3 The Ministry of Justice's oversight
of the Authority and the Panel
21. As the sponsoring department of both the
Authority and the Tribunals Service, the Ministry of Justice has
oversight of the performance of both bodies. Given the importance
of the scheme in achieving the Ministry's objective of putting
victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, the service
provided by the scheme should have been given a higher priority
by the Ministry. The low priority afforded to the scheme had led
to the Ministry not successfully managing the performance of the
Authority or the Panel.[21]
22. The Ministry had not set rigorous performance
targets for the Authority and Panel nor held them accountable
for their poor performance in not meeting these targets. The Ministry
plans to introduce a new accountability and performance management
framework for the Authority for the period from April 2008 to
April 2011, which will set out indicators and targets to feed
through to individuals' objectives. The Ministry has a number
of other Executive Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies.
Whilst some had been performing well, for example the Probate
Service, others may, like the Authority and the Panel, have been
performing poorly. The Ministry is planning to roll out accountability
and performance frameworks to all these bodies using the Authority's
framework as a model.[22]
23. The Home Secretary issued a Code of Practice
for Victims of Crime in October 2005.[23]
It requires police forces to respond to requests for information
from the Authority and the Panel within certain time limits: 30
days for initial requests from the Authority and for all requests
from the Panel. The code does not specify an individual within
each police force who is responsible for complying with the code,
so it therefore falls to the head of each force, the Chief Constable,
to comply. Chief Constables would not be held legally responsible
for not complying with the terms of the code but the performance
against the code is admissible in evidence in criminal or civil
proceedings, and a court may take into account a failure to comply
with the code in determining a question in the proceedings. The
Ministry monitors the performance of police forces against the
code and police forces are able to view how they perform against
other forces. The Ministry should have worked more closely with
police to improve compliance with the code, and only 15 of 42
police forces in England and Wales responded to half the initial
requests they received from the Authority within 30 days. Figure
4 compares the performance of all 42 police forces. Derbyshire
one of the better performers, responding to 70% of initial requests
within the 30 days, had achieved this by setting up a central
database of requests and four area based teams to manage the requests.[24]
Figure 4:
Police forces had variable success in meeting the requirement
of the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime to respond to initial
requests in 30 days
Source: National Audit Office
21 Qq 2, 4, 111-112 Back
22
Qq 14, 91-92 Back
23
Under Section 32 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act,
2004 Back
24
Qq 154-160, 164; C&AG's Report, paras 1.4, 3.27, Figure 16 Back
|
