Welcome to the Crown Prosecution Service in Sussex.cc
Introduction by Sarah Jane Gallagher, Chief Crown Prosecutor.
Sussex CPS continues to strive to re-balance the criminal justice system in favour of victims and the law-abiding majority, working closely with our colleagues in other criminal justice agencies. We will implement the national Victim and Witness Strategy 2008-2011, which seeks both to provide an ever improving service to those who through no fault of their own find themselves involved in the criminal justice system and also to raise public confidence in the CPS as a prosecuting agency that is becoming truly world class.
We aim to focus strongly on becoming more efficient, whilst ensuring we remain effective in what we do. We are already seeing the benefits of the Criminal Justice: Simple, Speedy, Summary initiative in the magistrates’ courts, with the time taken to get cases to trial and finalisation being radically reduced. With our colleague agencies, we will endeavour to make further progress in this initiative and also seek to reduce undue delay and inefficiencies in the administration of Crown Court cases.
Through the coming year we will, jointly with the police, continue with our review of charging arrangements to ensure that both police and lawyer time is used most effectively and that we continue to realise the benefits that statutory charging provides.
Sussex CPS is growing in size and stature, now being a major leading criminal justice agency in the area. Working with other agencies, we intend to increase our links with the public we serve, engaging with communities in as open a way as we are able, whilst retaining our independence in prosecuting. In conjunction with Surrey CPS we have set up a Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel, made up of community representatives, who are invited to scrutinise our files to assess how we have carried out our duty under the Code for Crown Prosecutors, and provide us with views and comments to assist our future work in relation to hate crimes. In the coming year, we will develop this Panel, hold regular meetings and evaluate what we can learn from this valuable input from members of the public.
It is a particularly difficult time for many public sector departments, as resources are very limited and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Sussex CPS is carrying out a fundamental review of the deployment of all our advocates (Crown Advocates, Crown Prosecutors and Associate Prosecutors), in order to ensure that we use the skills and experience of each of our valuable people to the full. This will undoubtedly involve the need for some change for some people in their current working arrangements and I am grateful for the positive way in which many are responding to these changes and the enthusiasm with which many people are taking on the challenges facing the area.
Our Business Plan certainly includes some challenging elements; the achievement of these objectives will be dependent very much upon the skill, commitment and energy of all our people. I am delighted that Sussex CPS has recruited people at all levels who enthusiastically embrace challenge, seeing challenge as an opportunity to develop their own careers in a way that also provides a valuable service to the public.
April 2008
