PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
CPS Direct (10 July 2014)

To ask the Attorney General, how many and what proportion of charging decisions made by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2013-14 and each of the previous five financial years were made by CPS Direct.

Asked by:
Emily Thornberry (Labour)

The number and proportion of charging decisions made by CPS Direct in 2013-14 and each of the previous five financial years are as follows:

	2008-2009	2009-2010	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014
Number of finalised pre-charge decisions	532,427	477,517	466,611	367,067	299,345	298,077
Number of finalised pre-charge decisions made by CPS Direct	138,946	130,672	158,775	140,163	140,096	233,094
Proportion of finalised pre-charge decisions made by CPS Direct	26.1%	27.4%	34.0%	38.2%	46.8%	78.2%

Up to the end of 2012-13 CPS Direct was a purely out of hours service (though assisting the daytime Area-based service during part of 2012/13). Since April 2013 CPS Direct has been a full 24/7 service and has also been piloting digital as well as telephone referral of cases.

Answered by:
Sir Robert Buckland (Conservative)
21 July 2014