Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
TUESDAY 9 MAY 2000
MR DAVID
CALVERT-SMITH
QC AND MR
MARK ADDISON
60. It is all Lovebug proof, is it?
(Mr Addison) We are Lovebug proof at the moment because
we do not have much IT. We would be prepared to trade a bit of
risk on the Lovebug for a bit more investment in technology.
61. The Government expects all departments to
be delivering a quarter of their services electronically by 2002.
What plans does the CPS have to meet that particular Government
target?
(Mr Addison) I think Connect 42 will get us quite
a long way towards it. The really important bit of the target
from our point of view will be the next phase, when we can link
up with the rest of the criminal justice system when victims and
others, we hope, will be able to access information much more
readily about their cases through the internet and in other ways.
The Connect 42 programme will enable us to talk through the internet
to defence solicitors, to the Bar, to the other bits of the criminal
justice system through e-mail in ways that we simply cannot do
at the moment. It will be quite a big advance.
62. The Attorney-General has indicated that
there should be a levelling of fees for prosecution and defence
counsel and that the disparity would start to be evened out starting
from April, from last month, and that there will be graduated
fee rates from October this year, and that the unified fee scheme
to cover all cases over 25 days in length will be introduced from
April next year. The Government has accepted that fees paid to
prosecution counsel will have to increase. What effect will this
have on the CPS's budget and where will the additional money be
found?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I think we are talking about a
process, a number of stages. The first stage in which we, the
CPS, have increased the rates for certain particular defined areas
of work where the disparity between the same work done by a prosecutor
and a defender is really very marked. That has happened in the
sense that the money has already been allocated and that has happened
as a result, I believe, of the Treasury allowing the CPS to hold
on to the costs of the prosecution paid by convicted defendants
to be held on to by the CPS rather than paid over to the Treasury.
Those costs are in excess of a budgeted amount. So because we
got more money in from convicted defendants than was budgeted
for, instead of handing it back to the Treasury they have allowed
us to keep it and devote it. That is step one.
(Mr Addison) That is six million pounds.
63. There will be no additional costs?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) No. It depends how you define it.
The six million pounds would have gone to the Treasury.
(Mr Addison) No unfunded costs.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) No unfunded costs.
(Mr Addison) It will not put pressure on the rest
of our budget.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Step two, which is the institution
of a graduated fee system throughout, will require negotiation
on the one hand, no doubt, between the Bar and the Lord Chancellor's
Department as to the level of that system and no doubt an arrangement
will be reached. I believe that the intention is that no additional
money—no additional money—will be paid to the publicly
funded Bar than is paid currently, at the moment. It may be that
there is a lowering of the graduated fee now paid, to some extent,
and an uplifting of our fees so that no additional money is paid
out in the end. The first stage of that really does not involve
us, it involves the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Bar on
the defence side.
64. I think all of us will await the outturns
with interest.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Yes.
65. Moving on, we are told that staff are experiencing
high stress levels due to lack of resources and overwork. Apparently
there has been a survey which is being published, I believe, later
this month. How far do the results of the staff survey and stress
audit confirm your expectations about the exceptional demands
being made on your staff?
(Mr Addison) I think they broadly confirm what we
expected. It is helpful to have the hard evidence so that we have
a benchmark that we can use for the future. They confirm, as I
think David said in the press statement at the time, that we are
in the middle of a huge change of programme in terms of organisation,
systems, methods of working and so on. We are stretched as an
organisation. Ministers have recognised that we live with a legacy
of under funding from the past. In those circumstances we expected
to find that staff feel a great deal of stress and that has indeed
proved to be the case. There are obviously steps we need to take
to try to remedy that but they do not just turn on funding, they
turn on methods of working and finding ways of doing the current
job with less resource to ease the pressures throughout the system.
That is what developments like the Narey Initiative and CJU are
all about.
Chairman: Quick change of batsman. Mr Linton.
Mr Linton
66. Could I turn the clock back a couple of
rounds because I want to ask a supplemental on the question of
IT because, according to this briefing we have had from you, the
national roll out from Connect 42 will occur in August 2000.
(Mr Addison) Yes.
67. Does that mean that there are many CPS staff
at the moment who do not have access to e-mail?
(Mr Addison) Absolutely. Hardly any staff in the CPS
have access.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Almost none.
(Mr Addison) Outside of headquarters.
68. The inquiry was selected in January this
year, does that mean the whole system of Connect 42 was started
last year or the year before?
(Mr Addison) Connect 42 is a relatively new development
because it is funded by the bid that we put in for capital modernisation
fund money last year. It is indeed a new idea and it has been
done with great speed led by our new IT director. It is a new
idea.
69. Obviously to you.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Quite.
(Mr Addison) Quite.
70. I was told by a magistrate that one simple
thing which will save a huge amount of court time is if courts,
and no doubt the CPS officers as well, could be on line to the
Driver & Vehicle Licensing Centre in Swansea. Is that true?
Do simple things like that waste a lot of time?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Yes, they do. We always think of
IT as the panacea but it is not always because sometimes it brings
problems of its own. There are undoubtedly ways in which IT would
make justice cheaper, quicker and better.
71. I understand a lot of cases have now been
adjourned simply because information is needed from Swansea and
it takes days or weeks to get it?
(Mr Addison) These are matters which would be essentially
between the DVLA and the court, we would not necessarily have
a direct input here. I believe the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's
Department are actively engaged in sorting that linkage out. That
is one of the many linkages that need to be resolved right across
the system over the next few years.
72. So this Connect 42 will not solve all of
the problems?
(Mr Addison) No, this is just the beginning.
73. I am grateful to your press release for
the definition of stress here: "muscular pain, headaches,
fatigue, palpitations, mood swings, irritability, anxiety, drinking,
poor concentration and difficulty in sleeping." I think MPs
would recognise pretty well all of those themselves, not least
the last one. I am concerned about whether there is a link—I
have visited my own local CPS office and I know the workload they
have—between the lack or lateness of some of the IT that
you are having and the amount of stress that this workload is
putting on your staff?
(Mr Addison) I think there is a link. There are two
reasons for it. One is if you are working in an office that you
know is less well equipped than all the other bits of the system
that has an effect on your morale and stress level generally because
you feel you are being left behind. Secondly, you do not do the
work as efficiently as you might. It is perfectly clear in the
offices where the IT is being piloted that there are all sorts
of ways in which you can speed up and simplify internal procedures.
I am not saying that Connect 42 will have a huge impact of that
sort but it will have some. When the new electronic case management
system comes in fully within the next three or four years, as
I said, that will have an even bigger effect.
74. What about the three per cent year on year
efficiency savings, might that not also be held to aggravate stress
levels?
(Mr Addison) I think it depends exactly how you measure
efficiency savings. For instance, it is quite clear that some
of the new procedures that have relatively recently come in, fast
tracking procedures under the Narey arrangement, for instance,
can enable us to move cases through the system, assuming the rest
of the criminal justice system plays its full part, quicker and
in a more simple way and save time and effort. The overall efficiency
figures of the CPS may not increase, however, because if you use
the savings that you get from that to invest in the serious cases,
as David was saying earlier in the Crown Court particularly, you
may end up with the same number of staff, the same number of cases,
but you will be doing a better quality job. So you need to factor
in quality as well as simple numbers to make sure you have got
a sensible efficiency measure.
75. To what extent do you think increased funding
is the answer? Is it better IT or is it more efficiency or is
it more money, or do you think a combination of all three?
(Mr Addison) I would say you need a combination of
all three.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Can I just say, generally on stress/resources
I think the key findings of the stress survey throughout the service
from lawyers right down to administrators is the feeling that
they do not have the time to do a proper job and they do not have
the tools to do a proper job either, the IT point. Therefore,
it is very debilitating constantly to be thinking "have I
done a good job on this case?" The consequences of what in
one sense is really quite a trivial mistake can be quite catastrophic
in terms of an individual case and that, as no doubt it is for
people in the medical profession, can be very stressful. The fact
is there are bits of the job, whether it is answering correspondence,
attending properly to disclosure, which are not being attended
to with the attention that most lawyers and caseworkers would
like them to be dealt with. That is very demotivating and stressful.
Mr Winnick
76. Racially aggravated offence was introduced,
as you know, under the Crime and Disorder Act. Do you feel that
the police should be identifying more cases as racist before they
are referred to the CPS?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I think that the scheme which we
introduced of monitoring identification of racially aggravated
crime has shown, on the one hand, that when it started the police
nationwide were not very good at identifying such cases, that
there is still a significant shortfall in the ability of the police
to identify them, but there have been enormous improvements over
the short life of this scheme. Also, I think the scheme has identified
the fact that sometimes the courts themselves have not openly
at least taken into account racial aggravation in an offence when
passing sentence. I think there is still room for improvement
in identifying a racist incident for what it is, in particular
in the light of the definition recommended and accepted of Macpherson
as to a racist incident being what is perceived by the person
concerned or another to be such rather than as judged by a lawyer
or as it might be. There is still a long way to go.
77. No charges have yet been made against anyone
for one or two really horrifying racist incidents in very recent
times, the person in Birmingham who was set alight and then approximately
two or three months ago the white male partner of a very prominent
black sports woman and the indications are that white partner
was attacked for racist reasons. Do we expect charges to be brought
in the near future?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I do not believe that we have had
a report in either case. I cannot say specifically. By all means
I will let you know where we have got to in writing but I do not
believe the CPS has yet had a report in from the police in either
case.
78. Perhaps I should know this already but in
these cases where charges have not been brought, is there a responsibility
in any way, informal as it may be, on the part of the CPS to get
in touch with the police from time to time and ask what is happening,
or do you wait for charges to be brought?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) The formal position is that by
statute we wait. We are engaged by the police when they choose
to engage us. Frequently, however, it might be perhaps a letter
from an MP to me about a particular incident about which we have
no papers which will cause me to write to an individual Chief
Constable saying "I have had this letter, can you tell me
what is going on?" Equally, in any case of difficulty the
police do contact us early and ask for advice, give us some indication
as to how things are going and so on. I do not know the particular
situation in the areas in which these terrible offences occurred
but I am very happy to let you know.
79. You will be letting us know. The position
in law about incitement to race hatred is quite clear. In those
organisations small and insignificant as they may be, certainly
when it comes to electoral strength I am glad to say, is the law
being implemented in fact? From time to time, certainly in one
or two European elections when there has been a television broadcast
by what I would describe as these gangster outfits, the question
inevitably is raised "Well, how on earth can that happen
when it is so much against the law on incitement to race hatred"?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I understand the concern and to
an extent I share it. We do our level best within the confine
of our role and not as investigators, obviously, to make sure
that cases where there is good evidence go to the Attorney-General
for his consent. As you know they require his consent for a prosecution.
I know that he and the Solicitor-General are both anxious about
the comparative scarcity of such prosecutions since the ability
to mount them began. There are a number of cases of which I have
had knowledge where in the end, regretfully, it has been impossible
to pin criminal responsibility on any particular individual because
of the nature of the evidence which the police have managed to
obtain. Where we do have evidence which enables us to pin such
responsibility we will act as urgently and as strongly as we can.
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