 2004 figure of 18,500. The end of year report indicates that we officially achieved a reduction down to 6,720 FTA warrants against a target of 8,500 (Table 6).

Table 6 - Indicates the latest official data available through the London Criminal Justice Board (LCJB) Performance Team. (see supporting material)

21. This years target has been set at 5,517 and the Table 6 will be adjusted by the LCJB team to show an incremental fall over a 12-month period.

National Enforcement Service

22. No update since previous PPRC.

Asset recovery

23. 06/07 year end performance for London was 369 confiscation orders against a target of 455. The LCJB Performance Board has produced a new chart for 2007/08. For the month of April, 48 confiscation orders were obtained. This is ahead of profile to achieve the target of 468 by March 2008. This is a financial year target and not a target for the rolling 12 months (Table 7).

24. Confiscation is just part of the overall asset confiscation process and police will use the most appropriate legislation to deprive criminals of their assets.

Table 7 - Volume of confiscation orders 07/08 (see supporting material)

Table 8 - Value of confiscation secured 07/08 (see supporting material)

25. Although the volume of confiscation orders made did not achieve the target, the value of orders secured during 2006/07 was surpassed by more than 7% with £18,319,000 being secured against a target of £17,082,979. Table 8 indicates that the value of orders made in April 07 this is ahead of trajectory and therefore at this early stage is on course to secure value of confiscation orders of £17,083,000 by March 2008. This is a financial year target and not a target for the rolling 12 months.

26. The London Criminal Justice Performance Board have started a new chart for financial year 2007/08 to indicate the value of money collected through confiscation orders. This exceeded £7m in the first month. Caution is required with these figures as they refer to total money collected on confiscation orders some of which are 6 years old (Table 9).

Table 9 - Money collected from confiscation orders 07/08 (see supporting material)

Confiscation Enforcement Team

27. Using incentivisation money, the MPS have set up a small confiscation enforcement team to work in partnership with the HMCS Central Accounting Unit. In two months, they have arrested 25 persons who owe a total of £0.5m in Confiscation Orders.

Victim Focus Units (VFUs)

28. Currently there are 13 established Victim Focus Units with a further 10 units scheduled to go live during June and July 2007.

29. The recruitment campaign is continuing and shall be targeted at those BOCUs that do not have Victim Focus Units or are of limited team strength.

30. Kensington & Chelsea and Tower Hamlets BOCUs have both gone live and are fully staffed.

31. The BOCUs shown hereunder have all gone live with their VFUs but still require additional staff:

• Barnet
• Belgravia
• Bromley
• Ealing
• Enfield
• Hillingdon
• Hounslow
• Marylebone
• Newham
• Southwark
• West End Central

32. It is anticipated that during June and July 2007 rollout of VFUs will take place at the following BOCUs:

• Brent
• Camden
• Croydon
• Greenwich
• Hackney
• Havering
• Kingston
• Lewisham
• Merton
• Wandsworth

Integrated Prosecution Teams

33. Hackney and Tower Hamlets BOCUs went live on 23 April 2007 and Waltham Forest BOCU on 21 May. The Emerald central team are floor walking at these sites to continue to support the staff in implementing the new systems and processes.

34. The MPS provisional evaluation of the IPTs commenced on Monday 11 June 2007.

35. This evaluation will focus on three main aspects:

• Case-Builder workload analysis - to evaluate whether the staffing estimates conducted in December 2006 are appropriate.
• Quality of the process and its outcomes.
• Practical lessons learnt from this first phase implementation, for future boroughs to benefit from in time for their rollout.

36. Part 1: Case builder workload analysis

37. Part 2: Quality of the process and its outcomes

The project will provide a qualitative and quantitative assessment of whether “the process works”, as can be concluded from the three Pathfinder sites.

38. The qualitative review will be based on:

• A close evaluation of the new part of the process carried out by the Case Builders (as part of their workload evaluation – see part 1), during which the main objective will be to ascertain whether the Case Builders are deployed as anticipated or whether they are conducting additional tasks or encounter hindrances in the process.
• Focus groups and/or interviews with other IPT role-holders including the CPS and with “users” e.g. OICs, for feedback on their perception of the single case file and how well it works.
• Quality Assurance records to see whether the single files meet the minimum standards. This includes reviewing MPS QA Sergeant records and CPS QA records. A baseline measure will be established by reviewing a number of existing pre-IPT closed files for all improvement memos, recording the date, provenance and addressee of the memo, and nature of the request.

39. The quantitative review will focus on the anticipated reduction in time required for the case to progress from Custody through to Court, and improvements in outcomes e.g.:

• Number of BTRs (including reason)
• Number of cracked and ineffective trials (including reason)
• Number of OBTJs, SDs

40. Part 3: Implementation “Lessons Learnt”

Ways to capture the lessons learnt from the pathfinder sites’ implementation experience include the following:

• Borough debrief sessions and MPS / CPS Change Team meetings
• Review of the “Issues logs” created by the Emerald IPT Project Team for each pathfinder borough
• Focus groups / interviews – including with the Emerald project team.

41. The evaluation will capture the key lessons learnt which will need to be addressed for the remainder of the rollout and include recommendations as applicable. These will not be “process”-specific but will focus on the organisational change management aspects. The areas covered will be:

• The selection process (scope for change still to be confirmed with HR – 4 May 07)
• Training, with a specific evaluation of the new Case Builder course, and potential overall training observations / recommendations made as a result of the process review.
• Change management best practice.

LCJB update

Virtual Courts

42. Virtual Courts commenced on Tuesday 29 May 2007 at Brixton and Walworth operating during the hours of 9am-5pm. As of Monday 11 June, Kennington and Peckham police stations entered the scheme with Brixton and Walworth and all four sites are now operating during the hours of 9am-9pm. The scheme aims to finish on Friday 24 August when the full evaluation will commence.

43. Cases permitted to undertake the first hearing via the Virtual Court are as follows; male and female, adult aged 18 years and over. It does not include cases where there are more than two co-defendants. It does not include cases where the defendant requires an appropriate adult.

44. To date there have been 16 cases and 17 defendants through the Virtual Court scheme. There have been 20 refusals 12 of which were as a result of legal advice.

45. The Video Conferencing technology is working well and is of good quality. There are issues around the electronic transfer of evidence and also around the scanners, which develop faults. This is slowing down the process but is being rectified.

46. There is a full evaluation plan and data is collected and co-ordinated on a daily basis.

47. Overall, teething problems aside with the technology, it works well. Once the issues with the technology are resolved, the process should be quick and efficient.

48. The team is currently looking at ways to increase charging volumes.

Simple Speedy Summary Criminal Justice (SSSCJ)

49. CJSSS in Camberwell and Thames is now settled in as business as usual. London rollout of CJSSS is being progressed and a consistent approach to implementation will be adopted.

50. Newham will be the next BOCU to implement CJSSS. The first Local Implementation Team (LIT) meeting was held on 23 May. We are working with the multi-agency LIT team to produce the key base documentation that will support the rest of London's rollout i.e. Gap analysis and health check documentation for all agencies.

51. IT team meetings have also been held with Croydon, Bexley and Havering and the relevant documentation shared with them. It is anticipated that these BOCUs will implement CJSSS in September. Further BOCUs where LIT team meetings have been held are Greenwich and Lewisham anticipated to implement in October and Westminster anticipated to implement in November.

Directors Guidance Quick Process

52. The Quick Process Project aims to deliver a more proportionate prosecution case file for certain summary cases. The scheme commenced on 5 March in Hackney, 12 March in Tower Hamlets, 19 March Southwark and 26 March in Lambeth. The scheme involves a much simplified procedure and form being used by the police and CPS to form the prosecution case file and Advance Information for certain summary, police charge cases.

53. The project seeks to demonstrate:

• A net saving to the police in terms of time cost for creation of paper files
• As a minimum, no impact on the effectiveness of first hearing measured through the proportion of plea rates (including not guilty plea rates) and adjournments at first hearing
• Net savings to the CPS in terms of time / cost for reviewing files prior to the court hearing
• The satisfaction of the judiciary and of the defence in terms of the quality of prosecution preparation using the Quick Process.

54. Initial evaluation data demonstrates:

• Hackney BOCU achieved an 80% guilty plea rate in the first month of implementing Directors Guidance Quick Process (DGQP).
• Data covering the period of March to May for Hackney and April to May for Tower Hamlets demonstrates an overall guilty plea rate at first or subsequent hearing of 66%.
• Hackney performance is slightly better (68% Guilty) than Tower Hamlets (63%), possibly due to the fact that they implemented it earlier.
• Overall Not Guilty plea rate is 18% for both sites combined.
• Guilty plea at first hearing at 60.9% (slight improvement from 59.6% baseline) and Not Guilty plea at first hearing reduced compared with baseline.
• Time savings of 1 hour 28 minutes per DGQP file

Beacon Sites

55. The Beacon approach is intended to improve the delivery of CJS change and reform and to enable LCJBs to take greater responsibility for reform and change in their own areas.

56. At its heart, the Beacon approach will therefore involve:

• testing a core programme of CJS Reform in ten local areas
• Building a single, coherent business case for the core programme which sets out the costs and benefits of each element of the programme and the dependencies and overlaps between elements of the programme
• Managing centrally in discussion with local areas any other demands for change into the Beacon area.

57. London was accepted as one of the ten national Beacon sites on 13 June 07. Whilst the whole of London will be the Beacon site, Westminster BOCU has been selected as a case study area, subject to ratification by the London Criminal Justice Board.

58. In essence the Beacon site will incorporate the core strands of the London reform programme which are:

• Integrated Prosecution Teams (IPTs)
• Criminal Justice Simple Speedy Summary (CJSSS)
• Directors Guidance Quick Process (DGQP)
• Community Engagement (Engaging local communities in criminal justice, including applying principles of Community Justice and Neighbourhood Policing)
• Conditional Cautioning
• Virtual Courts

59. Beacon areas will also be asked to consider as part of their plans, with the central team and relevant project teams:

• Witness Charter
• Progress (Magistrates Court IT tracking tool)
• Project work on the early identification of foreign nationals in the CJS
• Supporting Information Technology projects including Maximising use of Video and exchanging information electronically through the CJ Exchange.
• Outcomes of other recent work looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of case preparation
• Postal charging

60. Work will commence to in July 07 to deliver the Beacon site with an expected completion date of March 2008.

Custody update

National guidance on safer detention

61. The formulation of an implementation co-ordination team has taken longer than originally anticipated, however, one new member of staff has now been recruited and is due to join at the end of July. The action plan has been outlined and will continue to be developed as the team takes shape. The on-going process of raising awareness, and considering the recommendations of the guidance in any new business or changes to current practice, continues.

62. Compliance with the guidance has been assessed nationally through responses to 71 questions about current arrangements. The MPS results have been broken down into three groups; we meet/exceed the standards contained within the Guidance in 16 cases; we part meet and are working towards the standards in a further 45 readily achievable areas.

63. There remain only eight areas that pose potential areas of risk and these, as shown below are to have:

1. agreed local protocols with healthcare agencies to deal with violent detainees
2. established procedures for the management of potentially violent individuals with local social services, local authorities, and healthcare agencies
3. procedures to audit and assess completed Prisoner Escort Record (PER) forms
4. contingency arrangements for accessing additional capacity
5. procedures to ensure your vehicle fleet is regularly assessed for suitability for purpose
6. procedures for the safe storage and handling of medication
7. a vehicle inspection programme that includes examination of vehicle modifications
8. an effective procedures for the transfer of responsibility between custody officers and other staff at shift handover.

64. The above areas have been classified as higher risks as they are identified as including potential harm to the health and well-being of detainees as well as the subsequent risks of damage to organisational reputation and costs.

Operation Safeguard

65. The MPS, in line with recent requests made by the Home Office, have now increased our daily provision of spaces for Operation Safeguard detainees from 50 to 55 cells. Prior to this increase, we have consistently maintained the earlier allocation, rising where feasible (on a short-term basis) to ease additional pressure in the system; i.e. over public holidays and at other times of exceptionally high demand. The pressure this places on other operational business has grown and continual large increases, above our current provision, would be difficult to sustain.

66. With all staffing resources being provided by personnel working overtime on their normal rest-days, their availability to cover other unpredictable staff shortfalls or major events, (where large numbers of staff are required, often at short notice) is reduced. The suites must also be maintained and resourced, abstracting staff from other functions they would otherwise perform. Full cost recovery from NOMS in line with the Safeguard Agreement is being made.

67. A date for the provision of additional beds by the Prison Service has not yet been given and Operation Safeguard is currently expected to continue into September. TP – Emerald are liaising closely with NOMS in this regard.

Short Term Holding Facility (STHF)

68. The use of Short Term Holding Facilities within a retail establishment in central London continues to be pursued. A large department store has offered redundant space for a custody suite, containing all the requirements under 35 PACE for designation as a police station but with holding facilities rather than cells.

69. The first draft of the proposed Standard Operating Procedure has been forwarded to IPCC and Home Office for their comments. A meeting with the IPCC is being scheduled to discuss the contents of the SOP and finalise its contents. The final phase of consultation regarding the concept of STHF is arranged with partners such as Liberty and Amnesty. TP Emerald is confirming key personnel at Selfridges (following their internal restructure) to progress this initiative.

Beacon

DDO Inputters

70. The first DDO inputter pilot is ongoing at Forest Gate police station (Newham Borough). Initial indications are positive, with staff adjusting well to the new processes. The training programme undertaken by the first wave of DDOs is under review, with an aim to adjust the programme according to feedback. Formal evaluation of the first phase is scheduled for August/September this year.

71. It is intended to run a second pilot at Waltham Forest, commencing in October 2007, and recruitment of DDOs for this purpose has commenced.

Forensics

72. The Forensics Directorate have submitted their proposal for the project and work is underway to complete the manual of guidance and SOP. The proposal aims to facilitate early forensic recovery from detainees and advise on steps to ensure forensic opportunities are not missed. The pilot is anticipated to commence in September 2007 on Barnet Borough.

Medical provision

73. Custody medical provision is the subject of a proposal to TP Command Team and a decision about the preferred option is under consideration. The options considered have been generated from a custody medical needs workshop involving external expert advice as well as input from representatives of our current FMEs. The options include a FME service, a nurse or paramedic-based service and a combined doctor/ nurse provision mirroring the current NHS model.

Borough Based Custody Centres (BBCC)

74. Work continues towards submission of planning applications for Borough Based Custody Centres (BBCC) at Waltham Forest, Haringey and Hillingdon where significant progress has been made and preparations for planning applications are anticipated to be completed within the next few months.

75. The proposal regarding the site at Wimbledon (Merton) is due to be submitted for Town Planning consent within the next three weeks. The feasibility scheme and desktop studies for Lambeth and Croydon (our next two priority boroughs) is complete and these will be tabled to Commander Simmons at the next project board on 18 June 2007 for authorisation to proceed to business case preparation and seeking of authority from the MPA.

Abbreviations

BBCC

Borough Based Custody Centre

BOCU

Borough Operational Command Unit

BTR

Bail To Return

CJIT

Criminal Justice Information Technology

CJS

Criminal Justice Service

CPS

Crown Prosecution Service

DDO

Designated Detention Officer

DGQP

Directors Guidance Quick Process

FME

Forensic Medical Examiner

FTA

Fail To Appear

HMSC

Her Majesty’s Court Service

IPT

Integrated Prosecution Team

LCJB

London Criminal Justice Board

LIT

Local Implementation Team

MPS

Metropolitan Police Service

NES

National Enforcement Service

NSPIS CuCP

National Strategy for Police Information Services Custody and Case Preparation

OBTJ

Offences Brought to Justice

OCJR

Office of Criminal Justice Reform

OIC

Officer in Case

PER

Prisoner Escort Record

PPM

Police Performance Meeting

PYO

Persistent Young Offender

PYTD

Performance Year To Date

QA

Quality Assurance

SOP

Standard Operating Procedure

SSSCJ

Simple Speedy Summary Criminal Justice

STHF

Short Term Holding Facility

VC

Virtual Courts

VFU

Victim Focus Unit

C. Race and equality impact

There are no Race and Equality implications to be reported.

D. Financial implications

There are implications in regard to NSPIS, Asset Recovery, NES, VFDs, IPTs and Virtual Courts. Each of these initiatives is to secure greater effectiveness and efficiency. Each has benefits to be realized, making them cost neutral or indeed capable of generating savings. Where this is not the case they are self-financing or funded otherwise than by the MPA.

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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