Criminal Justice Update

Report: 4
Date: 11 October 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

Performance Sanction Detections

1. 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

2. The MPS gained 18,228 OBTJs in July 07, the monthly target being 16,433. This gives a rolling 12 month figure of 204,991 against the year end target of 197,200 and 69,925 for the performance year to date (target 65,732). Table 1 shows how these are broken down for the rolling 12 months:

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

OBTJ – LONDON 07/08

3.  London (incl. City of London Police and other agencies) achieved an estimated 18,748 OBTJs for July 07 against the monthly target of 16, 667. This gives a rolling 12 month figure of 214,062. The 07/08 target is 200,000.

Persistent Young Offenders (PYOs)

4. The latest arrest to sentence data is from May 2007. This showed MPS related cases at 69.9 days, giving a 3-month average of 73 days against the Pledge of 71 days.
5.  The MPS average arrest to charge time for the period May – July 07 is 8 days against the target set by LCJB under the Phoenix Initiative for an average of 5 days.
6.  No up to date or accurate information is available to show how our partner agencies are performing against their Core Components of Phoenix.

Effective Outcomes Within an Agreed Timescale

7. This is a new measure of Efficiency and Effectiveness for Criminal Case Management from the OCJR Operational Board.
8. 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 (to July)

 * Source; London Criminal Justice Board. (New data set, no comparative data available)

Warrants

9. 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 is available as a pdf]

10. The initial review of the three Integrated Prosecution Team pilot sites took place in June. This was a very early review looking at 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.

11. This initial review found it was too early too draw any conclusions on staffing estimates for Case Builders, as they had not been employed in the role long enough.
12. The review found that there was a need for consolidation activity to take place in relation to the new systems and processes by both the MPS and CPS.
13. The MPS and CPS have created a consolidation plan and activity is currently being undertaken.
14. Practical lessons regarding implementation for future Integrated Prosecution Teams have been gained.
15. The review found there was wide spread support for the Integrated Prosecution Team concept.
16. A full business case for Integrated Prosecution Teams has been submitted to Investment Board on Monday, 24 September and probable needs to go to Finance Board.

LCJB - Virtual Courts

17. The Virtual Courts Prototype finished on 17 August as planned. The final numbers to date are summarised in Table 4. The project now moves into its' second phase which includes the following activities;
18. Evaluation: A 62-point evaluation plan is being collated and put together. There is a diversity segment within the evaluation and this will include an equalities impact assessment.
19. Business Ready Model: Concurrent and following the work around the evaluation will be the preparation of a business ready model. This work will conclude by Monday 17th September.
20. Business Case: Following the work on the evaluation and business ready models the business case is to be prepared and finalised by early October. London Criminal Justice Board will then decide the future of the project.
21. Statistics: The prototype was asked to test the concept. There have not been more cases over the 12 weeks due to a number of reasons, namely; consent issues, defence solicitor opposition due to issues around funding and client interests, narrow time gap when virtual courts could operate.
22. Technical: The technical solution has shown that both video conferencing and collaborative space technologies can co-exist and complement each other within the business process.
23. Conclusion: To date Virtual Courts has shown that it can reduce the time taken from charge to first hearing from 14 days to 2 hours. This has been achieved with the minimum disruption to the daily work within the police station and with no loss of case papers or advance information not being served.

Table 4 - Virtual Court Summary

 * Includes 1 multi-hander [2]

24. The prototype has now ceased operation and the evaluation processes are continuing. The volume of cases during the final week was adversely affected by the impact of daily large-scale visits, which absorbed a lot of resource and time at the police station. The week saw the first case involving an interpreter. This case was brought to conclusion and the defendant was fined.

Operation Safeguard - Current and future demands

25. The MPS has continued to provide approximately 50 cells per day and provided further capacity for the busy bank holiday weekend. Our intention is to maintain the present level of provision, subject to any significant changes in requirement.
26. Additional provision (a total of 96 places) was also made, at very short notice, during the recent Prison Officer’s strike. This was managed through utilisation of additional overflow sites and displacement of other policing operations that were scheduled to use these sites through absorbing their business into our normal cell capacity. Further staff were deployed on overtime. The process was successfully managed by Custody Directorate staff and as a result had minimal impact on other areas of our business.
27. Higher numbers of staff are employed at Safeguard suites than at our 24/7 sites. This is to cater for the higher risks associated with Safeguard detainees, provide readily available staff for ‘constant watches’ and ‘hospital guards’ and to deal with the arrivals and booking-in procedures. This also avoids abstracting officers from response teams. By utilising staff on overtime rather than abstracting staff from other duties, any potential impact on core business is avoided.
28. The Prison Service recently introduced the End of Custody Licence (ECL) early release scheme in an effort to reduce numbers of detainees in the prison system. Unfortunately, this has not yet had the anticipated long-term impact on the rising prison population. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) have also stated that new additional Prison Service accommodation coming on line is not sufficient to meet growing demands and Operation Safeguard will continue into 2008.

Libra

29. The roll out of Libra is progressing and current indications are that 10 London court areas will be live by December 2007 and that roll out to the remaining London Magistrate’s Courts will conclude in October/November 2008. Consequently, 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, together with the delivery of an effective interface between NSPIS Case Preparation and Libra, is likely to extend the MPS NSPIS Case Preparation roll out to the end of 2008. The MPS NSPIS project team has developed a revised deployment schedule and resource requirement based on this latest information.
30. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) are concerned about the number of Libra users slowing down and potentially ‘crashing’ the Libra system. To this end they imposed limitations on the number of police users. These limits were simply unworkable from a police perspective. Since this time, although police users will be limited, the MoJ Libra team have been more flexible in granting access.
31. PNCB have been hampered in their work by Libra being unable to print court lists with over 50 results present. The MoJ are putting an IT fix in place on October the 14th to tackle part of this problem. However, MoJ continue to work with DoI to completely rectify the situation.

Inside Justice Week

32. On a Pan-London basis, the MPS (through Safer Neighbourhoods) is leading on our Inside Justice Week (IJW) Poster competition. A number of schools across London have been invited to produce posters based on the theme of IJW, which this year is Seeing Justice Done. The entries are then judged and the winners’ work is publicised through the London CJB over the course of the year. Last year’s winner featured along with her work in our London CJB calendar and on the London CJB website.
33. Activity is being developed on a borough basis by their BCJGs of which the MPS is a key participant e.g. Barking, where officers will be running public events in Shopping Malls and holding mock arrests/police procedures together with mock courts to enable 7-14 year olds to understand how the CJS works.

London Reform Programme

34.  Programme approach, Governance and Terms of Reference are dealt with in Tables 5 – 11 respectively.  Table 5 shows how the Reform Programme will contribute to the delivery of the LCJB aims and objectives. [ Table 5 is available as a pdf]

Table 6 - Project Portfolio is based on fit and contribution to reform programme

Table 7 - Reform programme governance structure is based on LCJB governance structure

Table 8 - LCJB Terms of Reference for Reform Programme

Table 9 Terms of Reference – Programme Board

Table 10 - Terms of Reference – Project Board

Table 11 Powers of Authority

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
DoI
    Directorate of Information
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. Any costs arising out of the both the LCJB Governance of the Reform Programme and the Inside Justice Week are to be met by the LCJB.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Commander Mark Simmons, Territorial Policing, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

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