HMCPSI's Business Plan: 2017-18
HMCPSI has today published its Business Plan for 2017-18.
The plan sets out the key areas of work that the Inspectorate expects to undertake and gives some background on why they are priorities.
The purpose of HMCPSI is to inspect the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and to produce reports that provide independently assessed evidence on performance that allows others to hold the two services to account. The reports are also intended to encourage performance improvements by the CPS and SFO.
An ambitious programme of activity includes seven CPS Area inspections. The year will be also spent scoping and planning for inspections of CPS London and the Headquarters Casework Divisions, which will take place in 2018-19. The latter will focus on the handling of the most serious crime.
There will be an inspection of the Individual Quality Assessment (IQA) process which is designed to assess compliance by evaluating casework and advocacy by individual prosecutors. HMCPSI will also take a look at custody time limits and CPS internal fraud controls.
Following on from work with other inspectorates in 2016-17, which identified serious shortcomings in the way the National Crime Agency (NCA) complied with legislative and case law requirements for warrants and orders, there will be a joint review of NCA warrants. Plans are under way to undertake a further joint inspection of hate crime, while a national overview of modern slavery and human trafficking will pave the way for a full joint inspection next year. Further collaboration with Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland is also schemed in, with two overlapping inspections on how cases of domestic and sexual violence and abuse are handled.