Research and analysis

Progression of cases submitted by the police to the CPS for charging decisions

Published 10 July 2025

Applies to England and Wales

Authors

Matt Hopkins, Tammy Ayres, Mandy Burton and Sarah Hodgkinson

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank a number of people without whom this research would not have been possible. We owe a big debt of gratitude to all of the police areas for allowing access to their data, and helping us with our endless list of queries. Stuart Murray (Former Assistant Chief Constable, Hampshire police) was critical in guiding the project, accessing forces and resolving data issues.

We would also like to thank the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for their input into many stages of the project and especially in assisting with accessing CPS interviewees. Dr Joan Donnelly (Former Principal Researcher, CPS) and Fiona Chintamaneni (Senior Policy Advisor, CPS) also gave their expertise and assistance in the early stage of project design.

Thanks also go to our external academic peer reviewers, Shane D Johnson MBE, (Director, Dawes Centre for Future Crime, University College London), and Dr Ben Widdicombe, who gave invaluable insights and comments on earlier drafts of this report.

We would like to thank Michelle Diver, Andy Feist, Steve Almond and Scarlett Furlong in the Home Office Crime Analysis Unit for not only being a great team to work with, but for their valuable input and insights in the compiling of this report. Thanks also go to Reece Knight, who provided the analysis on changes in the experience levels of newly promoted sergeants.

Finally, we give huge thanks to all of the participants who took time out of their busy schedules to take part in the interviews – your experience and insights were invaluable.

About the authors

Dr Matt Hopkins is Professor of Criminology at the School of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leicester. Dr Tammy Ayres is an Associate Professor at the School of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leicester. Dr Mandy Burton is a Professor of Law at the University of Loughborough, formerly Professor of Socio-legal Studies at the University of Leicester, where this work was carried out. Dr Sarah Hodgkinson is a researcher at the School of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leicester.

Executive summary

Background and method

The main aim of this research project was to explore the factors that influence the progression of cases sent by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for a charging decision. The research primarily focussed on case progression from crime recording up until charge or decision to no further action (NFA) by the CPS.

A mixed method research design was used for the study that included analysis of a sample of 1,002 criminal case files submitted to the CPS for a charging decision and 55 semi-structured interviews with police and CPS staff involved in case progression. The case files covered victim-based crimes where the suspect was not remanded by the police. Rape and serious sexual assaults were excluded from the sample. The data collection was focussed in 4 territorial police forces in England and Wales.

The characteristics of the case file sample

Just over 75% of the case files sampled had violence offences as the primary offence. Nearly one-third of all cases (30%) had a flag for domestic abuse. Two-thirds of suspects (65%) recorded some type of vulnerability, compared to only one in 5 victims. Overall, 59% of this sample resulted in a charge, although this varied by offence type. On average, it took 113 days to progress a case from recording to charge and 177 days from recording to NFA.

Just over half of sampled cases (56%) where outcomes were known were charged or NFA after their initial submission to the CPS for a charging decision. The remaining cases were returned by the CPS to the police for them to undertake further action in the form of an action plan. Some cases required a second action plan (16% of the sample where outcomes were known) and a small proportion (3%) required a third. Across all cases, one action plan typically adds 51 days to the length of a case while 2 action plans add 72 days to a case.

In almost all ‘first cycle’ action plans, there were requests for additional evidence, with the proportions diminishing in subsequent plans. Requests for documentation and other material to support the case which were available, but missing from the submission, occurred in 7 in 10 first-cycle action plans. Issues with over and under redaction were rarely raised in action plans.

Factors related to outcomes and timeliness

Applying regression analysis to the case file sample found that case progression (outcome and timeliness) is influenced by a combination of case characteristics (for example, whether there was more than one offence), the evidential profile of the case (for example, the presence of witness statements, body-worn video), and what happens to the case as it progresses from recording to outcome.

Action plans seek to remedy issues in the case file identified by the prosecutor. The presence of an action plan, and specifically what the plan requires, appears to be influential in determining both case outcome and timing. More than one action plan is associated with a reduced likelihood that a case is eventually charged. In addition, cases with action plans which identify that available evidence has not been submitted are also associated with a lower likelihood of being charged.  

The presence of action plans is also associated with the time it takes for cases to progress from initial submission to the CPS. Action plans that require more evidence, and multiple action plans are both associated with longer durations from submission to the CPS to charge/NFA.

An association was found between not meeting the National File Standard (NFS) and the case requiring an action plan, suggesting that failing to meet NFS may be a proxy for case file quality. 

The availability of body worn camera evidence appears to have contrasting effects. It appears these cases are associated with shorter times from offence recording to submission to CPS but have a higher likelihood they will require an action plan. 

The analysis also examined the use of early investigative advice (EIA). Although not usually used outside of rape and other sexual offences cases it was used in one force area for a wider range of offences and holding all other factors constant, cases with EIA had faster initial police investigations. They were also associated with shorter times from submission to the CPS for a charging decision and case outcome.

Case file quality and progression: what is ‘case file quality’?

Although compliance with the NFS and Director’s Guidance on Charging (DG6) are important elements of what makes a quality case file, the interviews suggest a broader definition of ‘case file quality’ which extends to the scope and coverage of the police investigation.

At the point of a charging decision, the absence of evidence provided by the police could be the result of an oversight to provide a critical piece of material both the police and CPS agree is relevant. But in other cases, it will be the result of a difference in perception – between the lead investigator and the individual prosecutor – of what is relevant and central to charging in the case.

DG6 compliance and redaction guidelines

For the police interviewees, the most contentious issues around case file preparation were redaction and disclosure. Some officers were just frustrated by the time it took to redact files and how this affected overall timeliness. There were concerns about the effort wasted in redacting files that were ultimately NFA.

The level of resource needed to get a file up to the required standard pre-charge was mentioned in nearly all of the police interviews. While DG6 requirements have been seen by some police interviewees – especially lower ranks – as a burden, this was often mentioned alongside time pressures and resource constraints.

Resources, timeliness and case file quality

Police officer interviewees acknowledged that time pressures could result in poor quality or rushed investigations, with a consequential impact on case file quality. It was also recognised that poor quality charge submissions created additional work for the CPS in reviewing files and consequent action plans.

Prosecutors were particularly frustrated about delays to cases with a significant amount of forensic evidence which took a long time to be processed. Some prosecutors said that obtaining forensic evidence reports was taking longer than they felt was ‘acceptable’ and believed the police should be more proactive in ensuring that evidence was available in a timely manner. Many police interviewees raised similar frustrations about evidence that was dependent on external/third-party expertise, but they felt that these delays were outside of their control.

Case file triage

The CPS operate a triage process which seeks to reduce the time lawyers spend reviewing incomplete police file submissions. The triaging of case files by the police in advance of sending them to the CPS was one of the main mechanisms that interviewees felt could improve file quality. The perception was that, in areas where experienced police triage teams existed, the amount of back and forth between the police and CPS or ‘ping-ponging’ was reduced.

Overall, the interviews suggested that there is support for specialist triage by the police before case submission, provided it is done well and does not create additional barriers or delays to case progression amongst the investigative team.

Action plans, case file quality and case progression

Both police and CPS interviewees perceived action plans as a barrier to speedy case progression, and there was a perception that they could disincentivise the police. A common criticism was the partial/non-completion of action plans by the police, raised by prosecutors and acknowledged by police interviewees. The frequent absence of explanations to the police as to why extra work was needed on the file (that is, an explanation of relevance/importance) was thought by some to be damaging to the working relationship with the CPS. Some CPS interviewees did accompany action plans with more informal communications. Others believed that if communication was more direct with the police (that is, person-to-person via email), it might be possible to progress cases more quickly.

Case characteristics and progression: case complexity and domestic abuse

Although there is no agreed definition of case complexity, it is widely felt that cases are becoming more complex and that this is impacting progression. From the interviews, case complexity was typically associated with specific types of evidence, the number of victims and offenders in a case, and victim and suspect vulnerability. For some newer offences, such as controlling or coercive behaviour, interviewees focussed on the evidence required to bring an offender to justice.

Case complexity and digital evidence

Both the police and CPS interviewees acknowledged the growth in digital evidence and recognised how this can generate resource pressures, create bottlenecks in accessing specialist resources, and lead to substantial delays in case progression.

The precise impacts vary by the type of digital material. Additional time is usually needed to review mobile phone data and decide whether it supports the defence or prosecution case. For body-worn video, the demands tended to arise from the need for the police to review multiple officers’ body worn feeds and select the most relevant material for the file.

‘Multi-handed’ cases (cases with multiple suspects and victims)

Multiple suspect and victim cases (so called ‘multi-handed’ cases) were felt to put additional pressures on the investigations. Some interviewees argued that there was a link between the growth in digital evidence and the ability to link multiple suspects to an offence. This was felt to be particularly so in drugs trafficking offences involving mobile phone evidence. The combination of large amounts of digital evidence and multiple offenders and victims often greatly increased the evidential load.

Victim vulnerability

Dealing with vulnerable suspects and victims was identified as an issue in growing case complexity, but was more frequently cited by the police than the CPS. However, the general view of police interviewees was that supporting victims and suspects who were vulnerable – which can cover a whole range of issues – was an important and necessary aspect of the job.

Domestic abuse offences

Some of the newer legally defined offences – stalking and controlling or coercive behaviour – were considered to pose particular investigative challenges, although within the sample these offences were few in number (7% in total).

Some interviewees argued that the model for investigating and prosecuting physical violence did not translate well into prosecuting controlling or coercive behaviour or stalking/harassment offences. Effective investigation of these cases may require a combination of evidence sources, sometimes going back many years, and may involve third-party evidence to demonstrate the offender’s pattern of behaviour and the impact on the victim.

If a case proceeds without the victim as a witness, the legal rules around admissibility add a layer of complexity. Of the 13% of victim withdrawal cases in the sample, one-quarter still resulted in a charge, implying that these cases proceeded without the victim as a witness. These accounted for 9% of charges in DA cases in the sample.

Wider factors that influence case progression

Increasing workload

In addition to issues around increasing case complexity, both police and prosecutors acknowledged the challenges of managing an increasing workload. However, they identified different factors as the root cause. Prosecutors highlighted the legacy of COVID-19 and the backlog of serious cases in the system. Police officers spoke about the workload pressures created by DG6 and the ‘frontloading’ of cases, that is, ensuring case files are trial-ready at the pre-charge stage.

Most officers also believed that the CPS have suffered a similar, or even greater, increase in demand without commensurate increases in capacity. There was a perception the CPS were carrying heavier workloads without adequate resource.

Whilst senior police officers and specialist units typically seemed to understand what was required by the CPS and the demands placed on them, more friction was found to exist within lower ranks and in more generalist police roles.

Police and prosecutor experience

The relative inexperience of the police workforce was viewed by both police and CPS interviewees as a key issue affecting case building and file quality. Gaps in experience were felt to exist on both the frontline and, even more critically, amongst supervisors. Low levels of supervisory experience were felt to be a particular problem for case building in the police. It was also felt that there were pockets of inexperience in the CPS workforce.

Police and CPS working relationship

The working relationship between the police and CPS at a strategic level was felt to be good and effective. The tensions in the relationship seem to be mainly on the frontline and amongst lower police ranks. Here, the majority of police and CPS interviewees said that, on an individual basis, communication and working relationships varied considerably.

A key source of tension was disputed lines of responsibility and file quality. On the one hand, prosecutors feel frustrated about the police not doing work which they believed the police should be doing or not doing it to the required standard. On the other hand, police felt that the demands placed on them by the CPS – particularly around getting case files ‘trial ready’ – put more pressure on already over-stretched officers.

Use of digital systems and effective communication

A strong and consistent theme in the prosecutor interviews was that digital capability remained a key barrier to case progression and effective communication. Separately, the issue of the digital competence of individual police officers in using their IT systems was seen by most CPS interviewees as a problem. Dealing with digital evidence/digital submissions was not necessarily a routine feature of their job.

Some prosecutors argued that well-resourced force level criminal justice hubs, with high levels of digital expertise, could speed up case progression by ensuring that the case file and the digital evidence submission met a high standard.

The move towards digital case submission was perceived by the police as creating greater distance between the police and CPS. Almost all the police interviewees felt that their relationship with the CPS could be hindered by a lack of direct contact, with face-to-face, online and telephone conversations rare. Perceptions of poor communication were said to fuel an ‘us and them’ attitude by the police, which feeds into a greater sense of a ‘clash of cultures’.

Many officers expressed concerns over the difficulty in accessing the CPS and/or, inconsistencies in the service received. Police officers felt access to more specialised expertise about particular crime types (for example, sexual offences) was beneficial. Here too, the strength of the relationship appeared to vary by rank, with more senior ranks being more positive.

Organisational cultures

A minority view amongst the police was that the power balance between them and the CPS had changed in recent years. The police were now expected to do tasks formerly within the CPS remit, whilst the CPS was perceived to have gained more power over them. The change was associated with the introduction of DG6 and impacted most on work completed by lower-ranking officers.

Police interviewees raised a particular concern about the absence of CPS feedback on decisions. A majority of police officer interviewees said that in cases where charges were dropped, they felt that they were not always given a good explanation as to why.

Police morale

Around half of the officers interviewed suggested that issues around case progression were lowering police morale. Officers expressed frustration that so much work might go into the investigation and case file preparation for it to be ultimately given a NFA outcome.

Over one-third of officer interviewees suggested that the decision to NFA came too late in the process – when time had been ‘wasted’ on labour-intensive redaction and file preparation on cases that were not going to progress.

Interviewees’ views on how to improve case progression

Improved police/CPS joint working

There was a consensus amongst interviewees that improved joint working had the potential to improve case progression. In some areas there are few opportunities for police and prosecutors to have any face-to-face contact. One potential solution offered was joint training, with the primary objective to allow each organisation to gain more insights into the requirements and constraints of the other.

Improved engagement around specific types of cases was also cited by interviewees, for example, through case progression ‘clinics’. Whilst these might be less easy to roll out for high-volume crimes due to resource demands, approaches could potentially be adapted from other crime types.

The absence of feedback from the CPS to the police on decision-making – both action plans and NFA decisions – did not encourage organisational learning. If there are ways to give constructive feedback, it was felt this could enhance relationships and police understanding.

Addressing digital barriers

There was some enthusiasm for the move to digital case files (DCF) which would apply common standards and specifications in police and CPS systems. This would represent a shift away from forms being loaded onto less advanced, separate case management systems (although acknowledging the desire amongst many police for more personalised contact).

Well-resourced force-level criminal justice hubs, staffed by individuals with high levels of digital competence, were felt to offer significant upgrades on current arrangements.

Improved case file building / file quality

The important link between case file quality and case progression suggests that improvements here would pay dividends. Both CPS and police interviewees felt that gains could be made through building a more experienced supervisory function for case file quality. But this will take time to grow, and suggested workarounds included bespoke training and workshops. Interviewees noted the benefits of effective police triage/review processes if staffed by experienced teams.

Early investigative advice

The statistical analysis suggests that the use of EIA is associated with both shorter investigations and shorter times from submission to charge. There was an appetite within the police for gaining early access to CPS prosecutors’ advice prior to formally submitting their case for a charging decision. However, for a few officers who had experience of interacting with the CPS on EIA, this had not resulted in a meaningful exchange of views. Broadening out EIA would, therefore, require clear parameters and agreement on the scope of the process from both organisations. Senior officers also recognised that a high demand for routine use of EIA in less serious cases would be challenging given current CPS resourcing.

Introduction

This research was carried out as part of the criminal justice system (CJS) Demand Insights Programme, supported by the Treasury’s Shared Outcomes Fund. This Home Office-led programme was undertaken with support from key partners such as the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The overarching aim of the programme was to improve understanding of the relationship between crime demand, policing and the CPS on the one hand, and the downstream CJS, that is principally courts and prisons, on the other. Several papers have already been published from the Programme: Wharfe et al (2024) used the conditions of COVID-19 as a natural experiment to consider impacts changing crime demand on charge volumes; Cole et al (2025) have examined the factors associated with changes in charge volumes; and Hodgkinson et al (2025) reviewed the evidence base on how the use of forensics and body worn cameras impact on downstream CJS demand.

The main aim of this project was to explore police/CPS charge decision-making, case characteristics, resources and other factors that influence case progression. This is both in terms of timeliness and case outcomes. The research primarily focussed on case progression up until charge or decision to NFA for those cases submitted by the police for charging authorisation by the CPS. The project specification was guided by several research questions:

1. What relationships exist between available police investigation/prosecution resources, the demands they need to manage, and ultimately progress cases?

2. How do cases that are referred to the CPS for a charging decision progress from recording of the offence(s) to a charge/NFA decision, reflecting time/resources for initial investigative actions, police/CPS discussions and reviews, and subsequent investigative actions?

3. What factors affect police decisions to pursue investigative action (or not), and what effect do those investigative actions have on those factors that determine the eventual charge/NFA decision?

4. What are the range of reasons that determine time from recording to outcome and what measures, behaviours and contextual factors contribute to more rapid progression?

As the project evolved, the practical constraints around data collection on resource allocation meant that research question (1) was given less emphasis. 

To answer these research questions, data was collected from 1,002 closed case files across 4 police areas. Interviews were also completed with 35 police and 20 CPS staff in these forces and the corresponding CPS areas, including several interviews with staff in CPS Direct. The purpose of the interviews was to identify some of the main challenges with case progression as perceived by the participants in the selected areas. These interviews do not claim to be representative of the whole of the police or CPS, however, they provide qualitative insights to supplement and help interpret the quantitative data collected.

The report represents a snapshot of the views of officers and prosecutors captured in interviews which took place in late 2022. Interactions between the police and CPS have developed since that time and will further evolve in response to the current government’s Safer Streets Mission.

This report is structured into the following chapters:

• Chapter 1 outlines some of the main challenges identified in the previous literature in relation to charge decision-making

• Chapter 2 presents the research design and methods

• Chapter 3 describes the characteristics of the case file data set. This focuses on offence characteristics, suspect and victim characteristics, the types of evidence collected in cases, the pre-charge case progression cycle and the timeliness of charging

• Chapter 4 presents an analysis of the factors that are most closely related to the likelihood of a charge being made in a case, the factors that either speed up or slow down the time it takes to make a charge in a case (timeliness) and what predicts the likelihood of a CPS action plan in a case

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 all focus on areas that were perceived by the interviewees to have an impact on the likelihood of charging and the time it takes to make a charge in a case:

• Chapter 5 focuses on case file quality and CPS action plans

• Chapter 6 moves on to consider case complexity

• Chapter 7 examines a number of wider issues raised by participants that impact on charge decision-making

• Chapter 8 makes suggestions for improvements to the case progression charge decision-making process

• Chapter 9 offers some concluding observations

1. Charging criminal cases: an overview of the previous literature

Criminal case progression has been identified as a complex and multifaceted process that involves several stages and decision-makers (see, for example, Attorney General’s Office, 2022). Although the Attorney General’s Office (2022:9) notes there is no real collective definition of what case progression means, it is broadly acknowledged that a criminal case goes through various stages from the time of initial investigations until a verdict is reached. A crucial point in the process – and the focus of this study – is pre-charge decision-making for cases that are submitted by investigators to the CPS for a charging decision. This part of the process is where law enforcement agencies and prosecutors determine whether or not to file formal charges against a suspect. Pre-charge decision-making involves effective working between the police and the CPS. As outlined in the recent interim joint inspection on case progression (Criminal Justice Joint Inspection, 2024), the principal function of the CPS is to review and prosecute criminal cases, whereas the police investigate and build a case to detect crime.

Guidance on charging was initially issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions and implemented in January 2012. This sets out (as required under 37A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984) the arrangements for charging decisions in relation to the standard of required evidence, when the police can charge, how and when to seek advice from a prosecutor, the use of out-of-court disposals and performance management in joint casework. In addition, the Attorney General has also issued guidelines on the disclosure of evidence (see Attorney General’s Office, 2020).

The current guidance on charging in England and Wales is set out in the Director’s Guidance Sixth Edition (DG6) (CPS, 2020). This guidance outlines the process for charging, including the division of charging responsibility between the police and the CPS. Police typically have charging responsibility for most minor offences irrespective of the plea, whilst more serious offences are charged by the CPS, including most triable either way and all indictable offences. Triable either way offences are criminal offences that can be heard in either the magistrates’ court or the Crown Court. The seriousness of the offence determines which court will hear the case. Indictable offences require trial directly in the Crown Court, and if convicted result in longer prison sentences.

At a more granular level, the division of charging responsibility between the police and the CPS is complex and based on multiple factors: offence type, offender-victim relationship (for example, instances of domestic abuse), motive (for example, instances of hate crime), anticipated suspect plea, whether the case is suitable for sentence in magistrates’ court, and value in some theft and criminal damage cases. For example, the CPS will authorise charges in any case irrespective of offence type if it is flagged as domestic abuse or hate crime. For some either way offences, the police can only charge if there is an anticipated guilty plea (for example, drug possession). It has been estimated that one-third (35%) of all charges are made by the CPS, increasing to half (47%) of charges when excluding motoring offences (Home Office, personal correspondence).

At present, the charge decision-making process is guided by the principles of the ‘full code’ and the ‘Threshold Test’ (see The Code for Crown Prosecutors Code 8th Edition, CPS, 2018). The Full Code Test is applied when all outstanding lines of inquiry have been pursued, or no further evidence is likely to affect the decision to charge or NFA a case. This is a two‐stage test, applied by a prosecutor when determining whether an offender is to be charged with an offence. The first stage is consideration of the evidence. If the case does not pass the evidential stage, it must not go ahead, no matter how important or serious it may be (CPS, 2020). For more serious offences, where a suspect is in custody, the Threshold Test may be applied where there is insufficient evidence to apply the Full Code Test but the Threshold criteria are met. These include there being reasonable grounds for suspecting the suspect has committed the offence, that further evidence can be obtained within a reasonable time and there being sufficient grounds to object to bail under relevant legislation (CPS, 2020).

It is key for the CPS to comply with The Code for Crown Prosecutors (The Code). In relation to the Full Code Test (to be applied as soon as possible), prosecutors must assess the material supplied by the police and decide whether there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction: determining whether a properly directed and objective bench of magistrates or jury is more likely than not to convict. The public interest stage has a list of non-exhaustive factors for prosecutors to take into account, with a presumption in favour of prosecution in cases of any seriousness.

A small body of literature has investigated case progression which broadly splits into 2 groups. First, there is work relating to attrition across the whole criminal justice system. This has explored the factors that might increase or decrease the chances of an investigation progressing for a range of offence types, including serious violence and rape (Burton et al, 2012; HMCPSI, 2020; Gekoski et al, 2023), burglary and vehicle crime (Burrows et al, 2005). It has been identified that, at the primary (or initial) investigation stage, the timeliness of police response to the incident and the ability to gather appropriate evidence (witness statements, phone or social media data and scientific evidence) are key to progression and the likelihood of securing a criminal conviction (Burrows et al, 2005; Burton et al, 2012).

In addition to the work on case progression, there is a small body of work that focuses on pre-charge decision-making that is principally available in inspection reports and a small number of academic studies. Some recent studies on case progression have sought to identify the factors that impact charge decision-making. Widdicombe (2021) notes that Crown Prosecutors’ decision-making can be based on several factors such as offence type, defendant age, prior convictions and prosecutor views on key prosecution principles. He argues that the Code for Crown Prosecutors contains ambiguities and assumptions, such that it does not always reflect the reality of decision-making in practice (Widdicombe, 2024). For example, the assumption in the Code that there is an ‘objective bench of magistrates or jury’ requires prosecutors, in theory, to put aside their experiences of juror/magistrates’ biases and adopt an ‘intrinsic merits’ approach. Widdicombe found that many prosecutors lean towards a more predictive approach based on their composite real-life experience.

In relation to rape cases, HMCPSI (2020) note a lack of evidence, victim reluctance to uphold the complaint and lack of witnesses can result in cases not progressing a suspect to charge. Gekoski et al’s (2023) analysis of interviews with 50 police officers about the challenges in charging in rape cases identified poor police/CPS communication and relationships (often related to working via electronic communication systems), not obtaining early investigative advice and issues with recent changes to case building implemented through DG6. However, many of the factors impacting on charge decisions highlighted in relation to rape cases have also been observed across other crime types.

For example, in 2022, a joint report from the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), CPS, Home Office and the Attorney General’s Office examined factors that are associated with delays in case progression, focussing on the pressure points in the system (Attorney General’s Office, 2022). The exercise was based on ‘deep dives’ in 7 police forces and 5 CPS areas, with 62 panels generating 174 hours of interview data. The findings are presented across 5 main themes, which were identified as impacting on charge decision-making:

1. Procedural understanding: Themes included poor understanding of case quality assurance processes, lack of police knowledge around charging timescales and investigative time pressures, the need for more early advice from CPS, officers not following disclosure guidance, the lack of police understanding of action plans and confusion over redaction. It also identified that officers were often not following the National File Standard (NFS). This sets out the evidence or information the police must pass to the CPS to charge a suspect and prepare a case for court (see CPS, 2020.)

2. Communication: Generally poor communication between the police and CPS, a lack of understanding about resourcing and role pressures in the other organisation, a lack of case ownership and prosecutors not reviewing case files in good time.

3. Experience of workforces: Both police and CPS had seen a loss of experience over recent years. Low levels of experience have impacted on the ability of the police to build good case files and subsequently affected court processes. Low levels of experience were exacerbated by stretched supervision.

4. Technology: A lack of police understanding around digital evidence (for example, how to prepare and process material for the CPS) and a lack of police/CPS system compatibility.

5. Resourcing: workload issues (for the CPS, often COVID-19 related), capacity issues, pressures on the police arising from DG6 and disclosure requirements, and general increases in case complexity.

Although relatively little research has focussed directly on the charge decision-making process, some empirical analysis is presented through a series of HM inspection reports. For example, the HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate report on charging (HMCPSI, 2020) notes that the charge decision-making process has to be robust in order for the public to have confidence in the system. Overall, it found that the quality of CPS decisions was – in 77% of cases – rated as ‘good’ or ‘fair’, with 23% rated as ‘poor’. The inspectorate found that prosecutors often failed to justify decisions or provide meaningful analysis of decisions and then set unrealistic timescales for police responses.

However, it was also noted that the quality of pre-charge case files was an issue – with fewer than half of police submissions meeting the NFS. Indeed, questions about meeting the NFS and the poor quality of some police case files were also raised in a recent joint inspection report on whether the needs of victims were being met in the criminal justice system (CCJI, 2023). In this analysis, 75 case files involving the police and CPS were reviewed, with 43 not meeting the NFS. It was also suggested that many police officers did not know about the NFS. In 26 of the 43 cases that did not meet the standard, the CPS failed to provide any feedback to the police.

Further insights into charging decisions relating to domestic abuse (DA) cases were presented in the 2023 HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate thematic inspection report (HMCPSI, 2023). This presents an analysis of how the CPS handles DA cases and the service that victims get from the CPS. Over the reporting period, DA flagged cases constituted 13% of CPS casework. The inspection focussed heavily on pre-charge decision-making, especially (1), whether the CPS was giving DA cases proper care and consideration at the pre-charge stage and (2), whether the CPS was working in a timely manner with the police to build cases collaboratively. The research design was based upon the analysis of 300 finalised magistrates court files (50 from 6 CPS areas), interviews with staff in 6 CPS areas, conversations with third sector groups, document review and court observations.

The findings from the 2023 HMCPSI report on DA reveal some important aspects of CPS and police relationships in pre-charge decision-making. In 97% of cases, the CPS decision to charge was fully compliant with the Code Test and in 67% of cases the CPS decision to charge was timely. However, CPS charging advice was not always clear (in 45% of cases) and there was insufficient reasoning as to why an offence was advised as NFA in 70% of NFA cases. In addition to this, police pre-charge file submission only complied with the NFS or Director’s Guidance in 15% of cases and failings in pre-charge submission were not fed back to the police in 68% of cases. There were also challenges when the police were requested to undertake further tasks via a pre-charge action plan. An action plan can request the police undertake additional tasks in the investigation – such as add more evidence, redact information on documents or supply additional documents. The action plan met a satisfactory standard in only 23% of cases. In turn, police compliance with pre-charge action plans was timely in less than half (44%) of cases. The CPS only followed up a response to the last action plan in 15% of cases.

The report also notes pressures and challenges within the system. The inspectorate found that COVID-19 generated backlogs, from October 2020 to September 2021, increased live caseloads and that there was a lack of operational delivery staff and prosecutors to manage caseloads. It seems that CPS charging decisions were made in a timely fashion, however, there often appeared to be delays from the date of recording to referral to the CPS for charging authority.

The evidence suggests that clear and effective relationships between police and CPS, while critical to the healthy functioning of this part of the CJS, are not working as well as they might. Joint case building by the police and the CPS is the focus of the Criminal Justice Joint Inspection report, the interim report of which was published in early 2024 (CCJI, 2024). Based upon analysis of 40 CPS and police files from 2 CPS areas and 4 police forces, a number of challenges are reported in relation to joint case building in the interim report:

• information technology (IT): difficulties were reported in understanding IT systems, exchanging information through IT systems and processing large files (such as video evidence) through IT systems

• case building: there is currently little direct contact between the police or CPS in most cases with most interaction via IT systems, though there tends to be more personal contact over more serious offences

• communication: generally, a lack of police or CPS contact and communication was thought to lead to poorer performance

• tasking: in one third of cases the CPS asked the police for information that had already been supplied

• complexity of cases: cases were thought to have become more complex due to legal requirements and frontloading of cases because of DG6 requirements

• workforce experience: the experience of both the police and CPS workforce has decreased, while training is often not fit for purpose

• workload pressure: there has been increased workload pressure and demand put on the police and CPS

• resources: the police might be under pressure to carefully build cases that are eventually given a NFA decision which can feel like a waste of resource

• redaction: there is confusion over data protection or types of materials to redact and redaction – which is undertaken by the police – is considered to be time-consuming, and an area of sensitivity

• case building supervision: quality assurance processes can add substantial time to the progression of cases in some forces

Further evidence of the perceived effect of DG6 on police workloads comes from a survey undertaken by the Police Federation (see Elliot-Davies, 2022). This aimed to gauge detectives’ feelings about the implementation of DG6. The findings are based on an online survey (6,298 responses) conducted between October and November 2021 and January and February 2022. A total of 93% of respondents said that DG6 had increased overall workload, while 96% said it had increased the number of hours spent on pre-charge file preparation. Eight in 10 felt it had increased the number of active cases they are working on. While DG6 seemed to be adding to officer workload pressure, 45% of respondents indicated the number of victims who had withdrawn from cases had increased due to the changes.

While the findings of Elliot-Davies (2022) suggest DG6 has caused further pressures on the system – at least within the police – it is important to consider that the fieldwork period took place when DG6 was in its early implementation stage, and this might have influenced officers’ views.

This chapter has considered the existing evidence on case progression. Academic studies in this area are relatively rare with case progression more frequently being the subject of examination through the work of the criminal justice inspectorates and relevant policy-making bodies in England and Wales. This work has generated important insights into the factors impacting case progression, and several themes emerge relatively consistently. A number of the studies highlight communications, the management of digital material, the experience, knowledge, and supervision of those involved in investigations, and the imbalance between workload and resources.

In the next chapter, an outline of the methodology utilised in the study is presented.

2. Research design and methods

A mixed method research design was used for the study that involved 2 complementary research methodologies: 55 interviews with the police and CPS and the analysis of 1,002 case files. The case file data sample comprised 1,002 criminal cases submitted to the CPS for a charging decision. The 55 semi-structured interviews were completed with police and CPS staff involved in case progression. A mixed method approach provided a range of quantitative and qualitative data. The qualitative interview data was collected first as this allowed for an understanding of the process of case progression to the point of charging to (a) be understood in detail and (b) core challenges to be identified with a range of experts in the area.

The case file data collection was then shaped by the emerging findings from the interviews and consultation with those in police areas working with the data – such as case file builders. Throughout this report many of the findings from the interviews and the case file analysis are presented separately (as they focus on different aspects and measures of progression). However, where relevant, data from both sources were triangulated to both ensure validity and give a comprehensive overview of the police/CPS charge decision-making process. The fieldwork took place between November 2022 and May 2023 in 4 police areas.

2.1 Area selection

All police territorial forces across England and Wales were considered ‘in scope’ for the study. However, it was necessary to reduce the 43 forces down into just 4 geographic areas where fieldwork would be conducted. The selection of police force areas for the study was informed by 2 main criteria:

1. NPCC recommendations as to which areas might be able to accommodate such a project.

2. Analysis of 8 proxy measures around demand, resource and investigative performance were used to try and identify forces that might be facing challenges in relation to case progression (Group A) compared to better-performing areas where good practice might exist (Group B). They included (for example) levels of recorded crime per 1,000 population (using data for the year 2019 to 2020), charge rates, number of FTE police officers and total funding per head of population. An overview of the measures used is presented in Annex A, with a description of each measure and how they were used in the area selection. The data for all the measures was obtained from the Home Office.

For each indicator, the 11 forces with the highest/lowest values were identified. Forces which had 3 or more ‘negative’ indicators (for example low charge rates, low resources or high recorded crime) were allocated to Group A (8 in total). Forces which had few ‘negative’ indicators – none or only one – were allocated to Group B (3 in total).

After consultation with NPCC and the CPS, 4 forces clearly emerged from Group A and 3 from Group B to form a shortlist of potential fieldwork areas. After contacting the forces and further NPCC and CPS consultation, one metropolitan force and one non-metropolitan force were selected from Group A and 2 non-metropolitan forces were selected from Group B to be the sample areas for the study.

In the following sections, we outline the details of the 2 methods used in the study. In addition, we outline the ethical and data security processes undertaken.

2.2 Semi-structured interviews

In total, 55 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with participants from both the police and CPS. The purpose of the interviews was to tease out some of the main challenges with case progression as perceived by the participants in the selected areas and to provide qualitative insights. They were not intended to claim to be representative of the views of their organisations. With this in mind, the sample included police and CPS staff from across a wide range of different roles with varied responsibilities in relation to case progression. The interviewees were recommended to the project team by the Police and CPS. A sample of 35 police and 20 CPS participants was achieved. The police participants included:

• 14 senior resource managers were interviewed: this included those with responsibility for overseeing investigations and managing resources, and those who oversaw policy and relevant units (this included up to 3 senior resource managers such as Detective Chief Inspectors (DCIs))

• 8 officers at DI rank were interviewed: this included those who manage investigations (for example, Detective Inspectors (DIs))

• 13 interviews were completed with those at Detective Sergeant or Constable rank who supervise or run investigations

The police officers had between 18 months and 42 and a half years in service, with an average of 19 years.

The CPS participants included:

• 2 CPS prosecutors from each of the 4 project areas (8 in total)

• 2 senior resourcing or performance managers from each of the 4 project areas (8 in total)

• 2 prosecutors and 2 resource managers from CPS Direct (CPS Direct provides an out-of-hours service (that is through the night, weekends and bank holidays) for cases where the suspect cannot be released on bail)

The final composition of the sample – in terms of the number of completed interviews per area and their roles – is presented in Annex B.

Due to their differing roles and responsibilities, separate interview schedules were developed for the police and CPS – with 2 separate topic guides for the CPS – one for prosecutors and another for those involved in senior resourcing or performance management. However, the questions covered a core set of themes. In the interviews, all respondents were asked about:

• resource and demand for case progression

• police or CPS engagement and interaction

• police or CPS relationships

• timeliness of case progression

• reflections on, and improvements to, case progression

Other sections of the interview questions were tailored according to the interview groups. For example, police respondents were asked about case file preparation, whereas CPS respondents were asked about case file review. Police respondents were asked about perceptions of knowledge in relation to investigation, CPS prosecutors were asked about knowledge in relation to charging, with CPS resource managers asked about knowledge in relation to performance measures. Police and prosecutors were asked about police-CPS engagement and interaction, but not CPS performance managers. The full interview schedules are presented in Annex C, Annex D and Annex E of this report.

All the interviews were recorded and transcribed. Data analysis was conducted using the qualitative analysis package NVIVO. The analysis was based around a themed approach as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). Such an approach allowed us to identify a number of core themes from the interviews in a structured way. The main themes that emerged from the police and CPS interviews are presented in Annex F.

2.3 Case file data collection

The main purpose of the case file data collection was to ascertain:

• how cases that are referred to the CPS for charging decision progress from recording to charging or a NFA decision

• the factors associated with different case outcomes

• the range of reasons that determine time from case recording to outcome

• a better understanding of the charging decision-making process and, primarily, police and CPS interaction in the decision-making process

• the barriers and challenges to case progression

The data (variables) that were to be collected and coded were developed in consultation with the NPCC, the Home Office, CPS and the police areas included in the fieldwork. All the data was taken from police systems. A standardised coding frame was developed and used across all areas to record details of cases from the local police crime recording system and transferred into a Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) file for analysis. Table 2.1 presents an overview of the key variable groups included in the coding frame and a brief description of them.

Table 2.1: Data included in the case file data set

Main variable groups	Description of groups
Crime occurrence detail	Details of the offences in the case file, if there is a case flag (such as for hate crime or domestic abuse), the location of offences, the final CPS charging decision.
Victim details	Number of victims, their demographics, any vulnerability markers (such as for mental health, drugs, alcohol).
Suspect details	Number of suspects, their demographics, dates of any arrests, any vulnerability markers.
Available evidence	Key evidence available (such as fingerprints, CCTV, body worn camera).
Charging decision	If there was any early investigative advice from CPS in the case, details of police pre-charge submission, return decisions from CPS and action plan requirements, details of further consultations.
Resources	This includes details of resources used in cases – such as numbers of police and their roles.
Case summary	This includes the researcher assessment of why charges were or were not made in the case.
Key dates	Key dates across the case progression cycle were collected for each case. These included the date(s) crime(s) were recorded by the police, the date a charge submission was made by the police to the CPS, the date the CPS returned a decision, the date of any response from the police if there had been an action plan (these dates were collected for up to 3 police or CPS cycles) and the date the case was filed with an outcome.

Case file data was collected directly from police crime recording systems. One of the challenges with collecting police case file data across multiple locations is that police force areas use different systems. In this study, 3 of the areas used the Niche crime recording system and the other used Athena. Therefore, the full coding frame was piloted in 2 areas, one that had Niche and another Athena, to ascertain if the required variables could be collected and to map out where in the systems the data was located. The pilot found that data could be located in the systems, although some practical challenges did emerge as the case file systems are complex, with data relevant to charge decisions held in many different sections or forms.

Much of the required data on charging decisions sit within MG3 (CM01) and MG3a (CM02) forms that relate to police reports to CPS for charging and returned decisions on charging or action plans from the CPS. The MG3 (CM01) form is a report to CPS for a charging decision or pre-charge decision request. This holds all the pre-charge details – such as proposed charges, evidence forwarded in the case, and whether charges were proposed under the Threshold or Full Code Test. The MG3a (CM02) is a pre-charge decision response. This is the form the police will use to respond to a CPS action plan or further requirement for charging. It will contain all action plan information and the police response to this.

Both the MG3 and MG3a forms are available on the crime recording system in cases in a Word file format. Where forces use CM01 and CM02 messaging this is embedded electronically into the crime recording system. Where pre-charge decisions are made, details of charging should be available on the systems, but often searching through case records is required to locate the required forms. It is not easy to identify on police systems how many police or CPS cycles there are. This requires searching through the MG3 (CM01) and MG3a (CM02) forms which can be labour-intensive. Post September 29 2021, there was a move to Two Way Interface in forces which meant details formerly held in MG3 and MG3a forms are now held in CM01 and CM02.

A key challenge for researchers was (a) understanding from the case file material the key timelines in each case (as many case files are complex and include numerous forms) and (b) understanding the interplay between the police and CPS in making charging decisions. To ensure data was collected consistently and that researchers were able to locate the relevant data in the crime recording systems, a full data coding manual was issued to all those collecting case file data.

2.4 Sampling case files

It was decided to focus on victim-based offences, that is, those where there a victim was clearly identifiable, and so-called ‘state-based’ offences were excluded. Rape and other sexual offences were also excluded as this area has been the subject of a lot of recent intensive research (for example, Ministry of Justice, 2021; Gekoski et al, 2023). Cases were also selected that:

• had been sent to the CPS for pre-charge decisions post DG6 implementation (31 December 2020) which allowed for analysis of cases that were being progressed following the DG6 guidelines

• did not involve suspects who had been remanded in custody by the police, as these have the Threshold Test applied and progress much more quickly to charge

• were finalised at court or if they had not gone to court, where the CPS had at least authorised charges or NFA the case, meaning that the full charge decision-making process could be observed for each case sampled

In order to select cases, a sample frame was extracted from each force area based on the inclusion or exclusion criteria outlined above. A request was made for cases with the following primary offences:

• violence against the person (VATP): these primarily including violence with and violence without injury offences – including assault with injury, common assault and wounding or GBH

• VATP: subcategories of threats or intimidation or threats to kill

• VATP: subcategories of harassment or racially aggravated crime

• VATP: subcategory of stalking

• VATP: subcategory of controlling or coercive behaviour

• robbery

• burglary

• vehicle offences

• theft

• criminal damage

Of the sample frame data that was returned from forces, 70% included a primary offence categorised as VATP (including violence with injury, violence without injury, threats to kill, stalking and controlling or coercive behaviour). Therefore, it was decided to stratify the sample by collecting 70% that were recorded as VATP and 30% that were in the other crime types of interest. This sample stratification not only allows for analysis of charge decision-making across case types that would appear to be broadly reflective of the case load, but it ensures that the sample included a mix of expressive cases (those where offender motives are to physically and emotionally harm victims) and those that were instrumental (those where the primary motive is material gain).

A stratified systematic random sampling approach was used to sample 250 cases per area. This sampling method was used as all areas had a higher number of cases that went to the CPS for a charge decision over the data collection period than were to be sampled for the analysis in the study. For example, in area A, if 1,000 VATP offences were included in the sample frame list, to achieve a sample of 125, every eighth case would be selected.

There were some challenges when sampling case files by crime type or offences. A major issue is that many case files will include multiple crime types. For example, it is possible that one case file might include an offence of taking a vehicle without consent and an assault on an emergency worker. Violent offence cases might also include offences of criminal damage, false imprisonment, and stalking. An aggravated burglary might include offences recorded as violence, possession of weapons and possession of drugs. Therefore, while it is possible to sample by offence type, it needs to be borne in mind that crime events are often not discrete (for example, a burglary without other crime events around it). Cases were therefore sampled by primary offence, that is the most serious offence in the case.

In addition, it was decided to limit the number of police/CPS charging cycles per case to a maximum of 3. The main reasoning for this was so the analysis was based around more ‘typical cases’. Sample frame data provided by forces areas revealed that cases with over 3 consultations were relatively infrequent, though there was variation across forces. For example, in one area 4% of the sample frame cases had more than 3 consultations, while another area recorded 10%.

In 3 of the areas, the data was collected by co-locating a researcher within a police station in the force area where they had direct access to the force crime recording system. For the other area, a police laptop was loaned to the research team and the data was coded remotely. Each researcher inputted data directly into the statistical analysis software (SPSS) file with pre-set codes. The data from each area were then merged into one SPSS file for analysis.

There were several issues with the case file data collection. These mainly revolved around:

1. Putting case file records together: the case file data collected aimed to piece together information on the offence, the investigation and the decision-making process. This commonly required researchers to carefully go through several forms that are stored within the crime recording system. In some cases, forms would be missing, hard to locate or not ordered sequentially. Where possible, as much relevant information as possible was collected on a case. Where there was missing information, researchers would raise queries or follow up with the police area contacts or support staff.

2. Interpreting absent case file information: across many cases it was unclear whether data was missing, not recorded or if the factor was simply not present in the case file. For example, in relation to victim vulnerabilities, only 1% (n=11) of victims had alcohol vulnerabilities recorded. It was unclear whether this was an accurate figure or if this was missing data and simply not recorded across many cases.

2.5 Research ethics

As this was a multi-site project involving the collection of highly sensitive data and participants, there were several ethical issues to consider. These were mainly concerned with ensuring that data collection and the movement of data complied with the requirements of the Data Protection Act (2018) and General Data Protection Regulation (2018) legislation. The University of Leicester ethics process was followed, and the required documentation was completed, including:

1. A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA).

2. Participant information sheets for interviewees.

3. Participant consent forms for interviewees.

As case file data was being collected, a data sharing agreement or memorandum of understanding was signed with all 4 participating forces. This set up the process and parameters in relation to (a) the process of case file data collection across each area and (b) how data would be stored by the University. All researchers employed to collect police data were required to go through non-police personal vetting level 3 (NPVV3). NPPV3 is required for individuals requesting long-term, frequent and uncontrolled access to police data – such as that held in crime recording systems. A data-sharing agreement was also signed with the CPS.

To ensure that the project researchers were clear about ethical and data security requirements for the project, a full researcher fieldwork pack was given to each researcher before they went out into the field.

This chapter has summarised the overall analytical approach and the methods used. It outlines the mixed method approach, a quantitative case file study, supplemented by qualitative interviews in 4 police areas. It summarises the methods of sampling and the processes undertaken to analyse the data and comply with research ethics. The next chapter summarises the characteristics of the case file sample.

3. The characteristics of the case file sample

This chapter outlines the characteristics of the case file sample and the key features of case progression. The following sections present an analysis of the:

• offence types included in the sample

• crime contexts – including victim and suspect demographics and vulnerabilities

• types of evidence collected in cases

• resources required for case progression

• charge decision-making cycle, and

• timeliness of case progression

3.1 Offence types included in the sample

Offences per case ranged between one and 27, with a mean of 2.1 offences. In total, 54% of the sampled cases had more than one offence recorded, 26% had 2, 15% had 3, and 13% of cases had 4 or more individual recorded offences. The final sample by primary offence type is presented in Table 3.1. Offences are categorised using Home Office offence codes. In total, around 75% of the primary offences were classified as VATP or another violent offence. This is slightly higher than was anticipated in the sampling strategy. This was because some cases had to be dropped during data collection as they did not meet the sampling criteria. Just under one-third (30%) of all cases had a flag for domestic abuse.

Table 3.1: Final sample by primary offence type

Primary case file offence	Frequency	Per cent of all cases
VATP (with injury and without injury)	504	50%
VATP: threats or intimidation or threats to kill	91	9%
VATP: harassment or racially aggravated crime	99	10%
VATP: stalking	49	5%
VATP: controlling or coercive behaviour	23	2%
Robbery	36	4%
Burglary	43	4%
Vehicle offences	27	3%
Theft	24	2%
Criminal damage	106	11%
Total	1,002	100

Base: There were 1,002 case files.

3.2 Crime contexts

In total, there was more than one victim in 23% of cases and more than one suspect in 8% of cases. In Figure 3.1, the main demographic characteristics (age and gender) of victims and offenders are presented. Victims were most likely to be female (72%) and over the age of 24 (92%). The age of 24 was used as a cut-off point here as this aligns with the age categories that are typically used in victimisation surveys such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales. Suspects were most likely to be male (88%) and also over the age of 24 (79%).

Figure 3.1: Gender and age of suspects and victims (expressed as a % of cases where data is available)

Base: Victim gender known in 942 cases; suspect gender known in 993 cases; victim age known in 914 cases; suspect age known in 998 cases.

Police crime recording systems record a range of factors about victims and suspects that might be considered ‘vulnerabilities’ in that they can make them more likely to require support or more likely to be a future suspect or victim. For example, having a mental health flag or being a drug user. Age vulnerabilities are primarily recorded for those who are elderly or very young. Details of victim and suspect vulnerabilities were recorded. These included recording whether primary victims or suspects had mental health, drug, physical health, alcohol or age vulnerabilities (Figure 3.2). The primary victim was the person directly harmed in the incident. If there was more than one victim, the person who suffered the greatest physical harm or was the main complainant was recorded as the primary victim. The primary suspect was the main suspect in the case.

In total, 65% of suspects and 19% of victims recorded at least one identified vulnerability. For both victims and suspects it was most likely that they recorded a mental health or drug vulnerability. Care needs to be taken in how the data is interpreted here. Obtaining information on vulnerabilities required searching through case file records and it is possible that, in some cases, victims and suspects might have had vulnerabilities that were not disclosed, or were disclosed but not recorded on the system.

No analysis was conducted on the ethnicity of victims and suspects for several reasons. In the case of suspects, in the majority of cases suspects were white (83%) with only 13% being in other categories (with details of ethnicity missing in 4% of cases). Therefore, the low number of cases in non-white categories limited the scope for meaningful analysis. For victims, details of ethnicity were missing in 20% of cases and where ethnicity was known, 68% of victims were white with only 12% falling into other categories. Thus, the high number of white victims and missing cases limited the potential for meaningful analysis.

Figure 3.2: Primary suspect and primary victim vulnerabilities (expressed as % of all primary victims/suspects)

Base: Total sample: 650 suspects recorded with at least one vulnerability, 189 victims with at least one vulnerability.

3.3 The types of evidence collected in cases

Data was collected on the investigative evidence present in the case file, including statements, digital and forensic evidence (Figure 3.3). Police statements and victim statements were most likely to be present in case files (94% and 90% of cases respectively). Although photographic evidence and body worn camera footage were widely present in the casefiles (38% and 44% respectively), bad character and forensic evidence was rarer. This might be because there is genuinely a low proportion of cases in the sample where fingerprint or DNA evidence is collected or bad character evidence is used. However, it might also be the case that these details were not systematically recorded in case files. For these reasons, care should, therefore, be taken in how the data is interpreted.

Figure 3.3: Evidence present in case file records expressed as a % of cases

Base: Total sample = 1,002 cases.

Table 3.2 outlines the types of evidence collected and the crime types most or least likely to have these types of evidence present. Police statements are most likely to be present in 100% of controlling or coercive behaviour, robbery and theft cases and least likely to be present in stalking cases (87%). Previous research has suggested that the number of pieces of evidence and quality can impact case progression (see Burton et al, 2012, Gekoski et al, 2023). This study found that some offence types have an average of over 10 pieces of evidence collected per case, with 6 in 10 (61%) robbery cases and around half (50%) of burglary and theft (47%) falling into this category.

Table 3.2: Evidence available by crime type

Type of evidence	Offence most likely to have evidence type	Offence least likely to have evidence type
Police statements	Controlling or coercive behaviour or robbery or theft (100%)	Stalking (87%)
Victim statement	Controlling or coercive behaviour (100%)	Burglary (87%)
Witness statement	Robbery (75%)	Threats (44%)
Expert witness	Burglary (20%)	Harassment (3%)
Phone evidence	Stalking (26%)	VATP (10%)
Photo evidence	Burglary (59%)	Harassment (19%)
Body worm camera	VATP (54%)	Robbery (19%)
CCTV	Theft (57%)	Controlling or coercive behaviour (0%)

Base: Evidence collected across all crime types.

3.4 Officers and prosecutors linked to the case

Data was also collected on police and CPS staff linked to case progression, that is, the number of police and CPS personnel who were involved in the case. This data was collected by identifying (from the case file) the number of police officers involved in investigating the case and the number of CPS prosecutors involved in reviewing the charging submission. This is a poor measure of ‘resource’. It does not capture time spent by the individuals named on a case. Nor does it reflect any contributions from unnamed personnel, for example backroom staff who have duties as case builders. However, it is a measure of the breadth of individual officer numbers involved in the case.

The data shows that cases are typically supported by a larger number of police officers or staff compared with the CPS. For the sample as a whole, there were between one and 27 individual police officers involved in a case, with a mean of 4.5 (SD=4.5). The total number of CPS staff in the case up to the point of charge was between one and 5, with a mean of 1.2 (SD=0.4), with 86% of cases having only one CPS staff member identified as being involved in the case. In practice, this will be an underestimate as the initial triage process by the CPS will not be undertaken by prosecutors (typically, most cases are likely to have at least 2 CPS staff reviewing the case).

The higher numbers of police officers involved will reflect in part the more ‘partitioned’ nature of investigative actions (call handling, first response, investigation, supervisory review and so on) across different roles. Some of it may also reflect the passing of cases between investigating officers. For some cases, it may also indicate more complex investigations, with these cases having evidence dealt with by a larger number of officers.

3.5 The charge decision-making cycle

The process of case progression includes a number of phases. Principally, a charge submission will be made by the police. This is reviewed by the CPS and can then proceed to a charge being authorised, or NFA, or recommendations for further actions for investigators to take forward (such as gathering more evidence). At the point of data collection, a charge had been made in 59% (n=593) of cases, though there was some variation in the proportion of charges by offence type (Table 3.3) For all of the analysis that follows, the term ‘charged’ covers cases resulting in a charge or a caution.

Table 3.3: Proportion of charges by offence type

Primary case file offence	Frequency	Percentage of cases with a charge
VATP	504	56
VATP: threats or intimidation or threats to kill	91	57
VATP: harassment or racially aggravated crime	99	71
VATP: stalking	49	45
VATP: controlling or coercive behaviour	23	39
Robbery	36	97
Burglary	43	63
Vehicle offences	27	46
Theft	24	46
Criminal damage	106	70
Total	1,002	59

Base: There were 1,002 cases: charged = 593.

For cases submitted to the CPS it is helpful to think of the case going through potential multiple charge decision-making cycles:

• if the case is ‘resolved’ in its first submission to the CPS – that is, it is either charged or NFA – we can classify this as a one-cycle case

• however, if the CPS requests that further actions are undertaken, these cases may end up going through repeated subsequent cycles

• in total, the number of cycles was known in 977 cases, with 48% of cases going through just one cycle and 52% 2 to 3 cycles (Table 3.4)

• the data collection limited these cycles to a maximum of 3 in order to analyse what a ‘typical’ cycle would look like

• there were 2 cases with over 3 cycles that were excluded and a further 23 cases where the number of cycles was unknown

• robbery offences were least likely to go to more than one cycle (34%), whereas theft offences (at 70%) were most likely to go to more than one cycle

What is of interest here is that there is a relationship between the proportion of offences by crime type that go through only one cycle and the proportion of cases where there is a charge. The data shows that cases with only one cycle are more likely to result in a charge. This is best illustrated by comparing robbery and theft offences (see Table 3.4). In total, 97% of robbery offences are charged, but only 34% of robbery cases go through 2 or 3 police/CPS cycles. By contrast, 46% of theft offences are charged, but 70% go through 2 or more police/CPS cycles. For all cases, there is a statistically significant negative correlation between the number of CPS cycles and the proportion of cases that result in a charge (Pearson correlation r=-0.988, p= <0.001).

Table 3.4: Charge decision-making cycles by offence type and percentage of offences charged (ranked by % offences charged – high to low).

Primary case file offence	One police/CPS charging cycle (%)	Two or 3 police/CPS charging cycles (%)	Total cases %	Percentage of offences eventually charged
Robbery	65	34	100	97
VATP: harassment or racially aggravated crime	44	56	100	71
Criminal damage	49	51	100	70
Burglary	55	45	100	63
VATP: threats or intimidation or threats to kill	49	51	100	57
VATP	49	51	100	56
Vehicle offences	52	48	100	46
Theft	30	70	100	46
VATP: stalking	34	66	100	45
VATP: controlling or coercive behaviour	38	62	100	39
Total	48	52	100	59

Base: There were 977 cases where the number of charge decision-making cycles is known.

The case file data offered some useful insights into the movement of cases between the police and CPS.

The number of expected outcomes for charge decision-making cycles in the data set was based on the following assumptions:

1. As there were 1,002 cases in the sample that were submitted for a charge decision, so it would be expected that there would be 1,002 charge decisions recorded for the first cycle. However, charge decision outcomes were only recorded in 95% (n=955) of these cases.

2. As 420 of the first cycle cases went to an action plan, it would be expected there would then be 420 charging decisions at cycle 2. Outcomes for all the second cycle cases were recorded in the case file (but there were an additional 33 cases here where a case had been charged. But the CPS still requested some further action – taking the total number of cycle 2 cases to 453).

3. As 155 of the cycle 2 cases required an action plan it would be expected that outcomes were available in all 155 of the third cycle cases. However, outcomes were only recorded in 84% (n=130) of these cases.

Figure 3.4 shows the number of police/CPS cycles in the case and the outcomes of each of these cycles – whether a suspect was charged, there was an action plan or that no further action was taken. This illustrates, for cases where details of the charge decision making process are known, that:

1. At cycle 1, 31% of cases are charged without requiring further actions, but nearly half of cases (47%) require further action after the initial submission to CPS. Three per cent of cycle 1 cases are charged but required further action and 44% are not charged and required further action. A further 22% are recorded as NFA. 66% of cases that go for a charging decision are not charged at this stage.

2. At the second charge decision-making cycle, 39% of submitted cases are charged (equivalent to 18% of the full sample). However, 34% of cases that were reviewed still required further action (equivalent to 16% of the full sample) and 27% are recorded as NFA. Thus 61% of cases that go through a second decision-making cycle still do not progress to charge at this stage.

3. At the third charge decision-making cycle, 53% of submitted cases are charged (equivalent to 7% of the full sample). However, of the 47% of cases that do not progress to charge, 21% still require some form of further action and 26% are recorded as NFA.

Figure 3.4: Prosecution: pre-charge decision-making process outcomes

Base: There were 955 cases where details of the charge decision-making process are known. Thirty-three cases had a charge at cycle 1, but further actions were requested – these cases are also included in cycle 2, bringing the total to 453. At cycle 3, the outcomes of 25 cases that had an action plan at cycle 2 were unknown. This brings the number of cases at cycle 3 down from 155 to 130.

3.6 Timeliness of case progression

The next section considers how long it takes to progress cases to charge or NFA and what might delay progression. There are 4 main measures of timeliness:

Police investigation time:

• the time it takes from recording the offence to the police sending a submission to the CPS for cases that are then eventually charged

• the time it takes from recording the offence to the police sending a submission to the CPS for cases that are eventually NFA

Initial submission to outcome time:

• the time it takes from the CPS initially receiving a case file to the case eventually being charged

• the time it takes from the CPS initially receiving a case file to the case eventually being NFA

Data collection only covered the period from recording of an offence to the CPS legal decision. It did not cover the time taken from charge to outcome at court. It is therefore not possible to say anything about overall time from recording to court outcome, or whether relationships exist between time to charge and time to final outcome.

In Figure 3.5, the mean times for each of these categories are presented. The data shows that for both police investigation and initial submission to outcome durations, cases where there is no charge take longer to progress through the system (with means of 98 (SD=88) and 81 (SD=71 days respectively). A case with the outcome NFA will take, on average, 32 days more investigation time and 34 days more of post-charge submission time. Overall, cases that are charged will progress from recording to charge in an average of 113 (SD=88) days. Cases that are not charged will progress from recording to outcome in an average of 177 (SD=112) days. This suggests there might be something distinctive about these cases that can be identified as being likely to speed up their progress through the system or to slow them down (this is considered in more detail in Chapter 4).

Figure 3.5: Time to progress cases (mean values)

Base: There were 536 police investigation time charged cases; 366 police investigation time not charged cases; 515 initial submission to outcome time charged cases; 351 initial submission to outcome time not charged cases.

Figure 3.6 presents data on the time it takes the police to investigate various crime types prior to sending the case to the CPS for a charging decision for cases which are charged and those which receive the outcome NFA. Some care has to be taken as to how the data is interpreted due to the low number of cases across some offence types (for example, stalking, controlling or coercive behaviour and vehicle offences). The offence types that take the most time at this stage which are eventually charged are vehicle offences, theft and stalking. Those cases that take the longest time but are not charged are controlling or coercive behaviour, stalking and threats.

Both controlling or coercive behaviour and stalking might take time to investigate as they are both ‘behaviour’ offences, which require evidence of a pattern of behaviour over time. Therefore, the nature of the evidence required for these offences is markedly different to, for example, an assault which may be evidenced by reference to a single incident. The criminal justice inspectorates have found that stalking presents challenges for the police in recognising behaviours and offences (HMIC and HMCPSI, 2017). It is possible that late recognition of the nature of the offending may explain why stalking cases take longer to charge (because of delayed evidence collection to establish a pattern or time involved in gathering that evidence), or eventually not to charge (because evidence is not or cannot be collected to establish a pattern) (Bettinson et al, 2024).

Figure 3.6: Police time required to progress cases from recording to initial submission (police investigation time) by crime type (mean days)

Sample base:

	VATP	Threats	Harassment	Stalking	Controlling or coercive behaviour	Robbery	Burglary	Vehicle offences	Theft	Criminal damage
Charged	256	48	63	18	7	34	22	11	10	71
Not charged	204	35	29	26	13	0	11	12	10	30

If we turn to time from submission to charging decision, for charged cases, stalking and robbery are the slowest to progress. For NFA cases, controlling or coercive behaviour and theft offences are the slowest to progress (Figure 3.7).

Figure 3.7: Initial submission to outcome by crime type and outcome (mean days)

Sample base:

	VATP	Threats	Harassment	Stalking	Controlling or coercive behaviour	Robbery	Burglary	Vehicle offences	Theft	Criminal damage
Charged	242	50	64	16	7	32	23	11	10	66
Not charged	196	35	24	24	13	0	13	10	11	29

3.7 Initial submission to outcome

Table 3.5 compares the mean and median durations across each stage of the initial charge to submission phase for all cases in the sample. The data only included details for up to 3 police/CPS charge decision-making cycles, but includes:

• the time it takes to make an initial charging decision (either charge, action plan or NFA)

• the time it takes the police to respond to the first action plan if this is required by the CPS

• the time it then takes the CPS to make a decision on the police response to the action plan requirements (CPS charge decision 2)

• the time it takes the police to respond to a second action plan where this is required by the CPS

• the time it then takes the CPS to make a decision on the second police action plan requirements (CPS charge decision 3)

Table 3.5: Time to progress cases through the initial submission to outcome phase (mean with median in brackets)

	All cases		Charged		Not charged
	Mean number of days (median)	No of cases	Mean number of days (median)	No of cases	Mean number of days (median)	No of cases
Initial CPS charge decision returned to police: CPS charge decision one	31 (16)	896	29 (11)	535	32 (22)	361
Police response to initial action plan (if required)	23 (7)	447	22 (6)	240	25 (8)	207
CPS charge decision 2	28 (20)	455*	28 (18)	243	28 (22)	212
Police response to second action plan (if required)	32 (10)	128	23 (5)	70	40 (12)	58
CPS charge decision 3	40 (21)	122	34 (20)	67	46 (26)	55

Base: All cases that go for charge decisions with available time data.

* The number of cases with an action plan was 419, though 455 charge decisions were returned. This is because, in some cases, there was a charge made, but also a request for some further detail in an action plan.

There are service-level agreements in place that require the CPS to review charge submissions and return to the police in 28 days. Likewise, the police are expected to complete action plans and return cases to the CPS within 28 days. Therefore, the findings presented here are not surprising. At the early stages of the process, most cases (whether eventually charged or not) progress within (or close to) those time frames (median values are obviously lower as they are the middle value in the range and are therefore not affected by high outlier values).

However, there are some important implications here. An initial charging decision takes an average of 31 (SD=57) days, which increases to 40 (SD=92) days for cases that progress to a third charge decision-making cycle. The decision-making cycle also appears to take slightly longer for cases where there is no charge. For example, initial charging decisions take slightly longer for cases that are not charged, as do police responses to action plans 1 and 2.

Therefore, the analysis suggests that the need for an action plan adds time to case progression. This is illustrated in Figure 3.8, where data on time to progress cases according to whether they are charged or not and whether there is an action plan is presented. Where there is no action plan, and a case is charged, the average time to charge is 107 (SD=86) days (compared to 127 (SD=89) where there is an action plan). If there is an action plan and no charge in the case, it takes an average of 166 (SD=109) days to conclude, compared to 186 (SD=113) days where there is an action plan.

Figure 3.8: Time to progress cases: whether charged or not and if there was an action plan

Base: All cases that go for charge decisions with available time data: charged 535; not charged 361.

Figure 3.9 presents the time it took to progress cases according to whether there was one action plan or 2 action plans in the case. Timeliness was calculated as follows: for a single action plan case it was (a) the time it took the police to respond to the initial action plan plus, (b) the time it then took the CPS to reach a charging decision. If there were 2 action plans, the ‘time’ also included (a) the number of days it then took the police to respond to action plan 2 plus (b) the time it then took the CPS to decide whether or not to charge based on the police response to action plan 2. The data shows that:

• across all cases, one action plan takes an average of 51 days to process (that is the time from an action plan being required to the case file being resubmitted)

• 2 action plans take 72 days to process

• for cases where there is a charge, one action plan takes 50 days to process, 2 action plans take 77 days

• for cases where there is no charge, one action plan takes 53 days to process, 2 take 86 days

Figure 3.9: Mean time to process action plans

Base: All cases that go for charge decisions with available time data and an action plan = 447; charged = 240 and not charged 207.

3.8 Outcome and timeliness to progress cases where there is victim withdrawal

An obvious concern about the time it takes to progress cases is the implication this can have for victim withdrawal. Victim withdrawal does not necessarily mean a case will not progress to charge. In total, a victim withdrew in 13% of all cases and in 75% of those cases where there was not a charge (in cases where a victim withdrew and there was a charge, this would have been the result of a prosecution without the victim as a witness). Victims were most likely to withdraw in domestic abuse cases. Victims withdrew in 24% of these cases, compared to only 12% in all other cases (this was statistically significant: chi-square X² (1, N = 764) = 25.9, p =0.001).

Figure 3.10 shows the average investigation and post-charge submission time for cases where a victim withdraws compared to cases where there is no withdrawal. This illustrates that, where a victim withdraws, cases close more quickly in all groups except for those investigations which eventually result in a charge.

Figure 3.10: Average police investigation and submission to outcome time for cases where a victim withdraws compared to cases where there is no withdrawal (mean days)

Base: Police investigation time charged = 29 withdrew/325 did not withdraw. Police investigation time not charged = 93 withdrew/262 did not withdraw. Initial submission to outcome time time charged = 27 withdrew/309 did not withdraw. Initial submission to outcome time not charged = 86 withdrew/258 did not withdraw.

3.9 Action plans

As part of the case file analysis, action plan requirements were captured from 631 action plans in the case file data. The action plan requirements were coded from MG3a/CM02 forms that were returned to the police from the CPS after an initial charge submission had been made. The labels presented in Table 3.6 were used across each area. The analysis provides some useful additional insight into the nature of case file quality. The table presents the data by action plan cycle.

• in almost all first-cycle plans, there were requests for additional evidence, with the proportions diminishing in subsequent plans (96% occurring in first-cycle plans, 63% in second-cycle plans and 43% in third-cycle plans)

• the second most common group was for requests for ‘known’ evidence with 69% in first-cycle plans, 56% in second-cycle plans and 57% in third-cycle plans (cases over the same 3 cycles)

• specific types of missing material included call handler audio recordings, relevant pocketbook entries and routine police database searches

• the other 2 categories of interest relate to redaction, under-redaction was more common in this sample than over-redaction (8% of first-cycle plans identified under-redaction compared to only 2% of plans identifying over-redaction)

• while redaction issues were a major concern for the police, this was mainly in relation to preparing cases prior to sending them to the CPS but was less important in action plans

Table 3.6: Action plan requirements

Action Plan specified the need for	Cycle 1	Cycle 2	Cycle 3
More or new evidence requested	96% (n=435)	63% (n=97)	43% (n=10)
Some known available evidence not submitted	69% (n=311)	56% (n=87)	57% (n=13)
Audio 999 call required	11% (n=51)	5% (n=8)	0
Under-redaction of files	8% (n=38)	5% (n=8)	0
Bad character application required	6% (n=25)	2% (n=3)	0
PNC criminal history check required	4% (n=17)	2% (n=3)	0
Police pocketbook entry required	3% (n=15)	0	0
Police custody records required	3% (n=15)	<1% (n=1)	0
Over-redaction of files	2% (n=10)	<1% (n=2)	0
Total number of action plan cases *	453	155	23

Base: All cases where action plan outcomes are known (totals do not add to 100% as there can be more than one request per action plan).

* In cycle one, there were 128 casefiles where it was unclear whether an action plan was present. It is likely that these were cases where an action plan was not undertaken, but it is impossible to say for sure from the information in the casefile.

The number of actions could vary widely by action plan. For example, in initial action plans, there was a maximum of 10 actions and in 72% of action plans there were at least 2 actions to be met. Figure 3.11 gives the average number of actions per action plan and shows both maximum and mean values declining with each action plan cycle.

Figure 3.11: The average number of actions per action plan

Base: Action plan 1 = 420; action plan 2 = 128; action plan 3 = 17.

Summary

In this chapter, the statistical characteristics of the case file sample have been summarised. The multiple dimensions of the cases considered here include – the crime context, the evidence available, the resources drawn upon, the charge decision-making process, and the use and nature of action plans. The data highlights the complexity of both the factors that might play out in determining case outcome (charge or NFA), and the timeliness of case progression. Using the case file data to identify those factors that are most influential in determining both case outcome and time to outcome is best undertaken using the statistical method of regression analysis. This, along with identifying what factors are most important in predicting the use of action plans, is the focus of the next chapter.

4. Factors associated with case outcomes and timeliness

Although previous studies have analysed factors that increase the likelihood of a charge in a case (for example, Feist et al, 2007), quantitative analysis using police case file data which look at the nature of the offence, investigation characteristics and the interaction between the police and CPS are rare. Building on the analysis presented in Chapter 3, this chapter seeks to identify the factors in a case that are most likely to predict:

• whether the case is charged or NFA

• what speeds up or slows down progression to charging

• whether there is a CPS action plan in a case

4.1 Charging suspects and factors associated with charging

The principal aim of the analysis was to identify what factors predict charge outcomes in our sample using multivariate statistical model (logistic regression). The first stage was to identify a long list of case characteristics from the case file data set which might be associated with the case outcome and whether they appeared to be either over or underrepresented in charged cases (these are presented at Annex G1). This was done using chi-square tests to compare observed data with expected results. These tests help determine if any difference between these is due to chance, or if it is due to a relationship between the variables. Of the 26 factors tested, 15 were found to be significantly associated with a charge outcome.

The factors were organised into different themes (see table in Annex G1). The main statistically significant relationships were:

• crime contexts: having more than one victim in the case, if the victim is male, if more than one offence is recorded and if the primary suspect has vulnerabilities

• evidence: if there is a victim statement, police statement, expert witness statement, photographic evidence, body worn camera footage or any CCTV footage in the case

• police or CPS interaction: if the case has just one action plan, if early investigative advice is sought, if all key evidence is submitted in the first prosecution cycle, and if the first CPS cycle does not request more evidence

• victim withdrawal: If a victim withdrew their support for taking the case forward, this was related to the likelihood of getting a charge in a case

On their own, all these factors are significantly associated with a charge outcome. To identify which of these factors were most likely to predict a charge outcome, holding all other factors constant, a logistic regression analysis was run (Table 4.1). Multivariate analysis allows us to better understand the influence several independent variables may have on a dependent variable (such as charges). The table presents the statistically significant predictors in the model, that is, those that did not occur by chance:

• the regression weight column (B) indicates the strength and direction of the relationship in the model

• the odds ratio (Exp(B)) can be interpreted as the increased or decreased chances of getting a charge in the case when this predictor is present

As the data was collected from across 4 police forces, the ‘area’ variable identifies – and controls for – police force variations not included in the modelling. These might include things like leadership, culture, operational differences within the force, or the relationship with the CPS area. Area 1 is the reference force, that is, the 3 other forces are being compared to this area. This area was selected as a reference group as it had the highest sample charge rate of the 4 areas. Table 4.1 shows the output from the modelling. A charge is more likely in a case:

• when more than one offence is recorded (the odds of a charge increase by 1.9)

• if there is a witness statement present (the odds of a charge increase by 1.3)

• if there is a police statement present (the odds of a charge increase by 1.7)

• if there is an expert witness statement present (the odds of a charge increase by 1.8)

The odds of charging decrease:

• when a victim withdraws from the case (odds of a charge decrease by 0.1)

• when there is more than one action plan (odds of a charge reduces by 0.7)

• if the CPS action plan indicates some known available evidence has not been submitted (odds of a charge decrease by 0.5)

The odds of charging a case were lower in areas 2,3 and 4 when compared with area 1.

Table 4.1: Predictors of charges (statistically significant predictors only)*

Predictors	B	Sig	Exp(B) (odds ratio)
Number of offences in the case	0.651	<0.001	1.917
If there is a witness statement	0.288	0.050	1.334
If there is a police statement	0.554	0.049	1.739
If there is an expert witness statement	0.570	0.050	1.769
If the victim withdrew from the case	-1.905	<0.001	0.149
More than one action plan	-0.431	0.036	0.650
Initial action plan indicated some known available evidence not submitted	-0.616	0.002	0.540
AREA (area 1 as reference)
AREA 2	-1.525	<0.001	0.218
AREA 3	-1.892	<0.001	0.151
AREA 4	-1.055	<0.001	0.348

Sample base: 973 cases. Dependent variable is charges/NFA. Block 1 significance = 0.001 Nagelkerke R Square = 0.260. AUROC = 0.757

* For all the logistic regression models presented a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was used to identify the accuracy of the logistic regression, through the Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUROC) curve. The ROC curve identifies the true positive rate of classification in the model (y-axis), compared with the false positive rate (x-axis) at any threshold value. The AUROC is an indication of the accuracy of the model and represents the probability that a randomly selected case will be accurately classified. An AUROC of greater than 0.7 is considered to represent a noteworthy prediction rate.

The findings in the model appear plausible. The presence of certain types of evidence make progression to charge more likely (witness, police and expert witness statements). It also seems plausible that victim withdrawal, more than one action plan, and CPS requests for more available evidence make progression to charge less likely.

Early investigative advice

Early investigative advice (EIA) is given at an early stage of an investigation to help the police decide what evidence to gather and whether the case can go to court. It is commonly provided in rape and other sexual offence cases. Although these offences were excluded from our analysis one of our 4 forces received EIA for non-rape and sexual offence cases during the period covered by the data collection. In the model presented in Table 4.1, EIA was initially excluded, although it was statistically significant in the bi-variate analysis. However, when EIA is included in this model (but without controlling for force area), EIA cases were 4 times more likely to get a charge than those without. When the significant variables (see Annex G2), including EIA and the force areas are all included in the model, it shows:

• the number of offences in the case increases the odds of a charge by 1.9

• the number of action plans in a case reduces the odds of a charge by 0.7

• if the CPS action plan indicates some available evidence has not been submitted, the odds of a charge decrease by 0.5

• if a victim withdraws from the case, the odds of getting a charge decrease by 0.1

EIA is not a significant predictor of charges when police force areas are included in the model. So, something appears to be happening in area 1, which is leading to higher charge volumes when controlling for all of the significant predictors. As we shall go on to see, area 1’s use of EIA does appear to be an important factor in other elements of case progression.

4.2 Factors associated with the time it takes to progress cases

(a) Time from recording to initial submission to the CPS – ‘police investigation time’

Further analysis was conducted to ascertain what factors influence the time it takes to progress cases. Here, ‘time’ was analysed in 2 phases of the case progression cycle:

• first, ‘police investigation time’ was defined as the point from crime recording to the point a charge submission was made to the CPS

• second, ‘initial submission to outcome time’ was defined as the point from the police submitting a charging application to the point of a charge or NFA

‘Police investigation time’ analysis was undertaken by splitting the data into 2 groups: cases that were ‘slower’ to be sent to the CPS for an initial charging decision and those that were ‘quicker’. The elapsed time was calculated from when a crime is recorded by the police, to when a case file is initially sent to the CPS. The median value for the time it takes the police to get a charge submission to the CPS was calculated (58 days). Cases were then grouped into quicker cases (those below the 45th percentile (49 days)) and slower cases (those above the 55th percentile (68 days)). The middle 10% of cases were excluded to try and get a clear split between the ‘slower’ and ‘quicker’ cases to make the distinction between the 2 groups clearer.

As with the previous model, a long list of case characteristics which might be considered for a logistic regression model was developed. Initial analysis was run to identify where statistically significant relationships existed (using chi-square tests) between a range of variables and how long it took to investigate a case (see output table at Annex G3). Of the 26 variables tested, 13 were found to be significantly associated with quicker or slower police investigation times. The statistically significant relationships included:

• crime: having a domestic abuse flag is associated with shorter police investigations

• crime contexts: having a female victim, male suspect, victims and suspects over the age of 24, and victims or suspects with vulnerabilities are all associated with shorter police investigations

• evidence: if there is a police statement, phone evidence, photographic evidence and body worn camera footage in a case investigations are quicker

• early investigative advice: investigations are quicker if early investigative advice is taken in a case

• National File Standard (NFS) met: if met it is associated with slower investigations

• prosecution decision make cycle: if more evidence is not requested at the first action plan/prosecution decision-making cycle this is associated with shorter police investigations

Logistic regression was then run to try and identify what factors are most likely to predict shorter and longer police investigations, holding all other factors constant. The findings are presented in Table 4.2 and show that police investigations are quicker:

• when the case is flagged as domestic abuse (3.0 times quicker)

• if the main suspect is male (1.7 times quicker)

• when a suspect has a vulnerability (1.5 times quicker)

• when there is a police statement (2.7 times quicker)

• when there is body worn camera evidence available (1.8 times quicker)

It is possible that domestic abuse cases progress quickly as they are prioritised by many police areas (see Chapter 6) or may reflect something about the wider characteristics of these cases. In terms of evidence collected, police statements and body worn camera evidence might be considered as potentially comparatively quick to seek out. The influence of the other variables is estimated after controlling for the differences across police force areas. Controlling for all these factors force area 1 had higher odds of shorter investigations compared to areas 2, 3 and 4.

Table 4.2: Predictors of police investigation time (significant predictors)

Predictors	B	Sig	Exp(B) (odds ratio)
Domestic abuse flag	1.096	<0.001	2.992
Male suspect	0.520	0.047	1.681
If suspect has a vulnerability	0.422	0.020	1.525
If there is a police statement	1.001	0.011	2.721
If there is body worn camera evidence	0.572	0.003	1.772
AREA (area 1 as reference)
AREA 2	-1.247	<0.001	0.287
AREA 3	-1.978	<0.001	0.138
AREA 4	-0.971	<0.001	0.379

Sample base: 820 cases. Dependent variable is the time from recording to initial submission to CPS (median time split). Block 1 significance = 0.001: Nagelkerke R Square = 0.391 : AUROC = 0.821

When the model was re-run with EIA included (Table 4.3), it was found to be significantly associated with quicker police investigations, with all of the other variables in the original model remaining significant. Receiving EIA increased the odds of a shorter police investigation by nearly 12 times. However, note that when EIA is added to the model, force area ceases to be a significant predictor (see Table 4.3).

An important implication here is that as well as having a substantial effect on the speed of the investigation, EIA is the critical difference between area 1’s shorter investigations compared with the 3 other areas.

Table 4.3: Predictors of police investigation time with EIA added (significant predictors*)

Predictors	B	Sig	Exp(B) (odds ratio)
Domestic abuse flag	1.005	<0.001	2.732
Male suspect	0.578	0.033	1.782
If suspect has a vulnerability	0.434	0.019	1.544
If there is a police statement	1.109	0.005	3.033
If there is body worn camera evidence	0.52	0.007	1.687
Was any EIA given in the case?	2.463	<0.001	11.744
AREA (area 1 as reference)
AREA 2	0.275	0.491	1.317
AREA 3	-0.507	0.228	0.602
AREA 4	0.433	0.221	1.542

Sample base: 820 cases. Dependent variable is the time from recording to initial submission to CPS (median time split). Block 1 significance = 0.001: Nagelkerke R Square = 0.430 : AUROC = 0.834

* The force areas are shown but are not significant.

(b) Time from initial submission to CPS to case outcome (‘initial submission to outcome time’)

We now consider the time it takes to progress cases in the period after the first submission to the CPS (what we are calling ‘initial submission to outcome time’). As in the previous model, the outcome measure is based upon splitting the data set into 2 – cases that were ‘slower’ to reach an outcome after the initial submission to the CPS and those that were ‘quicker’. This is measured from the time a case is submitted to the CPS for an initial charging decision to the point of charging or any other outcome. Here too, the median value for timeliness was calculated and cases were categorised as either ‘quicker’ or ‘slower’ (quicker being below the 45th percentile, which was 38 days and slower being above the 55th percentile, which was 49 days). The middle 10% of cases were excluded to try and get a clear split between the ‘slower’ and ‘quicker’ cases to try and identify the core characteristics of each group.

As in the previous model, a long list of case characteristics which might be considered for a logistic regression model was generated. Of the 26 variables tested, 11 variables were found to be significantly associated with quicker or slower durations (see Annex G4 for the output):

• crime: having a DA flag is associated with longer initial submission to outcome times

• crime contexts: having a suspect with a vulnerability is associated with longer initial submission to outcome times

• witness statements and photo evidence: these are associated with longer initial submission to outcome times

• police statements, expert witness statements and early investigative advice: these are associated with shorter initial submission to outcome times

• resources: having over 3 police officers in the case is associated with longer initial submission to outcome times

• NFS met: cases that met the NFS were associated with quicker initial submission to outcome times

• CPS action plans: having more than one CPS action plan is associated with slower initial submission to outcome time; if the CPS request more new evidence in the first action plan, and if there are requests for missing evidence in an initial CPS action plan, both are associated with slower progress at this stage

Logistic regression was then run to try and identify what factors are most likely to predict the speed of case progression after initial submission to the CPS (Table 4.4). Three main factors emerge as statistically significant in slowing down this part of the process:

• if there is a witness statement in a case it reduces the odds of quick progression after initial submission to the CPS by 0.7

• more than one action plan reduces the odds of quick progression after initial submission to the CPS by 0.2

• if new evidence is requested in the initial CPS action plan it reduces the odds of quick progression after initial submission to the CPS by 0.5

Two of the police force areas (3 and 4) have statistically significantly reduced odds of ‘quick’ progression after initial submission to the CPS compared to area 1.

Table 4.4: Predictors of initial submission to outcome time (significant predictors) *

Predictors	B	Sig	Exp(B) (odds ratio)
If there was a witness statement	-0.350	0.050	0.705
Number of action plans	-1.688	<0.001	0.185
Did the initial action plan indicate new evidence requested	-0.636	0.007	0.530
AREA (area 1 as reference)
AREA 2	-0.683	0.061	0.505
AREA 3	-0.966	0.008	0.381
AREA 4	-3.343	<0.001	0.035

Sample base: 733 cases. Dependent variable is time to charge or NFA (median time split). Block 1 significance = 0.001: Nagelkerke R Square = 0.485. AUROC = 0.856

* The force areas are shown but are not significant.

Most of these findings appear plausible. The number of initial action plans requiring more evidence and multiple action plans (‘CPS cycles’) would be expected to be associated with slower progression at this stage. The model was also run with the addition of EIA (Table 4.5). For this model, 2 variables – whether the initial action plan requested more evidence and the number of action plans – were still statistically significant predictors of slower progress from initial submission to the outcome. Receiving EIA was also statistically significant, increasing the odds of shorter submission to outcome durations by 2.6. Only one of the police force areas is statistically significant (area 4) with reduced odds of quick progression at this stage compared to area 1.

In short, initial action plans that request new evidence, and multiple action plans (‘CPS cycles’) are both associated with extended time from initial submission to outcome. However, EIA cases, even when controlling for force area, are associated with significantly faster case progression at this stage.

Table 4.5: Predictors of initial submission to outcome time with Early Investigative Advice included (significant predictors) *

Predictors	B	Sig	Exp(B) (odds ratio)
Number of action plans	-1.610	<0.001	0.200
Did the initial action plan indicate new evidence requested	-0.713	0.003	0.490
Was any early investigative advice given in the case?	0.971	0.015	2.640
AREA (area 1 as reference)
AREA 2	0.036	0.939	1.037
AREA 3	-0.276	0.552	0.759
AREA 4	-2.653	<0.001	0.070

Sample base: 735 cases. Dependent variable is time to charge or NFA (median time split). Block 1 significance = 0.001: Nagelkerke R Square = 0.492. AUROC = 0.863

* The force areas are shown but not all are significant

Charging and timeliness model checks

As part of the quality assurance of the analysis, several important checks were made to the models built. First, when including the EIA variable in the models, checks were made to ensure that it did not in effect act as a dummy variable for the only force area that carried out EIA in the sample. This could introduce multicollinearity into the model, that is when 2 or more independent variables in a regression model are highly correlated. This makes it difficult to determine the variables’ individual effects on the outcome variable. However, as EIA was not used in all cases within force 1 (it was used in 187 out of 250 cases) this was less of a concern. In general, the model results did not change when the EIA variable was included or excluded.

As a further check, the EIA models were re-run for force 1 cases only, and in both timeliness models EIA remained a statistically significant variable. In relation to police investigation time, when EIA was present it increased the odds of a case progressing to charge quickly (from 11.7 to 16.4: p=0.001). For post-charge submission time, the presence of EIA increased the odds of quicker progression from 2.6 to 3.0 (p=0.001). In the charging model where EIA had not been a significant variable, running it for force 1 cases only brought EIA closer to significance (p=0.137). 

Further testing was also carried out to ensure that removing the cases around the median durations in both timeliness models did not bias results. Using all 1,002 cases, ordinal logistic regression models were run using the same variables to predict the time from recording to submission to the CPS and the time from CPS submission to case outcome (charge/NFA). These models split the data into 3 equal groups each containing one-third of the sample to essentially represent slower, medium and faster durations. These ordinal logistic models produced very similar results to the binary logistic models based on the reduced data set. In addition, given the data represents time to an event, uncensored survival regression models were also considered. However, this modelling approach was rejected on the basis the results are more complex to interpret and that the ordinal logistic modelling produced consistent results.

4.3 Factors that predict having an action plan in a case

The final step was to identify factors that predict the likelihood of having an action plan in a case. As before, a long list of relevant variables was developed. Of the 26 variables included, 6 were statistically significantly associated with having an action plan:

• crime: having a DA flag

• crime contexts: being a female victim

• evidence: cases with witness statements, phone evidence and body worn camera footage

• NFS: cases where the NFS was not met

Logistic regression was then run to try and identify the factors most likely to predict the presence of an action plan in a case, holding all other factors constant (Table 4.6). This shows that:

• having a witness statement in a case increases the likelihood of an action plan (odds of 1.5)

• having body worn camera evidence available increases the likelihood of an action plan (odds of 1.4)

• meeting the NFS reduces the likelihood of an action plan (odds of 0.5)

There are no statistically significant differences between areas in the model.

Table 4.6: Predictors of action plans (significant predictors)

Predictors	B	Sig	Exp(B) (odds ratio)
If there was a witness statement	0.423	0.002	1.526
If there is body worn camera evidence	0.319	0.037	1.375
Was the NFS met?	-0.767	<0.001	0.464
AREA (area 1 as reference)
AREA 2	0.473	0.055	1.604
AREA 3	-0.075	0.774	0.928
AREA 4	0.208	0.291	1.231

Sample base: 769 cases. Dependent variable is if there was an action plan in the case. Block 1 significance = 0.001: Nagelkerke R Square = 0.096. AUROC = 0.661

Several factors are significantly associated with the likelihood of an action plan in a case. Meeting the NFS reduces the likelihood of action plans although it is not possible to tell whether this reflects specific weaknesses in the file which could be addressed by an action plan or alternatively is simply a more general indicator of a weak case file. The presence of witness statements appears to be the most important predictor of an action plan.

When EIA is added to the model, this was found not to be a significant predictor of the likelihood of an action plan.

Summary

Applying regression analysis to the case file sample found that case progression (outcome and timeliness) is influenced by a combination of case characteristics (for example, whether there was more than one offence), the evidential profile of the case (for example, the presence of witness statements, body-worn video), and what happens to the case as it progresses from recording to outcome.

Action plans seek to remedy issues in the case file identified by the prosecutor. The analysis shows that they appear to be associated with both outcomes and timeliness. And what specific actions are required in a plan are also important. Action plans which identify that available evidence is not submitted have a lower likelihood of a charge. In addition, more than one action plan is associated with a reduced likelihood that a case is charged. Action plans were also found to be associated with the time from initial submission to the CPS and case outcome. Initial action plans which require more evidence, and multiple action plans, were both associated with longer durations from initial submission to outcome.

The analysis also examined the use of EIA. Although not usually used outside of rape and other sexual offence cases, holding all other factors constant, cases with EIA had faster initial police investigations and were also associated with shorter times from initial submission to outcome.

5. Case file quality, preparation and progression

The aim of this chapter is to explore what is meant by case file quality and why it is so important to case progression. In the previous chapter the statistical analysis identified key predictors of timeliness and case outcome. This chapter will build on these findings to examine case file quality, case file building and action plans, drawing largely on the interview material. The quality of the investigation and the case file were consistently raised as a critical issue by police and CPS interviewees. Both sets of interviewees generally agreed that it is important to get the core components of the case in place for a timely charging decision to be made. However, there can be different views between the police and CPS as to what is ‘necessary’ in terms of case file quality, case building, and the required responses to action plans.

While both police and CPS interviewees talked about the importance of case file quality to achieve timely case progression, and while there was some consensus around what it meant in practice, it also meant different things to police and CPS participants. Throughout the course of the interviews all the CPS interviewees mentioned poor quality case file preparation, resulting in cases not being ready for a charging decision at submission. Indeed, according to many CPS interviewees, by far the biggest factors contributing to delay in case progression were poor quality investigations and low-quality case file submissions. From the police perspective, there was a ready acknowledgement from across the ranks that poor file quality was contributing to delays in decision-making and, more generally, that it was having a negative impact on the relationship between the police and CPS.

However, there was also some mismatch in expectations of the ‘correct’ bar to reach in terms of case file quality and the standard of evidence required to make a charging decision. Some of this mismatch may relate to different views on the role of the prosecutor (Packer, 1968), although as Widdicombe (2024) has observed, prosecutors are not always in agreement themselves as to how the tests in the Code for Crown Prosecutors are to be applied. There is some ‘ambiguity’ in the evidential and public tests in the Code. Widdicombe (2024) argues that although the Code makes it clear that review is a continuing process and the strengths and weaknesses of a case change over time (for example, as the police gather more evidence), it is not clear when prosecutors should reach a conclusive decision. For example, should they decide not to charge because the police have not gathered enough evidence or should they wait and see, hoping that the police investigation continues and strengthens the case?

5.1 What is ‘case file quality’?

When a suspect is not remanded in custody by the police and the case is submitted to the CPS for a charging decision, the case file should be assessed by 2 linked standards. First, it must comply with the requirements of the National File Standard (NFS) as outlined in Annex 5 of the Director’s Guidance on Charging (DG6) (CPS, 2020) to progress to a lawyer for a charging decision. This specifies the material required for the first hearing and identifies how the file is to be developed at appropriate stages throughout the life cycle of the case. An assessment of whether the case file submitted by the police is NFS compliant is undertaken by CPS administrative staff. Details of the NFS assessment were available for 77% of cases (n=724) in our sample, with the standard being met in just under 7 in 10 cases (69%). A simple analysis of this data suggests that cases with more pieces of evidence are more likely to fail NFS. However, some caution is needed around interpreting NFS compliance data as recent HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) findings point to some concerns around the precision of the metrics (Criminal Justice Joint Inspection (CJJI), 2024).

Second, the case file should also comply with other elements of the DG6, such as the quality of the evidence provided and whether tests for disclosure were appropriately applied. The Director’s Guidance Assessment (DGA) compliance check is undertaken by the lawyer rather than administrative staff as they are able to make a judgment on the evidential standard. This check is not undertaken in all cases and where it is undertaken, it only covers anticipated not-guilty pleas.

Under the DG6 requirements, police must build a full file prior to submission to CPS to enable prosecutors to make a charging decision based on all the evidence available. Therefore, details should be provided in the case file in relation to:

• the offence

• suspects

• the investigation and reasonable lines of enquiry

• material subject to examination (such as mobile phone data)

• any outstanding evidence to be submitted

• victims and witnesses

Although compliance with NFS and DGA checks are important elements of what makes a quality case file, the interviews suggest a broader definition of ‘case file quality’, which extends to the scope and coverage of the police investigation. Given the specifics of the case, have the police undertaken all necessary elements of an investigation in terms of developing lines of enquiry and speaking to all potential parties? A common theme raised by the prosecutor interviews was the need for all reasonable lines of enquiry to be pursued such that there is no ‘missing’ evidence once the file is submitted for a charging decision. ‘Missing’ evidence in this context is evidence that, in the eyes of the prosecutors, has either has not been collected in the first place or may have been collected but is not submitted as part of the case file:

“There’s issues with some evidence maybe not being sent, or maybe evidence which is not being considered. That just comes down to maybe lines of enquiry overlooked or what the police perceive as to be a minor detail, but from our perspective, that’s a significant detail. From the police perspective, it may not be relevant to actually whether we charge this offence, but to us it’s relevant to what we determine, what we say are the facts of this case. What are we saying this person has done? What’s the full extent of it?”

CPS, Prosecutor

So, in some cases this is about a genuine oversight to provide a critical piece of information or record which was thought to exist. But in others it will be a different perception – between the individual prosecutor and the lead investigator – of what was relevant and central to the case. The interviews revealed that, quite often, the police and CPS did not always have the same view of the evidence that was ‘necessary’ to make a charging decision. Prosecutors would often want the police to follow a line of investigation further than the police had taken it. Some of this seemed to be about the different perspectives on what actions were sufficient to get a charge (the police) versus a more ‘belt and braces’ approach to closing down lines of enquiry (from the prosecution).

Whilst it might partly be explained by prosecutors thinking ahead to what their case strategy might be, it could also be part of the inherent tension in the prosecutor’s role. From Packer’s (1968) ‘due process’ perspective, the prosecutor can be seen as a check or balance on a potentially enthusiastic investigator, rushing to have a decision made before the investigation is fully complete:

“There almost seems to be a bit of a line that’s drawn where they think, well, I’ve got enough to prove it was him now, rather than thinking, well actually I need to see what everything shows. So, I think that would be another message I’d pass on, which is follow every line until the end. Once you’ve got to the end, fine, let us know, but follow it anyway, even if you think it is going to point away, because that’s even more important in some ways.”

CPS, Prosecutor

“I think one of the other things that we do seem to spend a lot of time pointing our police colleagues in the direction of, is we’ll look at a file and we’ll think why haven’t you got a statement from this person who’s named in this statement as being a potential witness? You know, following all those lines of enquiry to the end. Whether or not you think they’re going to help us, we need to know what they’re going to say.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Some prosecutors felt the failure to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry was just a reflection of the police rushing to get a charging decision and dealing with the case as quickly and efficiently as possible. Not spending additional effort on gathering evidence which may or may not support the prosecution. This might, for instance, mean relying solely on what the suspect has said in interview and sending the case for a charging decision without looking for other evidence that might strengthen (or challenge) the case.

“When a defendant or suspect says something in interview, but the case is just sent to us straight away, rather than going and investigating what is said in an interview as a reasonable line of enquiry. Which means that we effectively are receiving the case and doing advice, saying go and investigate what you’ve already been told.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Police interviewees rarely disputed the fact that the quality of some case files was of a poor standard. Officers acknowledged that sometimes the investigations were incomplete, and not all of the available evidence had been collected and sent in the initial CPS submission. They also noted that in lengthy and complex cases the responsibility for investigation, case file preparation and submission could transfer to other officers, causing further difficulties and inconsistencies. Across the police interviews, it was therefore acknowledged that files that did not meet the required standard were sometimes submitted and that this impacted on CPS workload.

“I think there’s a fundamental problem with the products we’re giving them. We’re giving them poor investigations, often rushed, often with big evidential gaps or continuity gaps, often 2 years old.”

Detective Sergeant

However, some of the interviewees highlighted particular categories of cases where police felt under pressure to get a quick decision (for example, domestic abuse (DA) cases, where there will often be a vulnerable victim and where time can be a critical factor). It is perhaps not surprising that domestic abuse cases were raised in both police and CPS interviews as an example of where building an effective case can be challenging, and where there are trade-offs between the pressure to compile a file quickly and file quality (see Chapter 6). And, as identified from the regression analysis (see Table 4.2 and Table 4.4) of the case file sample, DA flagged cases moved more quickly than non-DA cases through the police investigation stage.

Some police interviewees recognised the mismatch of views between themselves and CPS about what should be included in their initial charging submissions. However, they acknowledged that the CPS must have sufficient evidence early on to make a fully informed decision about whether to proceed with a charge and prosecution. As one police respondent stated:

“I always say that if you want a charging decision you’ve got to remember that CPS don’t know what they don’t know. You have to tell them everything that’s going to allow them to make the decision.”

Police Manager

“If you’re going to go to CPS with it or you’re going to make your own charging decision, you have to make sure that what you’re providing to the courts or to CPS explains all the level of detail that is required.”

Police Manager

A failure of the police to provide prosecutors with all the evidence they considered was required to support a charging decision would usually be highlighted in an action plan (we consider the perceptions of action plans at the end of this chapter).

5.2 Case file redaction

For the police interviewees, the most contentious issue around case file preparation were the issues of redaction and disclosure, in terms of the demands it placed on their time. The joint NPCC/CPS principles for redaction (CPS, 2020) is the guidance applied to pre-charge file submissions from the police to the CPS. These principles draw on obligations under both the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) (Legislation UK, nd a) and Criminal Procedure and Investigation Act 1996 (CPIA) (Legislation UK, nd b). The principles require police forces to redact personal and sensitive personal data from material and information sent to the CPS unless the disclosure of that data is required for law enforcement purposes. Information that may require redaction includes names, dates of birth, phone numbers, parts of CCTV and body worn camera footage.

Although redaction will always be required for files that progress to court and for sensitive personal data under CPIA, since around 3 in 10 cases are NFA by the CPS, a proportion of this redaction work by the police appears unnecessary. The Police Productivity Review (Home Office, 2024a) estimated that the police spent 210,000 hours redacting material for an estimated 38,000 files that do not progress beyond CPS.

Redaction was perceived as both a major drain on their constrained resources and as a major source of low morale, given that so much time is often wasted for the CPS to take no further action. These 2 quotes illustrate the police interviewees’ views on redaction:

“Redaction is huge. In the case that I was talking about that’s got the CCTV, that’s a massive job to do all the redaction, and then disclosure for the disclosure schedules because there’s a huge amount of material that we’re not using because it doesn’t meet our case for the prosecution, but we’ve got to disclose it to the defence so they have an opportunity then to review it and say actually no, we think this piece is irrelevant…The backwards and forwards, the push/pull element, and the volume of work that the officer who submits the file has to do is immense. It can take them days to submit a file of this level of complexity with this volume of material to do the disclosure appropriately and effectively.”

Detective Inspector

“For me, I think the redaction of the documents [is the biggest issue]. Is it really necessary at this moment in time before getting a charging decision? We’re almost saying we want to be trial ready before we even get a decision on whether there’s enough evidence to charge this person… Why do all that work for potentially getting an NFA from CPS.”

Detective Sergeant

And as well as the concerns about wasted effort in NFA cases, some police officers were just frustrated by the time it took to redact files and how this affected overall timeliness:

“Putting a file together now is… it’s to do now. That whole process of building a file, getting it to the CPS, it’s extremely time-consuming. The changes around redaction, disclosure – I’m not saying these are wrong but it’s massively increasing the amount of time it takes to put a file together, and we were not given any additional resource to be able to deal with these additional demands.”

Detective Chief Inspector

There were also questions over the redaction of ‘rebuttable presumption’ material. The 2022 Attorney General’s Guidance on Disclosure introduced the concept of a ‘rebuttable presumption’ in favour of disclosing certain items of unused material. This is a list of material which is highly likely to meet the test for disclosure such as incident logs, crime reports, custody records, CCTV footage and 999 calls (Attorney General’s Office, 2020).

Indeed, the police interviewees often expressed that they felt ‘rebuttable presumption’ material should only be redacted when it was decided by the CPS that the case was likely to be prosecuted. In contrast, prosecutors felt that they needed all of the relevant material at hand and in the correct redacted format before making the decision on whether to charge a case. Although technically the redaction principles sit outside DG6, police officers often conflated redaction requirements with DG6 guidance. Given this, concerns about redaction fuelled some strongly negative police sentiment towards DG6, with some officers believing it had resulted in a growing disparity of power between police and CPS staff. As one police officer stated:

“DG6 is the bane of, I think, everyone’s life… you never really know if it’s what we should be doing or what they [the CPS] should be doing.”

Detective Constable

While complying with the redaction requirements have been seen by some police interviewees – especially lower ranks – as a burden, this was often mentioned in the same breath as time pressure and resource constraints. This was a theme that was often mentioned as a challenge in relation to case progression and file quality. This is considered below.

5.3 Resources and timeliness

The pressures on police officers’ time and resources were identified as challenges that negatively affect file quality. Investigating cases thoroughly is a skilled and resource-intensive job. Prosecutors recognised this and were sympathetic to the challenges that frontline police officers faced. It was acknowledged that some of the challenges around police skills in this area in part reflected the pressures on frontline officers and the multi-faced nature of these roles:

“Those who are more in an operational [role], or on the beat, they’ve not got limited time in which to do all the things we need. They’re not able to pick things up until usually the last minute, they’re not able to check that things come through and that in itself leads to more delays.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Some prosecutors were particularly critical of the quality of statements. They perceived this issue to be linked to the specific pressures of officers in a reactive policing role:

“The statements need to be good. The statement needs to have evidence. What’s happened? The, you know, the issues need to be addressed. Everybody needs to be spoken to. In a practical sense, it’s really challenging if you’ve got response officers who’ve gone to a scene and they’ve calmed it down. They’ve sorted it out, but then they’ve got somebody in their ear saying, right, there’s another fight for you to go and split…it’s really, really, really difficult and really challenging for police colleagues who are actually facing all of this. But equally, it’s the quality of the statements that come to us and it’s the quality of the evidence that’s presented that allows us to make the best decision that we can.”

CPS, Prosecutor

The level of resources that need to be devoted to these tasks to get the file up to the required standard was mentioned in nearly all the police interviews. However, it was also apparent that case file quality and potential delays were also dependent upon the evidence available in a case.

One sub-group of cases which prosecutors found especially frustrating were those which had a significant component of forensic evidence. The issue here was less around the quality of the evidence itself but the time it took for it to be processed. Some prosecutors said that obtaining forensic evidence reports was taking longer than they felt was ‘acceptable’. Several believed the police should be more proactive and robust in ensuring that evidence was available in a timely manner:

“I think that the officers need to be trained to be a bit more bolshy. I’m not sure if it’s the same in all areas, but forensics [in this area], they are very reluctant to give the OICs key dates of when forensic reports will be ready. They’ll tell the OIC, “Well, it’ll be done when it’s done,” and I’m telling the officers, “That’s not good enough, we need a date, can you please go back and tell them”, or I’m going to be imposing a date on them and then causing carnage if it’s not ready.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Many police interviewees raised similar frustrations about evidence that was dependent on external/third-party expertise. They felt that having to wait for forensic reports, the extraction of certain forms of digital evidence, and statements from expert witnesses could all seriously delay the investigation and subsequent case-file submission to CPS. Unlike the CPS, however, they felt that such delays were outside of their control. As one officer said:

“I think the demands on the forensic marketplace are also slowing things up. I mean, we’re about 2 months behind on a statement I’m waiting for [from]…I think that demand and timescales for returning forensic evidence impacts upon your threshold charging decisions, even with major crime.”

Detective Inspector

Another officer highlighted the specific problems around digital evidence:

“Our digital forensics capability is a challenge. The turnaround times, if it’s a significantly urgent piece of work it can be done relatively quickly, but otherwise, you’re falling into a 3-month timelapse. If you need an expert witness – we’ll get cases sent to us that aren’t quite ready to go to CPS because we haven’t got a drugs expert witness, for example… we had a 7-month delay on that… Similarly, if we send anything out to forensic labs… if we send someone’s blood off to test it for drugs, for a simple drug-driving case, there’s a current 5-month turnaround, which means for a case with a 6-month time limit, you’re really cutting it to the wire.”

Detective Chief Inspector

So, whilst there was recognition that waiting for complex and third-party evidence risks further delays in case building, all the officers interviewed stressed the added pressures of DG6 compliance alongside the demands of redaction and the lack of sufficient additional resources to support these.

5.4 Case file triage by the police

The CPS operate a triage process which seeks to reduce the time lawyers spend reviewing incomplete police file submissions. However, the interviews highlighted additional mechanisms for improving case file quality before submission to prosecutors. Building the experience of police supervisors was identified as one key factor to improve casefile quality over the medium term, (this is covered in more detail in Chapter 7). However, a more short-term organisational response to improving case file quality was identified as police triage in advance of sending the file to the CPS.

The scope will vary from force to force but triage processes will typically examine whether the file complies with the NFS. However, it may extend to reviewing or even undertaking redaction. Several interviewees shared their experiences of triage gatekeepers, such as Police Decision Makers (PDMs) or Case Progression Units. These were composed of experienced officers who checked the quality of case files. The perception was that in areas where experienced triage teams existed the amount of ‘ping-ponging’ of cases between the police and CPS was reduced:

“Some forces then have a team of administrators who do the uploading and they make sure everything’s there from the forces where that is a function. We do see a higher quality and a lower rejection rate because, obviously, their administrator is doing a similar triage type activity with the upload as ours are our end where that works together works really well.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Two forces in our sample had triage units, with one police officer describing the process as follows:

“The PDMs would be responsible for making sure things have been redacted, making sure things are labelled properly…, National File Standard, lots of different hoops that we jump through to get there. And they will do an evidential review on it, and if there’s anything blindingly obviously, they will send it back to the officer… they’re not just there just as an administration function.”

Police Manager

Where PDMs had been introduced, interviewees felt that the number of cases that were failing to meet the NFS was substantially reduced:

“Well, before the PDMs we were 20% compliant. We’re now 80%. When officers were doing it on their own we were 20% compliant and everything was bouncing back to them, and they were getting frustrated with it, but that’s where we sat. And we’re 20% non-compliant now.”

Police Manager

“Certainly, over the last year we’ve seen 20% increase in cases going through CPS without failure, and then we’re up in the top 10 performing forces for the quality of files that go through. For me, that’s a sound indication that we’ve got it about right.”

Detective Chief Inspector

Despite the enthusiasm expressed for police triage in this study, there may be some drawbacks. The CJJI (2024) interim report on case progression noted that the resourcing of triage units varied widely across police forces. They could create delays in case progression, could not always compel officers to comply, and tended to deal less well with evidential issues. Similar issues were raised by the police interviewees in this study:

“We’ll send it back to the officer in the case, their supervisor and their line manager. We can’t force them to do the recommendations that we ask for… a lot of supervisors view our team as a bit of an inconvenience. Sometimes, you’ll get people just won’t do the amendments and hope that we’ll just force the file through. Or you’ll get into a tennis match by email… we can’t force them to make the amendments.”

Detective Chief Inspector

“I don’t know what the take from CPS is but the police decision-makers when we’re sending it through are demanding that we’re redacting everything, which can be frustrating when it gets through to CPS, say, “Well, it’s redacted, I don’t understand what it means.” You’ve taken some key names out and things because potentially they’re not a witness or they haven’t provided statements, but it doesn’t make sense anymore necessarily.”

Police Manager

Overall, however, the police interviews suggested that there is support for providing specialist triage before case submission, provided that it is done well by appropriately experienced staff and does not create additional barriers to case progression.

Action plans, case file quality and case progression

If there are problems with the initial charge submission when it has successfully passed through triage and reached a CPS lawyer, the police will be required by the CPS to complete further work on the case. This is outlined in an action plan. In Chapter 4, the regression analysis showed action plans are important in determining the time it takes for cases to progress. Action plans can involve several iterations, leading to what was frequently described as the ‘ping-ponging’ of cases between the police and CPS to get them to the point where a charge decision could be made. Just under half (47%) of the sampled cases resulted in an action plan after the initial charging submission to CPS. Of these initial action plan cases, 34% were subject to a second action plan, and 6% to a third action plan (see Chapter 3).

The interviews also revealed that action plans were perceived to be a barrier to speedy case progression, with a consistent theme of partial or non-completion of action plans being raised in both the CPS and police interviews. Prosecutors stated that when the police respond to the action plan, they often only complete some of the items in it. This point was raised in the CJJI Interim report (2024) and was reflected in our interviews with prosecutors:

“The log jam is getting it to us and if it’s not coming to us right, it takes forever because you say, ‘Can you do this?’. What they tend to do, and it’s really irritating, is they’ll do 3 or 4 things in an action plan and send it back because it gets it off their table, and you’re like, ‘No, there were 10 things on there, I need all 10 things, it’s just coming back until you finish it,’ it’s that sort of thing.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Police also acknowledged that their responses to action plans contribute to delays in the process. The police also frequently mentioned frustration with the impersonalised nature of action plans, with limited opportunity to discuss individual cases more directly with CPS:

“They ask us not to piecemeal stuff back which I agree, we have officers that do that only because they feel as if they want to get something in but the CPS hate that. They’ve given an action plan of 4 actions, they want the 4 actions done before we send back. We have a tendency to say, ‘I’m not going to have this action for 3 months but I have got these ones now so I’m going to send them in”, and the CPS will bounce it and say, “what about the fourth one?’… they’ll bounce it straightaway… So that can be challenging but it’s about officers… finding the communication avenue to say, ‘This one’s not done because of XYZ’. We’re at fault with that sometimes as well.”

Detective Inspector

Some CPS interviewees also believed that if communication was more direct (that is, person to person), it might be possible to progress a case within a shorter timeframe rather than have an action plan going back and forth:

“I much prefer the personal element because there’s much more of a rapport. I think it encourages less of an ‘us and them’ environment because when you’re hiding behind a faceless action plan system it gets down to that.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Several prosecutors also acknowledged that action plans could disincentivise the police and it was felt better to accompany a formal action plan with some direct informal communication. Also, the absence of an explanation as to why extra work was needed was thought by some to be damaging to the working relationship and counter-productive. These quotes from 2 prosecutors illustrate the point:

“If somebody’s put in a lot of work on a case and sent it to me and I’ve sent it back with an action plan, I consider it common courtesy to ring them up and explain why it’s come back and what I need and what’s missing. Generally, I get on really well with them, I don’t have a problem, they just get on and do it…usually they’re grateful for the help, which is what they should be getting it from their supervisors if I’m honest.”

CPS, Prosecutor

“I will always put a phone number on and say, ‘This is what needs doing and this is why.’ I try and explain why I need stuff because I think it’s quite rude to get an email from someone going, ‘And another thing, you haven’t done that.’ I try and say, ‘Look, this is what I need, this is why I need it.’ Generally, I have positive engagement with the police, apart from [one police force] because at the moment we seem to communicate purely by me sending a notice of proposed discontinuance because they’ve ignored 3 or 4 memos. A notice of proposed discontinuance is basically, ‘You do this by this day or I’m chucking the case.’ It’s like a threat of last resort, we shouldn’t be doing it.”

CPS, Prosecutor

This issue of better communication has also been identified by the criminal justice inspectorates’ report on case building in domestic abuse offences (HMCPSI, 2023). The findings of this study confirm what the inspectorates found. Part of this is about being clear about what the actions are but also explaining why these actions are required. The inspectorates’ interim report on joint case building (CJJI, 2024) concluded that the CPS could do more to make action plans clearer and help the police to better understand what is needed. This research also aligns with this finding.

Several police interviewees also felt that action plans on their own could de-motivate them as they often felt that they had adequately addressed the issues but went on to receive a second action plan. Many police officers were frustrated either because they did not understand what the action plan was requesting or why more was needed:

“I’ve had numerous occasions where cops have come into me and said, “I’ve got this action plan from CPS, I don’t understand it. Why are they asking for this, it doesn’t make sense.””

Detective Inspector

“If there was a rationale around why we’re doing these things, that would go a long way.”

Detective Sergeant

More regular explanations about what precisely is needed and why may help to reduce the sense of frustration on the part of the police, and build a more positive relationship around action plans that will facilitate case progression. Prosecutors did speak positively about case building in serious and high-profile cases where the lines of direct communication are strong. It was acknowledged that it was more difficult to do this at scale with more routine cases, nevertheless, softening the edges of hard communication via action plans was thought to be beneficial. However, some prosecutors expressed frustration at the lack of response to action plans, which inevitably results in delays and cases failing to progress:

“Thousands of action plans are set that then need to be administratively finalised on our behalf as an organisation because the police never did anything with it, you know, and that’s the really frustrating thing is the amount of hours prosecutors put in. They create these action plans, you know, hoping to make this difference and give the police a steer about what evidence is needed to be able to make a charge, but actually, then they don’t do anything with it. And that obviously, as you can imagine, is, you know not a great use of resource all around.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Police officers also expressed frustration with the action plan process and the delays that they felt the CPS built into the system. Some officers even suggested that action plans were used as a tactic to ease CPS workload pressures:

“They have 28 days to review our case and give a decision. If the decision at the end of that 28 days is action plan, you go back round that loop. It comes back to us, we add in whatever we needed to have added in, take another statement, whatever, send it to them again, 28 days again. All of a sudden you’ve got 56 days because they send us an action plan…yes, you do get officers saying it’s a delaying tactic because they feel the lawyer can easily bounce it, and then it puts it back into the system.”

Police Manager

Summary

This chapter builds on the quantitative analysis to examine interviewee’s views on case file quality, case file building and action plans. The ‘quality of the investigation’ in broad terms and the quality of the file were consistently raised as a critical issue by police and CPS interviewees. Sometimes, the police and CPS disagree on what is required for a charging decision, but in other cases the police may fail to submit relevant material due to oversight. Time pressures can also result in poor quality or rushed investigations, which police triage, prior to submission of a file to the CPS, could potentially mitigate. Otherwise, action plans, which can ‘ping pong’ between the police and CPS with only partial completion of actions, can delay case progression. They also tend to undermine the more direct communication which might enable cases to progress more swiftly on the basis of a shared understanding of what needs to be done and, crucially, why.

6. Case characteristics and progression: case complexity and domestic abuse

Previous reports have suggested that ‘case complexity’ adds resource pressure to the CJS as cases can take longer to progress (Attorney General’s Office, 2022). However, there is no formal definition of ‘case complexity’, what the characteristics of a ‘complex’ case are, or how it impacts case progression. That said, there are several developments that it could be argued make it more challenging to progress cases quickly.

This chapter draws largely on the interviews to consider what case complexity is and how this might impact case progression. A substantial proportion of our case files (30%) had a domestic abuse (DA) flag and the complexities of these cases were often mentioned in the interviews, so we also consider the characteristics of these cases.

6.1 Case complexity and case progression

‘Case complexity’ is often cited as a factor leading to longer elapsed times to achieve a charge and may be associated with fewer positive crime outcomes (Home Office, 2023). A recent cross-government report stated that ‘crime complexity’ has increased over the past decade, causing increased pressures on CPS and the police (Attorney General’s Office, 2022). Some view case complexity through the lens of evidential complexity, with an emphasis on how the increased use of digital devices is changing the nature of evidence (Attorney General’s Office, 2022). They also relate case complexity to growing victim vulnerability, and the safeguarding practices involved in protecting them. Others link complexity to law and legal processes, pointing instead to the changing legal landscape and the increasing range of criminal offences (CJJI, 2024).

Both the CPS and police interviewees generally held the view that crimes were becoming more complex to investigate and prosecute. This was mainly because the nature of crime was changing, especially with online spaces and a range of digital evidence that could now be collected in relation to most crime types. This was exacerbated by the perception of the increase in bureaucratic requirements to progress cases.

One police sergeant with over 20 years of service, noted how crime complexity had changed:

“Going back 20-odd years, the section officer, your basic frontline police officer who’s running around there answering the calls, would deal with simple, straightforward investigations. They would have a low-level common assault. They would have shopliftings which is you’ve got one offender, you have one victim, generally one offence, you can interview the person, get the paperwork done, get it through, simple. The level of complex jobs that new officers are dealing with is not good.”

Detective Sergeant

From the point of view of prosecutors, evidential complexity is related more to reviewing and processing diverse types of, and large volumes of, material. For instance, as one prosecutor noted:

“…there’s a lot more body-worn video and recorded evidence on cases, which takes longer. It makes it more complex in terms of the review, because there’s footage that has to be watched. Historically, we have had issues with the police maybe not clipping that footage, which then once it’s served on us, the lawyer has a duty really to review it all, because it could end up in a charged file. They’ve got to make sure there’s nothing sensitive in there.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Case complexity is, however, quite different from case seriousness. The most ‘serious’ cases in terms of the level of culpability, harm and potential penalties were often described as some of the most ‘straightforward’ to investigate. Murder was commonly given by prosecutors as an illustration of the divergence between case complexity and offence seriousness. In a murder case with one victim and one suspect, it was suggested that working out what had happened and building the evidence needed to prosecute was relatively uncomplicated:

“Murder can be the most straightforward cases to do. You know there’s been a fight. There’s a body at the end of it. There you go…But then there’s that what you would think, as a lay person would think, less serious offending and actually you get into the complexities of it and the admissibility of evidence and trying to work out what’s going on and trying to set that case strategy.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

6.2 Case complexity and digital evidence

There is little robust evidence on the changing use of digital evidence in criminal cases over time but what research there is points to a major increase. Richardson et al (2022) found that the proportion of appeal cases that reference any type of digital evidence (excluding CCTV and body-worn camera) increased from 21% to 34% between 2010 and 2018. All offences saw an increase in digital evidence, although the pattern varied across crime types. Drug offences saw the greatest rise during this period, increasing from 31% to 58%. In addition, an HMICFRS thematic inspection found that demand for digital forensic examinations was increasing annually, and in some instances outstripped the capacity of forces to manage the demand effectively (HMICFRS, 2022a).

The case file data for our sample shows that digital evidence was widely present. Overall, 44% of cases had body-worn camera (BWC) footage, 38% had photographic evidence, 19% CCTV and 14% phone evidence (see Chapter 3, Figure 3.3). From the statistical analysis, the impact of digital evidence on case progression was mixed. Cases with BWC footage were associated with quicker progress from recording to first submission to the CPS than cases without BWC (by 1.8 times) (see Chapter 4, Table 4.2). But the presence of BWC was also associated with the increased likelihood of a CPS action plan (by 1.4 times) (see Chapter 4, Table 4.6).

The challenges of building cases with large quantities of digital evidence emerged as a strong theme in the interviews with the police. The sheer volume of digital evidence is perceived by the police to contribute to significant delays in the progress of cases. Delays from processing digital evidence were described by police officers as having 2 main elements: the time taken to review and collate material and the time required to access specialist digital evidence services. All but one of the interviewed police officers mentioned the burden of digital evidence when discussing case complexity:

“You’re talking about now we are generating mobile phone downloads on a case which might have over 10 to 15,000 pieces of data in it. So which ones of those undermine our case and which support the prosecution case? How long does it take to go through that? I’ve got a case where an officer’s done that and he’s an experienced officer, just doing that one job, it’s taken him 5 weeks, and he hasn’t finished it”

Detective Constable

In relation to mobile phone data, as described above, the extra time required is often to review the material and decide whether it supports the defence or prosecution case. A large number of police interviewees also mentioned the delays digital evidence – especially phones – can add to cases just by trying to access the information held on the device:

“In terms of phone downloads internally completed, our digital investigation and extraction of information from devices, it’s quite slow, I’ll be honest, quite slow. It’s difficult to get a full download, for example, of a phone within 24 hours for a suspect’s victims. We need to book weeks in advance normally to have the right day to download it, so getting downloads from phones can be very tricky. Phones are becoming more and more difficult to get into, we’re being told some are impossible essentially for our digital teams to get into.”

Detective Chief Inspector

In relation to BWC evidence, the issue is slightly different. The majority of police officers interviewed stated that the more time-consuming issue was the need to review multiple attending officers’ body worn feeds and select the relevant material for the case:

“I had one recently with about 10 different events, and on each event there were 3 or 4 officers, so that’s 3 or 4 officers with 40 body-worns and each body-worn could be an hour long, that’s 40 hours just to review a body-worn that you’re meant to then review to present to CPS to say that there’s nothing in it that could be undermining or could assist. That in itself is just time-consuming and lengthy.”

Detective Constable

A further concern with BWC evidence, as noted in Chapter 5, is the burden of having to redact large amounts of material before it can be submitted to the CPS. Some officers talked about trying to combine multiple tasks to reduce the delay associated with processing digital material:

“I’ve got one now where we’ve got over 100 hours of body-worn and every single bit of it has got to be reviewed and redacted at the same time. Because I don’t want to do it dual process, I don’t want to go through it, transcribe it and then redact … Just do it in one go and that’s taking resource wise, that’s taking a lot of time.”

Detective Chief Inspector

These quotes demonstrate the interplay of various factors at work with digital evidence in delaying case progression. Prosecutors also identified issues with the volume of BWC material provided by the police:

“There might be 4 people attending the scene, 4 different sets of body-worn videos, different angles. And actually, that’s great and probably has been really helpful, I imagine, to the police for a number of reasons, not just evidentially for us…brilliant technology. The difficulty is that they should be clipping what they send us. So, they should only be sending us a 3-minute relevant section of the body-worn, one video… [but]… our prosecutors will get 30 minutes uploaded for all 4 people. And obviously, it’s not possible for them to watch 2 hours’ worth of body-worn video for what might be an assault PC…we don’t need the same thing from 4 angles.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

Reflecting on why the police might submit a file with ‘too much’ digital evidence, the same prosecutor said:

“They’ll say I haven’t had time to clip it, so you need to deal with it. Well, I don’t know how they think we’ve got any more time than (they) have.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

Prosecutors also highlighted how time-consuming it was to review digital evidence to make a charging decision. Many CPS interviewees commented on the fact that they would often receive large volumes of digital evidence which they then had to work through to try to identify the relevant sections for a charging decision. This could double or even triple the amount of lawyer time needed to review the file:

“A standard case, maybe 90 minutes to 2 hours to do a complete pre-charge advice on that but…the digital side of things now is ever-growing, and we do find a lot of cases now do have some element of digital evidence, whether it’s 999 phone calls, body worn footage from the police attending. If there’s 2 or 3 police officers attending and they’ve each got body worn footage, then it’s for the duration of that…that can have a real impact on the length of time it takes to do a case, and it could double a case. It could be 3 to 4 hours if you’ve got a lot of media evidence in the case.”

CPS, Prosecutor

6.3 ‘Multi-handed’ cases

For many of the police officers and prosecutors interviewed, cases were seen as more complex if they involved multiple suspects and victims (multi-handed cases), which respondents generally thought took longer to progress.

A case where there were multiple defendants and digital evidence to contend with could be much more demanding – and – were felt to be getting more so:

“Multi-handed cases…have just got bigger because more people are linked in because of all the digital work… you know drugs cases…some of these cases have got a significant number of defendants linked to them, and it requires a lot of work to put all that together. So, it’s multiple defendants and potentially multiple victims that add to complexity.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Several prosecutors went into greater detail about how multi-handed drug trafficking cases were particularly complex to progress. The interplay of multiple suspects and multiple devices vastly increased the evidential load:

“There has been sort of steadily building in case complexity over the last few years. I think there are a number of reasons for it…The digital infrastructure means that we get more case material per* case *at an earlier stage. And, you know, the nature of crime probably has changed in certain case types. For example, drugs cases a few years ago would have had a limited number of telephones and would have been quite straightforward. Now, it’s much more complicated because of the number of devices, information held in various places and the number of suspects that can be pulled into an investigation is expanded. So, all of that kind of hits us on our bottom line, as it were, in terms of how we, what we have to deal with, and how long it takes us to deal with it.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Police officers did not necessarily view multi-handed cases as more complex in themselves but did acknowledge that any cases with multiple offenders and victims can be time-consuming because they increase the volume of evidence that needs processing:

“What makes a case complex? It’ll be multiple suspects because then you’ve got more redactions to do – again, multiple victims, you’ve got more redactions to do. I’m always factoring that in as well.”

Detective Sergeant

In short, as well as digital evidence being an issue in its own right, it increases the likelihood of linking other offenders and victims to a single case which can vastly increase the evidence that requires processing. Figure 6.1 illustrates this graphically:

Figure 6.1: Factors identified by participants as contributing to the changing nature and volume of evidence and their outcomes

6.4 Victim vulnerability

The term vulnerability is hard to define. The College of Policing (2023) has adopted the all-embracing THRIVE (threat, harm, risk, investigation, vulnerability and engagement) definition which states that a person is vulnerable ‘if, as a result of their situation or circumstances, they are unable to take care or protect themselves or others from harm or exploitation’. Even though it is broad in scope, increases in victim vulnerability have been cited as a factor that has added to growing case complexity. However, quantifiable data is patchy. Within some categories of offence, the numbers of vulnerable victims appear to be increasing. Although inflated by crime recoding effects, there was a threefold increase in sexual offences where the victim is a child between 2012 to 2013 and 2020 to 2021 (Home Office, 2021). There were 851,000 domestic abuse-related recorded crimes in the year ending March 2024, and that has risen from 421,000 in the year ending March 2016 (ONS, 2024).

The impact of victim vulnerability on the CJS downstream has been evidenced in the literature, with links identified between victim vulnerability, increased victim attrition, and, ultimately, lower charge and conviction rates (McPhee, 2022; Stanko, 2008). In the case file data collected in this study, 65% of suspects and 19% of victims had some sort of vulnerability (mental health, drug, physical health, alcohol or age), although there are almost certainly data quality issues here. There was a relationship between suspect vulnerability and the time from the recording of a crime to a charge submission being made (see Chapter 4.2). Where a suspect had a vulnerability characteristic, the time to charge submission was 1.5 times quicker than where there was no vulnerability recorded. However, this may appear to be counter-intuitive to the notion that vulnerability makes a case more ‘complex’ and, in doing so, slows its progress down.

Dealing with vulnerable suspects and victims was identified in the police interviews as something that adds to case complexity. There is some recognition that dealing with vulnerable victims or suspects requires a higher level of training and expertise. The NPCC has a National Vulnerability Action Plan (NVATP), and under that, the effective investigation and outcomes strand requires officers to engage with vulnerable people in a sensitive and supportive way and maintain an open mindset, avoiding stereotyping (College of Policing, 2023).

There is evidence from the interviews that suggests that frontline officers are dealing with investigations involving vulnerable victims and suspects, which may extend beyond their experience and the level of training they have received. Vulnerability is a factor which pushes cases into the complex category under Professionalising Investigation Programme (PIP) level 2. However, PIP level 1 trained officers were often dealing with these cases.

In describing a case involving the harming of a vulnerable child by her mother, one officer stated:

“We do pick up some really serious matters and quite honestly, a lot of (PIP level 1) people you’ve got here could easily fill in a PIP2 portfolio for the stuff they deal with”.

Detective Inspector

However, the general view was that dealing with vulnerabilities was an important and necessary aspect of the job, especially for victims:

“What really takes priority is safeguarding. It’s a team that deals with vulnerability, we deal with very vulnerable people in society, and ultimately, an important part of the service the police provide is to make sure that people do not come to harm. And that is why the safeguarding has to take precedence, so everything that’s in my workload, I always ensure that some level of safeguarding has been completed”.

Detective Constable

6.5 Domestic abuse cases – controlling or coercive behaviour and stalking offences

We have already noted that other commentators have highlighted that several new legally defined offences – stalking and controlling or coercive behaviour (ONS, 2024) – are especially challenging for investigators and prosecutors. Domestic abuse cases that involve behaviour crimes and have often taken place over a long period of time require a different investigative approach. The behaviour involved may include psychological, emotional, verbal and/or financial abuse as part of a pattern of behaviour aimed at undermining the autonomy of the victim. The model of prosecuting physical violence does not translate well across to controlling or coercive behaviour, or indeed stalking and harassment. The latter requires a course of conduct to be proved, and it has been suggested that it is common that the police lack understanding of the behaviours that constitute stalking, especially the more serious offence of stalking that can be prosecuted in the Crown Court (Suzy Lamplugh Trust, 2022; College of Policing, 2024).

The response to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust (2022) super-complaint on the police response to stalking, resulted in research that revealed that the police are not always identifying or recording cases as stalking, or allocating them to investigators who have the right skills and experience to ensure effective investigations (College of Policing, 2024, HMICFRS, 2024). An effective investigation may require a combination of evidence going back many years and collated from a variety of sources, often involving third-party evidence.

Within the case files, the number of stalking (n=49) and controlling or coercive behaviour offences (n=23) was small. Nevertheless, the interviews reinforce the challenges around investigating these kinds of offences.

As one officer reported:

“For domestic abuse, a controlling or coercive behaviour investigation can be extremely resource-intensive and time-consuming. The expectation, if there isn’t a pattern of evidencable assaults in the relationship, the burden is enormous and almost insurmountable in my experience. What is expected is full medical records, full phone downloads, and anything else that might go with it.”

Detective Constable

This view was repeated amongst most prosecutors. As one observed:

“Within the domestic abuse remit, things like coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking offences, take a lot of evidence to prove.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Prosecutors distinguished between more traditional offences under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the newer offences that can be prosecuted in the context of domestic abuse. Some said that if the incident that resulted in the call out to a domestic abuse case was a physical assault, then body worn camera or some other photographic evidence could be useful in evidencing injuries to support a prosecution. However, the same was not true of prosecutions for controlling or coercive behaviour or stalking. Given the overlap between domestic abuse and stalking, it is perhaps understandable that these are grouped together by police and prosecutors as ‘complex’ cases to investigate and prosecute. This complexity is acknowledged in the HMICFRS (2024) inspection of the police response to stalking, which shows that the stalking offences and the types of behaviours covered are generally poorly understood, with consequent challenges in gathering evidence and building cases.

Prosecutors also felt that the police had not adapted well to investigating behaviour offences such as controlling or coercive behaviour because they were simply more used to responding to physical assaults. Understanding the details and patterns of what might be happening in a case can be challenging:

“The cops gotta think beyond what’s in front of them and actually try and explore what’s going on. And then you look at, you know, coercive and controlling behaviour, that’s like really big patterns of behaving and offending and needs quite a lot of probing to get there, which is difficult to do when you’re response officers, right? You stop this fight. No one’s getting beaten up anymore. You gotta go onto the next one.”

CPS, Prosecutor

CPS interviewees were keen to stress that the investigation of domestic abuse is complex and that they understood why the police may find it difficult. However, some prosecutor interviewees felt that the progression of cases from the evidence in the file initially provided by the police in DA cases could be challenging:

“So, quite often, all of the relevant domestic abuse history hasn’t been provided in full. But actually, in the victim’s evidence, there’s a lot more going on in terms of that case and the background behaviours that are going on. And you’ll then be in a position where that case might need more work to actually reflect what’s properly happening in that abusive relationship, rather than just a straightforward sort of he’s punched me on a one-off occasion.”

CPS, Prosecutor

As well as controlling or coercive behaviour prosecutions, some prosecutors pointed to the new strangulation offence that can now be charged in domestic abuse cases. CPS interviewees said that they had done a significant amount of training in relation to strangulation, but it was an offence where the police might need additional advice on the types of evidence to gather to support a charging decision. One CPS interviewee said:

“You know it’s a very serious offence that at the time may look particularly minor. There were some lines of inquiry we can suggest there, including things like if paramedics attended, did they take an oxygen saturation reading? Things like that, that the police officer wouldn’t potentially think to do unless they’ve dealt with those cases regularly.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

6.6 The wider challenges of domestic abuse cases

Beyond the specific challenges of ‘new’ legally defined crimes, police and prosecutors identified some issues around the investigation and prosecution of physical assaults flagged as domestic abuse. Nearly a third of the case file sample data collected for this study had a domestic abuse flag (30%). The regression analysis presented in Chapter 4 showed that cases with a DA flag progressed to charge submission 3 times quicker than other cases (see Table 4.2). However, there was no difference between DA flagged cases and other cases at the post-submission stage.

Other research suggests that, in recent years, the police may feel under greater pressure to make arrests and pursue investigations in domestic abuse cases due to long-standing criticism that they were not taking domestic abuse seriously (Myhill, 2019). A small number of police officers spoke about the difficulties of investigating and prosecuting domestic abuse cases. In police officers’ experience, domestic abuse cases were unlikely to involve just a single incident or even a single offence type. The abuse is cumulative and an incident which may start out as a single physical assault, may, on further investigation, involve both multiple assaults over time or one of the behaviour offences discussed above.

“As you can imagine, generally, if we get a report of, say, an assault… I’d probably say at least 50% of those then turn into… disclosure of some other historic crimes that [the victim] are now going to report. We end up with historic rapes… from 3 or 4 months earlier going back to years. I’ve also had some controlling behaviour. ‘Won’t let me go out to work, won’t let me see my friends’, so obviously, that’s a separate crime in itself…The issue you’ve got is with one report of a crime, we’re generally seeing at least 2 or 3 other crimes then having to be recorded on the back of that.”

Detective Inspector

Whilst ‘traditional’ offences against the person that cover physical assaults are not necessarily complex or difficult in themselves to investigate, evidential rules surrounding the prosecution of them can be. CPS interviewees discussed the expectations around how these cases should be investigated and prosecuted in compliance with policies for those prosecutions not relying on the victim’s testimony. National data shows a very high rate of victim withdrawal in domestic abuse-flagged crimes. More than half (53%) of all DA flagged cases had the outcome ‘suspect identified victim does not support’ in the year to March 2023 (ONS, 2023). There is no national data on cases prosecuted without the victim as a witness, but in our sample, 9% of DA charges involved victim withdrawal.

In our case file sample, the victim withdrew in 24% of all DA cases. We might expect the withdrawal rate to be lower for our sample than the national data as our sample exclude offences where the victim withdrew very early after the recording of the offence. It is possible for prosecutors to apply for hearsay evidence to be admitted if the victim decides not to support the investigation and to apply for evidence close in time to the event to be admitted. It may be particularly useful in cases like this for the police to submit body worn camera evidence, which perhaps will contain statements made by the victim at the time the police attended the call-out. But, the legal rules around admissibility add a layer of complexity to case progression. Some prosecutors cited their legal guidance on hearsay evidence, for example, the ‘res gestae’ rules, which allows for statements made at the time of the event to be admitted where the person is so emotionally overpowered by the event that the possibility of concoction or distortion can be disregarded (CPS, 2021).

“So, if we, you know, we’re looking at, for instance, at res gestae evidence. So, the body worn evidence of the cops that have arrived at the scene that shows what’s happened, that shows, not always, but usually, female victim in hysterics, saying he’s done this, he’s done that, well we could do with seeing that and if we can’t see it, we could do with a statement saying what it is and we could do with a statement that addresses all the points that would make evidence admissible through the res gestae rules, so you know, has there been time for collusion? Has there been time for this? Is it really off the cuff? Is it really an honest reaction? If we have to go back and ask for a second statement to clarify all those points down the line, that will maybe add to a bit of the delay, and it will definitely add to the delay if the decision has been made by the victim to withdraw support. Then all of a sudden we’re left scratching our heads about how we can best get this through.”

CPS, Prosecutor

A recent review of the research evidence on the impact of BWC footage on the criminal justice system found a mixed picture, which varied by crime type (Hodgkinson et al, 2025). The strongest evidence of a positive downstream impact – that is BWC footage being associated with more charges – was for DA flagged offences. Whilst BWC footage might be valuable in getting the case to the evidential threshold for a prosecution, it may come with the associated delays in preparing and reviewing a file with digital evidence. But the evidence here is not consistent. Interviewees, and indeed other research (Hodgkinson et al, 2025), highlights the potential delays in processing body worn footage, but the regression analysis (Chapter 4) found that body-worn video cases moved quicker at the investigation stage.

Although there are many reasons why victims withdraw their support for investigations (Wunsch et al, 2021), the critical issue of delays in DA flagged cases and its impact on victims was frequently raised in police interviews. A majority of the officers interviewed highlighted the potential for victims to withdraw their participation due to the long delays involved in the prosecution of cases. Indeed, one police interviewee succinctly captured this in interview:

“Without a doubt the quicker we get a case to court the victim stays a lot more on side, as in the victim stays with us, they’re not willing to withdraw, they want to see the case through.”

Detective Chief Inspector

Delay was described as the ‘enemy’ in domestic abuse cases. While DA cases moved quickly to the charge submission stage of progression, the difficulties in progressing to charge was perceived to increase the risk of victim withdrawal. Delays make the need to rely on processing digital evidence more compelling (because of victim withdrawal), but the overall effect may further slow case progression because of delays associated with processing digital evidence.

Summary

Although it is widely agreed that case complexity is increasing, there is no agreed definition of case complexity. The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that case complexity is multi-faceted. Specific factors which were perceived by interviewees to make cases more complex were increasing volumes of digital evidence, multi-handed cases and, principally for the police, victim and suspect vulnerability. In addition, some of the ‘newer’ offences – stalking and controlling or coercive behaviour – were seen to require more challenging investigations. These cases involve a strong behavioural element, which may take place over a long period of time and require a fundamentally different investigative approach to a physical assault. This, alongside high levels of victim withdrawal in domestic abuse cases, adds complexity to investigations and prosecutions.

Whilst traditional offences against the person that cover physical assaults are not necessarily difficult in themselves, evidential rules surrounding the prosecution of them can be, particularly if the prosecution relies on hearsay evidence, which can add a layer of complexity.

7. Wider factors that are perceived to influence case progression

In this chapter, some of the wider factors beyond case file quality and case file complexity that were perceived to influence case progression will be discussed. In total, we identified 6 themes which have emerged from the analysis of the interview material. These cover workload, the levels of police and prosecutor experience, working relationships between the organisations, communication issues, organisational cultures and police morale.

7.1 Increasing workload

There is a small evidence base on the relationship between crime workload and charges. Roberts and Roberts’ (2016) US study found that as workload increased, charge likelihood fell with the impact most felt on less serious offences. Cole et al’s (2025) analysis of factors influencing charge volumes in England and Wales found that increases in crime workload were associated with fewer charges for a range of property offences. Wharfe et al (2024) found further evidence of a crime workload effect – albeit a positive impact on charges from a short-term reduction in crime workload – through their analysis of the impact of changes in crime demand on charges during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. No studies which have explicitly looked at the impact of workload on prosecutor effectiveness were identified.

There was a perception amongst police officers interviewed that police workload had increased considerably in recent years without a corresponding increase in police resources. This was raised by a majority of the interviewed officers. They often felt overwhelmed by the level of demand and the challenge of managing priorities. One police interviewee said:

“Workloads have increased significantly. During the last 10 years, I think there’s a lot more demand on the police service… I think there’s more expectations on the police service now than there ever has been as to what we can actually do, and the challenge on a day-to-day basis is managing that daily demand and focussing our resources appropriately to make sure that we actually help the community and identify those jobs that have the most risk around them. I think sometimes the risk is when demand is so great that officers get overwhelmed because of their workloads and then risk gets missed.”

Detective Inspector

For some officers, the measure of increased workload was larger caseloads without sufficient extra resources to manage this additional demand. This trend was particularly evident to officers who had worked in the police for some time and could recognise how the number of assigned cases had increased over the years. Other officers, however, suggested it was not just a simple increase in the number of cases but also the increased lifespan of cases with some cases dragging on for many months (whilst new cases joined the queue). Increases in workload were perceived as being compounded by the increased administrative burdens from digital evidence and case file preparation:

“Since the end of September last year until December, I conducted 4 charge and remand case files upon individuals being arrested. In that space of time, each of those were committed to the Crown Court for the trial. Each of those require an action plan, an extensive action plan to be completed, but that is in addition to the rest of my workload. Every other investigation I have still needs to be expeditiously completed and progressed, and every day, as we are a volume-based crime team, there is a high turnover of investigations that come through us.”

Detective Constable

Police officer interviewees also emphasised the reactive nature of many investigator roles and that they have a multitude of different demands on their time. Finding the time to build a case file means that other parts of their role would have to give, and in frontline policing, it was sometimes perceived that it was case building that was often neglected:

“And we’ve got other demands. The call list now is probably constantly open. A lot of our patrols downstairs are going from call to call to call. If they’ve got a workload they’ve got to do in between as well, where are they going to find the time? Demand at the moment probably outstrips our resources so that will inevitably have an impact because if something’s going to get pushed to the back, it’s going to be their case files and their investigations. I think it’s literally supply and demand.”

Detective Sergeant

Most officers believed that the CPS had suffered a similar, or even greater, increase in demand without commensurate increases in capacity. This was further compounded by backlogs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. One police officer interviewed stated that he empathised with the CPS position because, like the police, he saw them as carrying heavier workloads without adequate resources:

“It’s all very well me saying, “I want lawyers more accessible,” but there needs to be enough of them for them to be able to do that. They have got exactly the same problems we have… they don’t have enough investment or resource,.. I’m sure they don’t want to be carrying [the] caseloads that they’re carrying and things taking longer.”

Detective Chief Inspector

The CPS had received some additional resource in recent years, but the perception amongst both police and CPS interviewees was that they had not received an uplift equivalent to that of the police:

“The CPS haven’t had the funding that the police have had over the last few years …the investment hasn’t been replicated with the CPS and their workloads are significant, not helped by the COVID backlog, which is having a big impact on getting cases to Crown Court in particular.”

CPS, Business Manager

Some CPS interviewees felt that the system was under pressure due to increased police recruitment, which ultimately created increased CJS workloads and CPS capacity issues. One CPS respondent used the analogy of the CPS as a ‘bath tub’, saying:

” The police are the tap that are pouring all of the work in and courts are the drain that are taking it away… in terms of kind of, you know, visualising it… the bath plug was in for the whole of the pandemic because very little work was able to go out, but it didn’t stop the police bringing the work actually. And the bath has, you know, reached overflowing.”

CPS, Business Manager

7.2 Police and prosecutor experience

The relationship between officer experience and the charging of offences has been highlighted in several earlier studies. Cole et al’s (2025) analysis of the predictors of charge volumes found officer experience to be one of the most consistent factors associated with changes in charge volumes across all victim-based crime types analysed. Lower levels of officer experience were associated with fewer charges. A Swedish evaluation of a national programme to increase officer numbers concluded that one key reason for the failure of the initiative to generate an anticipated increase in charge volumes was due in part to sustained, high levels of inexperience across the workforce (Bra, 2014). However, the evaluative evidence does not extend to a robust evaluation of impact. 

A review of the evidence on what makes an effective investigation identified a small body of research evidence which suggests that, for investigators at least, officers with greater experience are associated with higher levels of operational effectiveness (McLean et al, 2022). A 2022 HMICFRS report on the police response to burglary, robbery and other acquisitive offences claimed that ‘the relative inexperience of newly trained officers is also affecting investigations… [M]any newly trained or direct entry detectives carry out high volumes of investigations without any experience in making arrests, building casefiles or attending court.’ (HMICFRS, 2022b). A general concern is also that not all officers have the ability to enable them to identify when a case is likely to meet the Full Code Test and when it is ready for a charging decision.

The existence of a relatively inexperienced workforce was identified by the criminal justice inspectorate report on joint case building (CJJI,2024). At the same time, as case building has become ever more complex, the experience within both the police and the CPS workforce across the CJS has decreased. This represented something of a perfect storm. The inspectorate attributes the lack of experience, at least in part, to austerity and loss of personnel. Whilst there has been an increase in recruitment by both the police and CPS, this has resulted in relatively inexperienced personnel in both frontline teams and supervision and management. These observations were echoed in the interviews.

In most of the interviews with police and prosecutors, police inexperience was raised as a substantial issue impacting on case progression. Officer experience levels have been falling for much of the 2010s. As at 31st March 2024, officers with less than 5 years of service accounted 35.5% of all police officers (Home Office, 2024). Many police officers noted the question of inexperience related not just to frontline officers but also to supervisory sergeants. This rank was responsible for overseeing ongoing investigations and case file preparation. One detective inspector with 19 years’ experience encapsulated a common view about the challenges of police inexperience:

“‘[Due to] the age of our workforce and the front-line officers and front-line supervisors being quite young in service and also inexperienced… [what]… we see is that people get overwhelmed and sometimes investigations aren’t managed as well as they could be because the officers just don’t have that experience…they don’t know what to do with investigations.”

Detective Inspector

Annex H summarises new Home Office analysis on recent changes in the experience levels of recently promoted sergeants. This suggests that while typical (median) levels of sergeant experiences are stable, there is a growing cohort of less experienced newly promoted sergeants. Police inexperience was perceived to result in a series of self-reinforcing negative effects: cases take longer, and caseloads build up to a point where they cannot be managed effectively. It then becomes a challenge to meet the standards for a good investigation. Another detective inspector (also with 19 years’ experience) argued how a lack of experienced supervisors has the potential to further increase delays partly because inexperienced supervisors delay taking critical decisions:

“I think sometimes the issue is with some front-line supervisors is having that confidence to make a decision because the risk is that they don’t make a decision, their officers’ workload builds up and investigation time just grows significantly because they can’t process that volume of work.”

Detective Inspector

One detective chief inspector with over 20 years of experience stating:

“We have young response, we have young CID, we have young, I would say, practically inexperienced supervisors. So, then you have the blind leading the blind, unfortunately, because they don’t know what they don’t know, and they can’t tell others how to do it when they don’t know how to do it themselves.”

Detective Chief Inspector

The perceived lack of experienced supervisors was also felt to have had a negative impact on the confidence of investigating police officers. Interviewees said that police officers who were now a couple of years into service were doing casework at the same time as training their even newer recruits to the team. Investigating officers were also missing out on the benefits from interactions with more experienced colleagues, who could give useful advice on case building. This was seen as a particular issue in the detection of high-volume crime. More specialist areas and more serious crimes were felt to be generally better resourced and have the enhanced training to deal with more complex and serious crimes. As one interviewee with 16 years of service noted:

“It is a challenge for us, and our best detectives are probably in some of the more specialist units, so then we struggle with our frontline investigations.”

Detective Chief Inspector

Prosecutors also tended to believe that a skilled and experienced police workforce was key to speedy case progression. Most prosecutor interviewees also perceived there to be gaps in police supervisory expertise:

“Instantly you can tell that the officer is not getting the training and support that they need…clearly, someone’s not checking the work, they’re not being mentored, or whoever’s doing the checking needs a little bit of mentoring themselves.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Where experienced police supervision exists, for example, in specialist units, prosecutors could see better-quality case building and file preparation:

“You can tell who the new CID officers are, and who the most experienced ones are, usually based on the quality of the work and the engagement you get from them.”

CPS, Prosecutor

The issue of prosecutor experience was also raised by nearly all of the CPS interviewees, consistent with the findings from the recent criminal justice inspectorates’ recent report (CJJI, 2024). On this point, the perceptions of the 4 interviewees from CPS Direct were illuminating, as they contrasted their own favourable position to the position in some CPS regional areas. CPS Direct interviewees felt that their workforce maintained high levels of experience, and needed to be because they had to be able to deal with anything that came through to them and be totally on top of any new offences from their introduction. CPS Direct lawyers also felt that their work conditions were more favourable for recruiting experienced lawyers as positions were more flexible. However, it was felt this benefit might lead to experienced lawyers from CPS Areas being attracted to CPS Direct, creating a potential experience gap in the Areas.

One prosecutor believed that the influx of new prosecutors in their CPS area had impacted on the management of workloads, notably in the magistrates’ court where the least experienced prosecutors start out:

“So absolutely we’ve had a lot of new staff, and that is something that the magistrates’ court team feel probably more than most.”

CPS, Prosecutor

To make charging decisions in more complex and serious cases, the prosecutor needs to be at the Senior Crown Prosecutor level, and it takes time for new recruits to reach that level:

“So, we have an awful lot of people coming in at Crown Prosecutor level rather than Senior Crown Prosecutor level, and to charge a case [at Crown Court level], you need to be a Senior Crown Prosecutor or above. So, we get all of the new ones essentially in the magistrates’ court team because they’re able to do more of the functions in the magistrates’ court team than they are in, say, the Crown and RASSO.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Some prosecutors argued that it was important for new recruits to have opportunities to develop their experience in making charging decisions and prosecuting more serious cases. This prosecutor felt that the pathways to gaining experience are strong in the CPS and that there are adequate mechanisms for upskilling the prosecutorial workforce:

“We’ve also put together a Crown Prosecutor to Senior Crown Prosecutor pathway that we’re now implementing, where we are exposing the Crown prosecutors to some of the additional senior Crown prosecutor functions if you like, under supervision of course, but actually giving them some time in the Crown Court team and the RASSO team that they wouldn’t normally get to spend time in as a Crown prosecutor, to help them understand all aspects of the business…”

CPS, Prosecutor

There is ongoing joint police/CPS work to address some of these capability concerns through police supervisor training packages and reciprocal training for CPS staff.

7.3 Police and CPS working relationship

Police and CPS interviewees were asked about their working relationship with each other: what worked well to speed up progression and what worked less well. There were felt to be marked differences between the working relationships between the police and CPS at a strategic level on the one hand and the more operational roles on the other. At the strategic level, higher-ranking police interviewees said that the working relationships between the organisations were good.

In the main, the CPS interviewees who were business or operational managers said that they had a positive working relationship with the police when it came to, for example, piloting new initiatives or rolling out new guidance. This is consistent with the findings of the joint case building inspection (CJJI, 2024) and the inspection of the CPS’s handling of victims of domestic abuse (HMCPSI, 2023).

At the operational level, however, perceptions of tension in the working relationship were much more prominent. The following quote from a Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) with 18 years of service illustrates how senior officers recognised that the more positive working relationship was not necessarily always evident for frontline police officers:

“I’ve got to say, at my level, that strategic level, the interactions with the CPS are great, and I think most of the time we’re on the same page… the managers and the senior leaders work quite closely together. It’s where you get down to the people… on the ground, that’s where there’s that void, a gap. And everything is done via email. You can’t pick up the phone to the CPS.”

Detective Chief Inspector

The majority of police and CPS interviewees noted that in terms of individual cases, working relationships varied widely. A key source of tension in the relationship between police and prosecutors is disputed lines of responsibility. On the one hand, prosecutors feel frustrated about the police not doing work which they believe they should be doing or, if they do undertake it, not doing it to the required standard. These weaknesses added to workload and resulted in potential consequences for, and/or criticism of, both organisations. On the other hand, police officers, especially those in frontline roles, said that they feel that CPS demands on them – particularly around getting case files ‘trial ready’ – were putting ever more pressure on them.

One of the best illustrations of this tension over lines of responsibility for work is redaction (as discussed in Chapter 5). Redaction was perceived by many interviewees to be the main source of tension in the working relationship between the police and CPS. As one CPS Direct prosecutor said:

“Redaction is a police function of personal data. In the entire time I have been working on shifts, I think I’ve probably only seen 3 properly police redacted documents. They just don’t like doing it. They don’t know how to do it. They just don’t do it. Which then means that then it falls to us because, obviously, we become [the] handler of that data once it’s provided. Some CPS areas, where there is time, we’ll send it back to them, and say you need to redact this before I take it back. Obviously, given that we’re working against the PACE clock here and with the volume, we’re not able to do that”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

The rollout of DG6, and the related guidance on redaction generated tensions at an operational level as it was seen as frontloading work. There was an element of frustration on both sides about files being sent back for non-compliance. Police interviewees said that they were not always sure that redaction was their responsibility but in their experience, cases would always be sent back if not redacted. This caused frustration with the police often being required to do tasks that they felt would sit more appropriately with the CPS. As a detective constable with 4.5 years’ experience said:

“I don’t know how fair I am in saying it but I feel like we seem to be doing a lot more things that the CPS perhaps should be doing.”

Detective Constable

“I have noticed that there is forever a downward push to the police service to do more work that would typically have resided with the prosecutors. There are times where, for example in PACE, it states that the responsibility for the redaction of documents is to sit with the Crown Prosecution Service. However, we redact pretty much everything. I can understand why because we’re paid less, it makes sense for that sort of work to be in our remit, but it has a natural consequence to it.”

Detective Constable

The ‘natural consequence’ referred to above was increased pressures on police time, especially in non-specialist units, perceived to be lacking in both capacity and experience (see above). Another police interviewee (with 21 years’ experience) expressed even more strongly the confusion about lines of responsibility and a sense of frustration about not knowing for sure who should be doing what:

“So don’t waste time getting that if you’re not going to charge. Sometimes, we don’t know if you’re going to charge, and you’re wanting to get a piece of evidence that isn’t going to affect your decision to charge or not to charge. I think that’s the feeling. Maybe sometimes the feeling is that post-charge work is brought into a pre-charge decision, and it shouldn’t be.”

Detective Inspector

However, a smaller number of more high-ranking officers, especially those working within serious and major crime units, saw DG6 more positively in terms of it laying out clearer guidance about what is needed to reach a charge threshold. As a DCI with 21 years’ experience stated:

“In terms of DG6 [in] my department I’ve not seen any issues at all, none at all… ongoing disclosure requests, pre-interview disclosure, no problem at all. The guidance is pretty straightforward, it’s pretty clear, but I sit in a position where I’ve experienced detectives who have always known how to manage the disclosure, so the changes aren’t big. You might find the changes and the challenges and the difficulties more locally, might be slightly different but no issues for me.”

Detective Chief Inspector

On occasion, this greater level of experience and seniority seemed to insulate higher-ranking officers from some of the frustrations commonly voiced by frontline high-volume investigators.

Work is ongoing to improve direct communication between prosecutors and police officers with the aim being to move away from more transactional approaches and encouraging more human interaction, where knowledge and understanding can be shared.

7.4 Use of digital systems and effective communication

The joint case progression inspection report (CJJI, 2024) has identified that weaknesses in IT systems and digital communication are factors that impede case building. A strong and consistent theme in the prosecutor interviews was that digital capability remained a key barrier to case progression and effective communication. Although the aim is for digital case file submission to become standard, currently different IT systems are in operation in different forces. CPS Direct was well placed to comment on these differences:

“So one of the biggest issues we have are local police officers … [who] do not understand how to use their IT system and instead of sending us the case through on the digital system, they will email us all the material. That then means I lose a prosecutor as they have to sit there and manually update/upload every piece of evidence before it’s able to be reviewed….obviously we’re only a small team and there are 43 forces. Uploading for a police force…that’s not what we are there for, you know, [we are] there to make legal decisions.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

The issue of basic digital competence – the ability of the workforce to use IT systems – was seen by most CPS interviewees as a problem at the individual officer level:

“Some of them do not, you know, have the digital capability. It’s as simple as that. You know, I could not dress it up any other way. The reality is we have police officers who are on the phone [to the] prosecutor saying, ‘I don’t know how to use this system. You need to take this case’. They’re in custody and we’re having to say to them, well, actually, you need to know how to use that system. You need to go and learn or find somebody who can do it because we can’t let you email 40 pieces of evidence to us.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

Several CPS interviewees commented that they could understand why it might be difficult for police officers to comply with digital requirements as it is only one component of a diverse frontline role:

“But obviously, you know, I’m sure very few people signed up to become a police officer because they wanted to sit at a computer for hours, you know, uploading evidence and waiting on a phone to speak to a prosecutor. I’m quite sure there wasn’t what they put on their application form.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

As well as concerns raised about the digital competency of police officers, the reliance on digital means of communication raised a separate set of issues amongst the police interviewees. This development was perceived as creating greater distance between the police and CPS. Almost all of the police interviewees felt that their relationship with the CPS was hindered by a lack of direct contact. Very often communication was via computerised systems, with face-to-face and telephone conversations with known CPS lawyers much less common than it had been in the past:

“I think in the ideal world having more opportunity to engage with officers about their cases, and not just base it on what might or might not be sent through an interface. Being able to have a conversation earlier in that investigation, and not this kind of robotic process of having to build a file to a set standard, and making sure the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, and then sending it through an interface to someone - who gives it to a lawyer, and then you just get this cold process, rather than almost being able to not do all of that, and speak about a case at a much earlier stage, based on facts and information, rather than multitudes of forms.”

Detective Chief Inspector

Another DCI commented:

“There hasn’t been the communication at the early stage, so it becomes email ping-pong, action plan ping-pong and then, you can start to see frustration building on both sides… all we want to do is bang both heads together and say, ‘Get yourselves in a room’ – it can be a virtual room – ‘and sort it out.”

Detective Chief Inspector

Many officers expressed concerns over the difficulty in accessing CPS and inconsistencies in the service received. Not being able to get advice quickly enough was felt to introduce delays into the system. This and the lack of a personal relationship with prosecutors, led some officers to feel powerless:

“[Prosecutors are] not easy to get hold of. You call their office, it will ring forever. Sometimes a person will answer the phone, you’ll communicate to them the issue. They will say they will go away and do something about it, and nothing happens.”

Detective Constable

Police interviewees also noted differences in the service/level of communication that they got from CPS Areas and CPS Direct. One issue noted as problematic is when there is inconsistent advice between Area and Direct prosecutors. This can result in work being undertaken by the police which is deemed unnecessary by prosecutors in the Area because a different charge is selected.

Officer views on the relative merits of CPS Direct versus CPS Areas were mixed. Some officers said that they preferred using CPS Direct, while others valued the more localised knowledge they could get from CPS Areas. Some officers expressed frustration at a lack of consistency in dealing with CPS Direct. Sometimes, the person answering the phone will deal with the request quickly and efficiently, but the quality of service was perceived as quite variable:

“Generally, the bugbear comes when you’re going to CPS Direct for actual decisions. It seems like this horrible game of whoever is answering the phone.”

Detective Constable

Police officers felt that having access to more specialised expertise on particular crime types (for example, rape or domestic abuse) was advantageous. This was more likely to be available when officers had access to specialist CPS prosecutors within their local CPS teams, and some officers reported having strong, consistent specialised advice in contrast to some of their experiences with CPS Direct.

“I think you sometimes find when you have to go to CPS Direct, their level of knowledge sometimes around very specialist issues isn’t as good compared to the local teams.”

Detective Chief Inspector

Here too, experiences varied considerably by rank and whether they were dealing with volume or more specialised crime types. This is linked to the greater ease of communicating with a prosecutor if you are a senior police officer working in a specialist crime unit:

“For a serious and organised or serious crime, you can get access to a lawyer because they know that it’s serious and complex, so they’re a very niche area, so it’s very easy for them to be involved in it, whereas you’ve got a lot of the volume work and lawyers that are dealing with hundreds of jobs, hundreds of cases and it’s very difficult for them to extract themselves away to have a sit-down face-to-face for half an hour like this on a particular case.”

Detective Chief Inspector

“If I’m quite honest with you, it’s only with your serious organised crime, your high-level drugs team or murder where you’ve really got that one-on-one interaction… In effect, we are volume crime, so we’re at the bottom rung of the ladder compared to major crime. We don’t get prioritised, unfortunately.”

Detective Inspector

For some more generalist police teams, the lack of bespoke or dedicated CPS contacts, combined with impersonal email-based communication, was seen as a barrier to building cordial and constructive working relationships. Over two-thirds of police interviewees referred to communication being strained because of the lack of nuance in emails and other forms of remote/digital communication. One police officer reflected upon the lack of what he described as ‘audible communication’:

“Because we don’t have that audible communication, it is a very much instructional. We send something through, ‘Please, sir, can I have a decision on this?’, they send back, saying, ‘No, you haven’t done this – you do this and you do this, you do this,’ You’ve made one minor mistake and you’re requesting information I’ve already provided, and therefore, my hackles are up… I imagine it’s something rather similar – the way they see our sarcastic reply to them, we see their sarcastic replies back to us and there’s no actual proper communication. I imagine that is quite disheartening on both sides. I don’t think it’s malicious in any way. Do I slate them sometimes? Yeah, but actually, it’s just as bad on their end. But I’ll never know because I never speak to them. That’s the reality of it.”

Detective Constable

Whilst it might be efficient to communicate digitally, whether it is genuinely more effective is open to question as it leads to communications seeming remote and depersonalised. Almost all of the police officers mentioned that they would prefer to have more direct contact with CPS, such as a named prosecutor for a case that they can call up, rather than rely solely on contact via IT systems and electronic forms. Impersonal communication was said to fuel an ‘us and them’ attitude, which feeds into a perception of a ‘clash of cultures.’

7.5 Organisational cultures

A minority of the police interviewees felt that the power balance between them and the CPS had shifted in recent years. The police were now expected to do tasks that were formerly within the CPS remit, whilst the CPS was perceived to have gained more power over them. The police interviewees who articulated this view associated it with the introduction of DG6 and related guidance. This remains a particularly contentious issue mainly with lower-ranking officers, who felt over-burdened with the increasing work required in building case files, redacting material, and responding to action plans. One long-serving DCI (with 23 years’ experience) reflected on this:

“We get in action plans, and we’re being asked for actions that are completely peripheral to the investigation, but they won’t provide a decision prior to getting those actions completed, but they’ll have no impact on the actual decision. But they have that master-slave relationship that has been created between the 2 so that they hold all the cards and the power.”

Detective Chief Inspector

This quote speaks to the problems of reconciling different police and prosecutor views on what constitutes an appropriate investigative action (see Chapter 5). It also suggests a perceived shift in the relationship between the 2 organisations and that the expectations of the police and prosecutors were not always well aligned.

A particular concern was raised about the absence of CPS feedback.

“It’s about working as a partnership together on a case instead of working against, us against them and I think we’ve still got an us against them attitude in policing and CPS. I haven’t at our level [strategically], but I think we need, as an organisation, to embed that at a lower level so that we can work together around cases to reach the final result, which is get a conviction, but I think it’s still an ‘us’ and against ‘them’ at a lower level and that’s because of communication.”

Detective Inspector

A majority of police officers interviewed said that in the case of dropped charges they felt that they were not always given a good explanation of why the case was not progressing:

“Officers just get a letter to say that, ‘We’re proposing to drop this charge against XXX because [we] do not consider there’s a realistic prospect of conviction. Sometimes they expand on that, sometimes they don’t. The problem is when they don’t expand on that sentence, it’s very difficult to understand their rationale for making that decision.”

Detective Inspector

“Some of the prosecutors, there is no rationale, and you really struggle to understand how they’ve come to a conclusion. Like I said, that creates issues in itself because if I don’t understand your rationale, I can’t learn at all or anything like that, especially if you’re talking about discontinuing a case.”

Detective Inspector

This increases a sense of frustration amongst some police officers, especially as it is something that should be easily resolved by prosecutors and might enable officers to learn from their experience.

A small number of CPS interviewees said that, from their perspective, there was a mismatch between the police’s view of what was required and their own. Sometimes, the police thresholds for wanting to charge a case were felt to be too low. This inevitably created issues with giving an explanation which would be acceptable to the police about why a case would not be prosecuted. Prosecutors who addressed this point said that, in their view, sometimes the police wanted to charge on ‘just enough’ evidence, but as prosecutors, the Code tests had to be applied:

“Sometimes it very much feels like the police believe that we’re trying to find reasons not to charge people and as opposed to requiring the level of evidence to be able to charge people.”

CPS, Prosecutor

These quotes suggest that the lack of mutual understanding of a decision not to prosecute might be mitigated by a fuller, direct communication of the reasons for the CPS decision. It also related to the way that post DG6, a lot more administrative work must be put into cases that ultimately receive the outcome NFA, and a perception amongst some officers that the CPS has become more risk-averse. Whilst police officers might be frustrated the CPS seem unwilling to take a chance on cases, research suggests that the evidential test is a ‘moveable feast’ rather than ‘line in the sand’ (Widdecombe, 2024). Nevertheless, all of these issues were felt by police officers to have had an adverse impact on morale, as discussed below.

7.6 Police morale – a constellation of factors

Many of the points raised above were felt by police interviewees to impact on police morale. Whilst morale is impacted by a variety of different factors, there is no doubt that a perceived clash in organisational cultures is part of that. Workloads were also perceived to be increasing, this was compounded by the added complexity of getting cases charged post-DG6 pre-charge disclosure requirements. At the same time, officers felt that the service was less equipped to deal with these pressures due to a relatively young and inexperienced workforce. Similar issues played out with CPS capacity, and this contributed to difficulties accessing and communicating with CPS prosecutors. Around half of the officers interviewed touched upon a sense of lowered police morale.

Several officers expressed frustration that so much work might go into the investigation and case file preparation, taking a long time to be ultimately NFA by CPS. These officers felt that prior to DG6 a decision could have been made very quickly to NFA cases lacking in evidence and therefore unlikely to result in a final charge or conviction. This view was common amongst officers of both higher and lower ranks:

“Previously, you wouldn’t have put all that work in, but now you put all that work in, and you get it there, and it comes back as an NFA, and that’s obviously frustrating.”

Detective Sergeant

“You’re doing the full file just for CPS to look it and go ‘NFA’… so disheartening to do all that work for nothing… So, I think nowadays, as opposed to days gone by where you had that attitude of going in, ‘This is a croc,’ and it’s going to be treated accordingly, and it’s going to be written off in a day and a half… I do see a massive issue with that on the frontline.”

Detective Chief Inspector

Over one-third of officers suggested that the decision to NFA typically came far too late in the process. This wasted officers’ time on labour-intensive redaction and case file preparation on a case they were never going to prosecute. The increased effort plus a sense of risk aversion amongst some parts of the CPS frustrated some senior officers:

“Because the amount of work that we do for nothing is horrendous. That part of DG6 I do not like… we’re not going to get anywhere, so let’s stop our investigation now and not waste time… It is disheartening when you invest a lot of work, and time and effort into it. I just sometimes wish they would have a bit more of a punt at getting something to trial rather than pulling it as soon as they do. Or even to get to the full code where we’ve got everything and then they pull it. We’ve got all this really good evidence, but you’re saying you still can’t make a case. I’m not fully understanding that… We need to have more of an opportunity to try and have a go.”

Detective Inspector

A DCI offered a similar view:

“That does make me wonder at times. It’s a concern that CPS are setting the bar too high and are we running crimes that past the evidential test that aren’t seen as prosecutable by the CPS? That’s one of my niggles at the back of my brain is should we be charging more people and testing the system? Should we be testing the evidence in the court in front of a jury more?”

Detective Chief Inspector

One officer initially expressed low morale resulting from cases that were discontinued relatively early because of concerns from the CPS that the case could never be successfully prosecuted. But he also recognised that as an investigating officer it is difficult sometimes to be impartial. An earlier objective assessment from the CPS could be invaluable:

“Sometimes the risk is, as an investigator, you can get obsessed. You get really passionate but sometimes you’re just stuck, then you lose objectivity… In whose best interest is it to drag it out for 3 months, 3 years for it to be discontinued, clog up the court system and then you’ve got other cases that are delayed and that’s not in anyone’s best interest. Sometimes we perhaps need to be a bit more objective regarding our decision-making and make realistic decisions in the interest of justice and listen to the advice that the CPS have given.”

Detective Inspector

The impact of high officer investment in NFA cases was compounded by the difficulty of getting access to the CPS. This issue was particularly acute for frontline officers rather than specialist teams. They suggested that if the lines of communication were more open and direct, they would be able to better understand the reasoning behind such decisions and not be left as frustrated that the case did not lead to a positive outcome.

Summary

This chapter has identified a range of wider factors that both the police and CPS interviewees perceived as impacting on case progression. Both police and prosecutors acknowledged the challenges of managing an increasing workload, although they identified different factors as the root cause. DG6 and the ‘frontloading’ of cases for the police; COVID-19 legacy and the backlog of serious cases in the system for prosecutors.

The relative inexperience of the police workforce was viewed by both police and CPS interviewees as a key issue affecting case building and file quality. Within the police, gaps in experience were felt to exist on both the frontline and, even more critically, amongst supervisors. It was also felt that there were pockets of inexperience in the CPS workforce.

In terms of the general working relationship between the police and CPS at a strategic level, this was felt to be good and effective. The tensions in the relationship seem to be mainly on the frontline and amongst lower police ranks.

Digital capability remained a key barrier to case progression and effective communication. Separately, the issue of the digital competence of individual police officers in using their IT systems was seen by most CPS interviewees as a problem. The move towards digital case submission was perceived by the police as creating greater distance between the police and CPS.

In terms of organisational cultures, particular concern was raised by the police about the absence of CPS feedback. A majority of police officer interviewees said that in cases where charges were dropped, they felt that they were not always given a good explanation as to why.

Around half of the officers interviewed suggested that issues around case progression were lowering police morale. Officers expressed frustration that so much work might go into the investigation and case file preparation for it to be ultimately be given the outcome NFA and that the decision to NFA came too late in the process.

8. Interviewees’ views on how to improve case progression

In this section, we summarise the areas identified by both police and CPS interviewees, which, if addressed, were thought to be ways of improving case progression. Unsurprisingly, the areas of suggested improvement mapped onto the issues identified earlier in this report.

8.1 Improved police/CPS joint working

There was a consensus in the interviews with both police and prosecutors that approaches which improved joint working and greater mutual understanding had the potential to improve case progression:

“I think that the police are trying to improve, so I think we just need to work together to get that improvement, to carry on with that improvement. Maybe the CPS should do things like run training sessions for officers to explain why certain things are done or needed to make them understand, and then that would give them that better understanding, that better knowledge to then make them realise why you ask for certain things to then improve the quality of the files that are coming through. Just a bit more time spent together trying to appreciate each other’s jobs and trying to understand why we ask for certain things to then move that forward. I think that’s the most important thing.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Whilst police and prosecutors both had some basic understanding of how the organisational contexts of their work differed, their appreciation of their respective constraints was sometimes more limited. There appears, in some locations at least, to be relatively few opportunities for police and prosecutors to have any face-to-face contact. What is being advocated above is joint training as a route to allowing each organisation to gain more insights into the constraints and requirements of the other. From interviews with the police, it was evident that there had been instances where this had been attempted, and the results were generally viewed positively:

“I’ve arranged a few CPD (Continuing Professional Development) events where I’ve asked CPS to come in and specifically talk about things like evidence-led investigations, especially DV (domestic violence). They’re more than happy to come in and we were talking a few months back when I went and done another job, around getting them in to do some sort of court practice as well, getting officers to write some statements and cross-examine them, making it a bit difficult for them so they get that learning.”

Detective Inspector

CPS interviewees also commented on the potential benefits of joint training:

“I think that works well for both organisations, not just for the benefit of the police, it benefits our prosecutors as well. We used to be co-located – that had its benefits and disadvantages.”

CPS, Prosecutor

When some CPS interviewees talked about training alongside the police, it was not so much about learning the rules but more about how things were in reality. Through this lens, ‘joint training’ was more about sharing of the real-world experience of working in the police and the CPS. This, it was perceived, could potentially help increase mutual understanding:

“Maybe the police coming in and training us. Not necessarily training us on how to do that job, but giving us as a session as to what they are doing, how they look at things. How their systems work. One thing which really did help us recently is I went to a training session on the HOLMES database, and that really helped me understand what happens with the disclosure. I was quite frustrated why I was getting piles and piles of disclosure, late on from the disclosure officer, but I realised then the system produces them, and what the issues were with them being able to do that.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Improved engagement around specific cases was also mentioned by some interviewees from both organisations. A police interviewee noted that case progression ‘clinics’ had been run in their area that bring police and CPS together to discuss specific cases:

“We’ve got good mechanisms in place that can be used. It does depend on officers and supervisors taking CPS up on it, so we’ve got case progression clinics where officers can submit their case to the clinic, attend with their DI, meet with a specialist prosecutor, and have a short discussion about that case, what the challenges are, and get some advice on what direction to take it.”

Detective Chief Inspector

Whilst this kind of approach might not be easy to resource for high-volume crimes, it might potentially be adapted to focus on specific crime types to generate a better understanding of the common obstacles to case progression in their area.

At the individual officer/prosecutor level there are also potential areas for improvement. In Chapter 5 and Chapter 7, interviewees highlighted that the absence of feedback from the CPS to the police on decision-making – both action plans and NFA decisions – did not encourage organisational learning. Also, it could intensify frustrations given all of the effort from the police to develop a case that is ultimately dropped. If there were ways to make greater use of feedback, delivered in a thoughtful, explanatory way, this could enhance relationships and police understanding.

Since the interviews were undertaken there have been some developments led by NPCC and CPS to improve joint working. For instance, strands of work have been developed to improve communication channels, data sharing and develop joint training packages at both operational and strategic levels. For the former, the implementation of Real Time Case Conversations over Teams to co-construct action plans and agree realistic timescales is being undertaken for some cases. Pilots developed under the Joint Justice Plan for DA also seek to build collaborative prosecution teams by opening more lines of communication, earlier on in the process. Also, where cases have 2 or more action plans, they are escalated through the management chain for discussion. There have also been attempts to improve knowledge sharing and good practice, through area-based management forums. These are designed to allow for open and constructive two-way feedback, disseminating best practice and encouraging joint problem solving.

8.2 Addressing digital barriers

A strong theme emerging from the interviews is the challenge that police officers and prosecutors can be confronted with when managing case progression in the digital environment. Three main issues were raised: the effectiveness of systems for sharing material, levels of individual digital competence, and managing increasing volumes of digital evidence.

Police and prosecutors both felt that the resources to deal with digital demand have not kept up with developments in the nature and expectations of digital engagement. Some forces were trying to find ways to ease the demands related to the processing of digital evidence:

“We’ve got these kiosks…where officers can triage mobile phones and they can do initial review of digital material, so that’s accessible 24/7 to people…There’s a lot of front-line officers that can triage devices on area and then if they need to go for…an enhanced examination, we’ve got capacity at headquarters to do that.”

Detective Inspector

One force highlighted the benefits of appointing a digital media investigator:

“To overlay evidence and cross-reference between each department…a really exciting development I think for us… I think we’re really pushing boundaries with our digital work… and getting better and better by the day.”

Detective Inspector

There was some enthusiasm for the move to digital case files (DCF) and a shift away from systems that rely on forms being loaded onto case management systems – such as Niche – and then being sent to the CPS. Systems such as Niche are often considered to be unintuitive, creating issues with putting together a case:

“DCF will lead them through the process… In that sense, it will improve the quality of the information that we’re providing. By doing that, obviously, it means that we should have fewer rejections from CPS at the triage stage, fewer lawyer action plans at the lawyer review stage, which means less rework for everybody, police and CPS, less delay in terms of the process as well, so lots of benefits”.

Police Manager

CPS Direct interviewees were in a unique position to comment on the national digital landscape as they receive submissions from all 43 police forces in England and Wales. They felt that one of the key improvements that could have a potential impact on case progression was a universal national system for transferring cases to the CPS:

“We’ve got how many? Forty or more forces, doing it 40 or more different ways, and we have to work with all of them.”

In this prosecutor’s view, the biggest improvement would be in digital submission and the

“efficient exchange of information between police forces and the CPS.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

Another CPS interviewee said:

“We either need to significantly invest in that digital capability or the investment needs to be in, you know, that there needs to be this ringed fence team…criminal justice hubs that have the digital capability.”

CPS, Prosecutor

This was an acknowledgement that the digital competence of frontline officers could, for understandable reasons, be highly variable and, in some cases, limited. Dealing with digital evidence and digital submissions was not necessarily a routine feature of their job. A well-resourced force-level criminal justice hub, with high levels of digital expertise, could be a significant improvement, with the potential to speed up case progression by ensuring that the case and the evidence submission met a high standard. This interviewee, who wanted to see investment in digital capability, said that he thought that hubs were a good solution to digital barriers. However, he observed that:

“Some of them have been significantly under-resourced. I know (named force) have got one, but they’ve had some resourcing issues. You know, there are a number of forces that have this as a model, and actually other forces then look and think, actually that’s a good model.”

CPS, Prosecutor

8.3 Improved case file building/file quality

Concerns about case file quality and the important link with progression suggests that this could be one area where enhancements could pay dividends. One prosecutor when asked for his thoughts on improvements here said, quite simply:

“File quality. Like a broken record here but it is file quality. Getting everything ready, the full investigation completed before it gets submitted to us.”

CPS, Prosecutor

Predictably, interviewees offered suggestions around improved training and better supervision of case file building at the pre-charge stage. Both CPS and police interviewees felt that potential gains could be made by ensuring a more experienced supervisory police function. But, more experienced oversight and less stretched supervision will take time to develop and is not necessarily a complete solution to all the issues around case progression. In the absence of experienced supervisors in the short-term, some forces were looking for workarounds. Interviewees in one force mentioned that training and workshops on case file building were now being done to try to plug the gap of experienced supervision:

“They’ve started workshops, fortnightly workshops. There’s training… some people don’t know what needs to go in a file. It’s the basics, so we’re hoping that we can upskill people. Like I said, this has all been done within the last few years, but with the turnaround of staff and people moving from response into the hub or whatever, you’re constantly getting fresh faces. What our plan is, is to try and just upskill people to give them that knowledge, which will give them the confidence, and just get better links, so if they don’t know what to do, just pick up the phone and give us a ring, rather than chuck something in that’s wrong.”

Detective Sergeant

There is a wider issue about growing the number of experienced supervisors and investigators within the police: if morale continues to be poor, it will be hard to retain officers in these roles and the limited experience base will either stagnate or decline. Prosecutors were realistic and acknowledged tackling file quality required more resources within the police. One CPS Direct interviewee argued that better case file quality forces were those where the support systems for investigators were more well developed:

“The forces that work well are those that are really supportive, with a good internal criminal justice system, but one that works in and out of hours. You’ve got people then who are experts in their field, generally, administrators working for police forces who know what a decent file submission looks like, who can get it over the system, through the pipes, allowing the officer to then concentrate on the next job. I think where I’ve seen it work incredibly well is where that support is in place. Where there’s good, experienced officers that can do that supervision piece and really encourage their officers but also help them to understand the deficiencies evidentially in a case, because otherwise you just get this case that moves backwards and forwards, which is not helpful to anybody. Whereas if they had that bit of support from their supervisor at the very outset then it would feel and look a lot different.”

CPS Direct, Prosecutor

Another possible solution to addressing the experience and supervisory gap is a stronger police triage of cases before first submission. From interviewees’ comments, some approaches to triage appear to be more successful than others in building case file quality. To be effective, triage units need to have skilled and experienced staff, and the investigative team need to be responsive to their feedback. Since the interviews were undertaken, there have been some new initiatives to improve triage between specialist teams and police forces through establishing joint Teams channels to resolve triage issues quickly.

8.4 Early investigative advice

At present, early investigative advice is mainly limited to rape and other sexual offences but one force in our sample had an arrangement with their CPS Area to receive EIA for some non-sexual offences. The statistical analysis in Chapter 4 suggests that this potentially has an important role in improving the timeliness of case progression. Additionally, from the interviews, a small number of officers felt that extending EIA to complex non-sexual offences cases could be beneficial. Some officers, often of higher police rank or working in more specialised teams, reported good prior experiences of early advice from CPS. Prosecutors were able to outline what they would expect to see in terms of evidence before the police applied for the charge, speeding up the process. This could potentially lead to simpler action plans or less police-CPS consultation cycles. As one Detective Chief Inspector stated:

“Where you have an early case conference, [it] really helps with the case progression because everyone is on the same hymn sheet and the same page about what needs to be achieved and to be done, so those are the things that help it work really well… You can see it so clearly when we look back at cases.”

Detective Chief Inspector

“… we need to make better use of the early advice process …..what you want as an officer is to sit opposite a lawyer and say, “This is what I’ve got, this is what I’m thinking – what do you think as the lawyer?”…we need to work better together earlier but in a way that isn’t so bureaucratic…”

Detective Chief Inspector

There was an appetite amongst some police interviewees for gaining early access to CPS prosecutors on a case-by-case basis prior to submitting their case for a charging decision. However, for some officers who had experience of interacting with the CPS at an early stage, it had not led to a meaningful exchange of views. This was especially the case among some lower-ranking officers or those working in volume crime where direct access to CPS staff was more difficult:

“I’ve really got quite a negative view of early investigative advice because my experience is it was quite poor. It was dismissed, “you don’t need early investigative advice, you know your lines of inquiry, this is not charging by the back door” type thing. I just wanted to open an avenue of communication.”

Detective Sergeant

Broadening out EIA would, therefore, require clear parameters and agreement from both sets of partners. Higher ranking officers recognised, however, that there may be too high a demand for routine use of early advice in less serious cases given current CPS resourcing.

Summary

This chapter has considered some of the areas that both CPS and police interviewees identified as changes which might lead to improvements in the progression of cases submitted to the CPS for a charging decision. A better understanding of each other’s organisational pressures and contexts, perhaps achieved through joint training in the short-term, is one option. Other possibilities include improvements in police triage in some areas and more feedback from CPS on the rationale for action plans and decision-making.

Addressing managing large volumes of digital evidence will be challenging but mitigating some of the drawbacks of relying entirely on digital communication could be more straightforward. The occasional phone call to explain, crucially, why something needs to be done might be effective to progress a case. Early investigative advice also appears promising on the basis of the statistical evidence presented here, but any scaling to high-volume crime would potentially be challenging.

The final chapter offers some concluding thoughts on the study as a whole.

9. Concluding thoughts

9.1 Project background and approach

The research evidence base on the progression of cases that involve both police and prosecutors is limited. In England and Wales, some published inspectorate reports have covered this important area of the CJS – but peer-reviewed research in this area remains rare. This study makes a valuable contribution to this evidence gap through a mixed methods study of the progression of cases submitted by the police to the CPS for a charging decision. Few other studies have explored how the combination of victim, suspect and offence characteristics – and the interaction between police and the CPS – influence timeliness or the decision to charge.

The quantitative part of the study was limited to the analysis of case progression for a sample of cases sent to the CPS for a charging decision made up principally of violent offences and other victim-based crimes where suspects had not been remanded by the police. The sample also intentionally excluded rape, other sexual and state-based offences. Although a sample of 1,002 case files was achieved and 55 interviews were undertaken with those at the forefront of the charge decision-making process, there were some limitations of the study. The quantitative analysis, constrained to a sample drawn from 4 contrasting forces, does not provide a fully comprehensive picture of cases sent to the CPS for a decision to charge.

Following cases through to charge outcome only, rather than through to the outcome at court, means it is not possible to explore any relationships between case characteristics, investigation and final outcome (nor indeed anything on early guilty pleas). In addition, the case file sample was developed solely from access to police case files. It was also not possible for the research to gain access to the corresponding CPS-held files on these cases which limits understanding of the case journey from the CPS perspective.

The mixed methods approach applied here is a useful way of combining the contrasting strengths of quantitative and qualitative analytical approaches, and triangulating and testing findings from different source material. Perhaps in an ideal world, the quantitative findings would have been generated first and then explored and tested in the interviews. But the logistical challenges around gaining access to police data systems did not permit this sequencing. Consequently, some unresolved issues appear in the analysis where quantitative evidence are less aligned.

For instance, on the one hand, BWC footage appears to be associated with quicker police investigations. It is also a predictor of cases receiving action plans. The interview findings, on the other hand, placed body worn camera footage as being a factor that was perceived to add to case complexity (and arguably, therefore, might be expected to slow cases down). It may be the case that body worn camera material is considered to add weight to a case in the police investigation phase, thus speeding up the time to initial submission to the CPS, and the perception of complexity owes more to how it is dealt with from submission to final outcome.

Finally, we also need to keep in mind that while statistical techniques like regression can be effective at identifying key associations between characteristics and critical outcomes, they are only statistical associations. They are not necessarily evidence of causal relationships, although they may be inferred.

9.2 Case characteristics and their association with timeliness and outcomes

Despite the limitations highlighted above, there are some important messages from this study. For this subset of offences submitted to the CPS for charging authorisation, the factors that appear to be associated with case outcome and/or timeliness appear to fall into 3 linked categories:

• those which are related to the underlying characteristics of the case (for instance, the number of offenders in a case or whether it was domestic abuse-flagged)

• those which relate to the type of material gathered by the police to support the case against the suspect, such as the presence of body worn footage or statements (which may be influenced by both the characteristics of the case itself and how the police investigate the offence)

• and finally, factors which are associated with measures of case file quality (for example, NFS compliance) or the wider progression of the case through to a charge or NFA (such as actions plans)

The core case characteristics are obviously not in the gift of the police or prosecutors to change. They are a given. But other elements may be more malleable.

9.3 Action plans

Actions plans seek to remedy issues in the case file identified by the prosecutor. The statistical analysis suggests that action plans and the action plan process appear to be central to the progression of the case. Taken together, around 7 in 10 of initial action plans related to an ‘administrative failure’ on the part of the police. That is, information that is available and should be part of the case is simply not submitted as part of the file. But the proportion of actions in initial plans that related to seeking more or new evidence, which, from prosecutors’ perspectives, was required before a charging authorisation can be made (‘investigative gaps’), was around 95%.

The quantitative analysis suggests that action plans which have some element of ‘administrative failure’, are associated with a lower likelihood that the case will be charged. It also suggests that ‘investigative gap’ cases are associated with significantly longer durations from initial submission to outcome. Cases with multiple action plans are significantly associated with both a lower charge likelihood, and longer post-submission durations. Action plans themselves were predicted by the presence of BWC footage, witness statements and cases not meeting the NFS threshold.

Interviewed officers acknowledged that, in many cases, police-prepared files could be of poor quality and that this did have knock-on effects on case progression. However, observations made from the recent CJJI interim inspection report (2024) suggests that some ‘administrative failures’ may not always be accurately assessed in action plans. In other words, some ‘missing’ documentation identified in actions plans had already been provided by the police in their initial submissions. The interviews also found the question of the ‘investigative gaps’ to be one where the opinions of police and prosecutors can sometimes be at odds.

In very general terms, progress towards making the action plan process less of an interruption and allowing cases to progress more rapidly is likely to require a degree of change from all parties. Some reflection on whether elements of the action plan process could be revised or enhanced, in the interests of speedier case progression, but without any diminution in the robustness of processes, could be beneficial. It will be neither possible nor desirable to fully align police and prosecutors’ perspectives. Some degree of tension is inherent in this system and inevitable given their different roles. But that does not mean that aspects of the system as a whole cannot be improved.

9.4 Early investigative advice

The quantitative analysis also provides some relatively strong evidence of the potential benefits of more widespread use of EIA in terms of speedier investigation and post submissions timeliness in non-rape and sexual offence cases. However, there were cautionary observations in some interviews about the practicalities of expanding EIA beyond the narrow scope of rape and sexual offence cases and that any possible expansion of EIA would need careful planning and management. In addition, this study did not set out to and was not designed to evaluate the expansion of EIA into non-rape and sexual offence cases. But, as one of the forces in our sample was piloting the use of EIA for some non-rape and sexual offence cases, this study unintentionally generated evidence of its benefits in terms of timeliness. This is at least promising, and useful for any future detailed considerations around the potential benefits of EIA and a possible area for future focussed research.

9.5 Police and CPS experience

The importance of maintaining and building experience across both police and CPS is also a key finding from the interviews. Low levels of experience were thought to be compounded by high workloads and, critically, low levels of experience amongst police supervisors in particular. Substantial losses of case-building experience – wherever they happen in the system – obviously cannot be easily or quickly addressed. There are no clear shortcuts.

But the upheaval in the police workforce – caused first by the shedding of officers and then by the even more rapid recruitment of new officers – should eventually stabilise and, from a purely statistical perspective, average levels of officer experience may be expected to increase in the medium-term.

9.6 Digital capability and capacity

If the potential of a more experienced officer workforce is a likely and positive change, the situation regarding digital capability and capacity will arguably require a more proactive response. Another core finding from this work is an apparent disconnect between the growing importance of digital evidence in many criminal cases and perceived low levels of investment in the handling and management of digital material. The trend in the former is likely to increase for the foreseeable future with the expansion of digital storage, applications and devices.

9.7 Police and CPS communication

Although these concluding thoughts have focussed largely on issues around case file quality and action plans as being key elements of case progression, the wider issue of police-CPS communication remains pivotal. Some police interviewees thought that current channels for communication between the police and CPS appear stacked against forming mature, balanced working relationships. Impersonal electronic/email-based dialogues were criticised heavily on both sides of the police-CPS divide and were felt by some to simply entrench the ‘them’ and ‘us’ positions held, especially by those dealing with more run-of-the-mill cases. Looking creatively at ways to enhance police-CPS exchanges and take them into a less inherently distanced and adversarial space feels like one area where small changes in either ‘regular’ police and prosecutor behaviour, or in the greater application of established new technologies, should be explored as a priority.

Annex A: Force selection criteria

All police forces areas across England and Wales were considered ‘in scope’ for the study. However, it was necessary to filter the 43 down into just 4 areas where fieldwork would be conducted. The selection of police force areas for the study was informed by 3 main criteria:

1. A range of indicators relating to demand, resource and performance by force area.

2. NPCC recommendations as to which areas might be able to accommodate such a large-scale project.

3. Identifying a range of forces that might be considered ‘high’ and ‘low’ performers in order to maximise understanding of where challenges might exist and highlight potential good practice from better-performing areas.

There were 8 indicators in total. These metrics were obtained via the Home Office and are outlined in Table 1.

Table 1: Indictors used for force selection

Indicator	Description	How used in the selection process
Police recorded crime per 1,000 population	Number of crimes recorded in police area per 1,000 population: see police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables	Measure of demand on policing – 10 ‘in scope’ forces initially selected, which were those ranked as having the highest recorded crime per 1,000 population
Victim-based crime per 1,000 population	Number of ‘victim-based’ crimes recorded in police area per 1,000 population. These are all police-recorded crimes where there is a direct victim. This victim could be an individual, an organisation or corporate body. This category includes violent crimes directed at a particular individual or individuals, sexual offences, robbery, theft offences (including burglary and vehicle offences), criminal damage and arson. See the Crime and Policing Comparator	Measure of demand on policing – 10 ‘in scope’ forces initially selected, which were those ranked as having the highest victim-based crime per 1,000 population
Charge rate in 2019 to 2020	Percentage of crimes where there was a charge in 2019 to 20. These are crimes where a person has been charged or summonsed for the crime	Performance or outcome measure – 10 ‘in scope’ forces initially selected, which were those with the lowest charge rate
Charged/summonsed per 1,000 population	Proportion of crimes where there was a charge in 2019 to 20 per 1,000 population	Performance or outcome measure – 10 ‘in scope’ forces initially selected, which were those with the lowest charge rate per 1,000 population
Full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers per 1,000 population	Number of full-time police officers per 1,000 population	Available resource – 10 ‘in scope’ forces initially selected, which were those with the lowest rate of FTEs per 1,000 population
Charged or summonsed per FTE police officer 2019 to 20	The number of charges per FTE police officer 2019 to 20	Performance/outcome measure – 10 ‘in scope’ forces initially selected, which were those with the lowest rate of charges per FTE
Total funding per head of population	Total amount of funding (£) per head of population	Available resource – 10 ‘in scope’ forces initially selected, which were those with the lowest funding per head of population
Investigations net revenue expenditure per FTE police officer	Expenditure on investigations per officer	Available resource – 10 ‘in scope’ forces initially selected, which were those with the lowest net revenue expenditure per FTE

Of the 43 police force areas, 8 had 3 or more of these indictors present, and 3 had one or no indicators present. These were placed into Group A (areas were 3 or more indicators present) and Group B (those with only one or none of the factors present). The areas with most factors present are shown in Table 2 (the areas are anonymised). A further caveat is that the NPCC also made recommendations as to which areas might be able to accommodate such a large-scale project. These areas are highlighted with an asterisk in Table 2.

Table 2: Forces with most indictors present in relation to demand, resource and performance

Force area	Number of indictors (out of 8)
1	7*
2	5*
3	5
4	5
5	5
6	4*
7	3
8	3*

For the final sample of 4 forces, 2 were selected from each group. From Group A police force area 1 was selected and had the following characteristics:

• high rate of police-recorded crime per 1,000 population

• high rate of victim-based crime per 1,000 population

• low charge rate

• low rate of charges/summonses per 1,000 population

• low number of FTE police officers per 1,000 population

• low total funding per head of population

• low investigation net revenue expenditure per FTE police officer

Also, from Group A, police force area 2 was selected and had the following characteristics:

• high rate of police-recorded crime per 1,000 population

• high rate of victim-based crime per 1,000 population

• low charge rate

• low investigation net revenue expenditure per FTE police officer

Both police force areas selected from Group B had one or none of these characteristics present.

Annex B: Overview of the final qualitative sample for the interviews (by area)

Area	Police Interviews (number and roles)	Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Interviews (number and roles)
1	10 (2 x CJ Unit Managers, 2 x Detective Chief Inspector, 2 x Detective Inspector, 2 x Detective Sergeant, 2 x Detective Constable)	4 (1 x Senior District Crown Prosecutor Head of Crown Court, 1 x Senior District Crown Prosecutor Head of Magistrates’ Court, 1 x Senior Operational Business Manager, 1 x Area Business Manager)
2	8 (2 x Detective Chief Inspector, 1 x Detective Inspector, 3 x Detective Sergeant, 2 x Detective Constable)	4 (1 x Senior District Crown Prosecutor Crown, 1 x Senior District Crown Prosecutor Magistrates, 1 x Senior Operational Business Manager, 1 x Area Business Manager)
3	8 (1 x CJ Unit Manager, 3 x Detective Chief Inspector, 2 x Detective Inspector, 2 x Detective Sergeant)	4 (1 x Senior District Crown Prosecutor, 1 x Senior Crown Prosecutor, 1 x Senior Operational Business Manager, 1 x Paralegal Business Manager)
4	9 (2 x CJ Unit Managers, 2 x Detective Chief Inspector, 3 x Detective Inspector, 2 x Detective Sergeant)	4 (1 x Senior District Crown Prosecutor Crown, 1 x Senior District Crown Prosecutor Magistrates, 1 x Senior Operational Business Manager, 1 x Area Business Manager)
5	-	4 (2 x Senior District Crown Prosecutors, 1 x Head of Business Centre, 1 x Area Business Manager)
Total	35	20

Annex C: Topic guide – Interviews with police

Introduction	Notes/comments for researchers
Thank participant for taking part. Introduce self and your role. Outline the purpose of the research (as below) The main focus is case progression to the point of charging in order to understand: 1. What relationships exist between available police investigation/prosecution resources, the demands they need to manage, and ultimately progress cases. 2. How cases (that are referred to the CPS for charging decision) progress from recording of the offence(s) to charge/NFA decision, reflecting time/resources for initial investigative tasks, police/CPS discussions and reviews, and subsequent investigative actions. 3. The factors that affect police decisions to pursue investigative action (or not), and what effect those investigative actions have on those factors that determine the eventual charge/NFA decision. 4. The range of reasons that determine time from recording to outcome and what measures, behaviours and contextual factors contribute to more rapid progression.	Check that respondents were sent a participation invitation/information sheet and also, a consent form that you will be required to complete. Ensure consent form is signed. Remind respondents that interviews are recorded and the interview will take approximately one hour. Inform respondents of the outcome of the project: to produce a report that will be publicly available. It will report on the findings of the interviews, but these will be presented collectively – individuals will not be identified.
Job role/role in case progression
Please outline your job title/role and how long have you been in this position? How long have you been in the police service? Could you briefly talk me through your role in the post-arrest stages up to a CPS charging decision?	Probe: Capabilities within the role, duties, types of cases you dealt with, areas of responsibility, any specialisms? Previous relevant experience in policing? Probe: Can you highlight any differences between cases/crime types?
Resource and demands for case progression
Could you please describe your current workload/live cases? How are cases allocated to you/your team? Once you’ve been allocated a number of cases, how do you prioritise your/teams caseload? How are workplans for secondary investigation prioritised? Has anything changed in relation to the size of officer workloads / case complexity in recent years? Which case characteristics are the most resource intensive? [Might need to offer up examples – for example, multiple offenders/victims] What types of resources are more limited/difficult to access in order to progress cases? Home Office data shows that most crime types are taking longer to progress (can refer back to timeliness data), what factors do you think are contributing most to longer durations? If you were looking to reduce the number of cases that are NFA’d early on, what actions would you like to see taken?	Probe: generally, which types of cases have sufficient/insufficient resource allocation? Probe for any examples. Probe for views on what characteristics makes case ‘complex’ to investigate Probe on CPS resourcing. Also, are there any CPS Direct and local area differences?
Case file preparation and file contents
What aspects of the file preparation/submission takes up the most time/resource? What tend to be the main administrative challenges with case file preparation? What support is offered for investigators in relation to file preparation and by whom? Has the recent implementation of DG6 impacted upon procedure/ case file preparation? How?	Probe: National File Standard, Threshold vs Full Test, expectations around frontloading evidence gathering pre-charge, experience of and time taken to respond to case action plans. Note for researchers: If a case is charged on the Threshold Test the police will then need to continue the investigation to build a case that will pass the Full Code Test. All cases must undergo the Full Code Test for the prosecution to continue, albeit this review may occur after court proceedings have commenced. Files submitted for a Full Code Test must comply with DG6. Probe: Police internal procedures, using police/CPS systems to progress cases/the use of technology from case file management and loading of digital evidence in cases (that is, the digital case file). Probe: Please ask whether they have Case file quality teams. Is current support adequate/inadequate? Probe: Any challenges here? Redaction and disclosure, time to complete.
Perceptions of knowledge and understanding of investigations and prosecutions
Amongst those working on investigations within the force, how would you assess the following: - investigative skills and experience - procedural knowledge - technical skills – use of police IT systems for managing investigations - capability within forces to extract/analyse digital material in a timely fashion - understanding of Criminal Justice System and procedures What are the most important experience/skills that investigators need to progress cases to successful outcomes? From your perspective, what changes do you think would yield more charges and out of-court disposals? What training do you/your team receive in relation to managing secondary investigations (charging reviews, collecting evidence, management, witnesses/victim management, completing documentation for CPS)? Thinking about additional training around case progression, what do you think would be of most value to colleagues? What are the most important experience/skills that investigators need to progress cases to successful outcomes? From your perspective, what changes do you think would yield more charges and out of-court disposals? What training do you/your team receive in relation to managing secondary investigations (charging reviews, collecting evidence, management, witnesses/victim management, completing documentation for CPS)? Thinking about additional training around case progression, what do you think would be of most value to colleagues?	Probe: By rank/function, any other areas? Probe: processing MG3 forms, DG6 processes (redaction and disclosure) Probe: previous experience/involvement in prosecution cases, witness in a case, consultation of CPS legal guidance materials, academic study/qualifications, any College of Policing relevant material, joint police and CPS training courses? Note for researchers: Understanding the system helps with building strong cases for charging decisions that are also proportionate to case complexity. Understanding the law and how a case will be presented at court helps inform, for example, the collection and content of witness statements, preservation of evidence, and assessing victim needs. Probe: For example, do you use the case progression toolkit? Probe: might there be gaps according to officer grade/ experience? Progressing particular types of cases? Or around support with administration – most notably the completion of MG3 forms?
Police/CPS engagement and interaction
Thinking first about your relationship with specialist prosecutors for example, for rape and sexual offences. Could you describe the nature of engagement with the CPS prior to submitting a case for a charging decision? Could you describe the nature of engagement with the CPS after a case file is submitted? And for other prosecutors (that is, volume crime cases). Could you describe the nature of engagement with the CPS prior to submitting a case for a charging decision? Could you describe the nature of engagement with the CPS after a case file is submitted?	Probe: What are the stages police/CPS engagement up until submitting a case file? For example, initial contact, early advice. What is shared with the CPS? When/how is it shared? Consistency with different prosecutors? CPS Direct? Probe: Case action plans where relevant? What are the stages between submitting the case file and charging decision? (Note: this won’t be applicable to all cases. A lot of volume crime will be charged on first referral for a charging decision). Post charge, that is, case progression in preparing the case for court for example, complying with disclosure duties, assessing victim needs, and preparing evidence into a format that can be presented in court. What feedback do you get from the CPS in relation to the files you submit? What additional information do they ask for, if anything? Ask if there are any other stages we have missed.
Police/CPS relationship
Reflecting on your personal experiences working with the CPS in your role, can you give me your views on how police/CPS relationships work when you are focussed on case progression (please tell me about both positive and negative aspects)? : - communication - roles and personnel - perceptions of Action Plan tasks - procedural enablers/barriers to case progression - consistent application of key national guidance from NPCC/College of Policing/ CPS - other What stages (initial discussion, early advice, case preparation, submitting case to CPS, action plans, charging decision) of the process work best with the CPS? What stages are more challenging? Does the nature of the police – CPS relationship in your force influence general police views about investigating / charging crimes? What are your perceptions on the clarity of the CPS rationale for their charging decisions? Anything else we need to cover in terms of each stage of the process?	Probe: - timeliness/clarity/language/mode of communication - understanding of respective roles/levels of experience/specialist skills/consistency of personnel where appropriate. Probe: What do you think works well in your relationship with the CPS? What is effective? Can you provide any examples? Probe: What does not seem to work so well? Why is this an issue? What is the main challenge? Can you provide any examples? Could anything be improved?
Timeliness of case progression
In your experience, what are the main factors that influence the time it takes to get a charging decision? From your perspective, what are the main causes of delays in cases? Tell me about the role/relationship with the victim as the case is prepared for CPS submission. What factors influence the victim’s participation in the process?	Probe: What makes cases progress? Do these differ across crime types, if so, how? Probe: delays regarding investigations, delays with processes for example, digital, delays with CPS Probe: which type of cases – likely DA/CSE/RASSO (Domestic Abuse, Child Sexual Exploitation, Rape and Serious Sexual Offences). Probe: What factors influence victim withdrawal in cases? For example, slow case progression.
Reflections and improvements to case progression
Thinking about what the police could do better, in your opinion, is the most important thing to address in relation to increasing charge volumes/speeding up the progression of cases? Thinking about what the CPS could do better, in your opinion, is the most important thing to address in relation to increasing charge volumes/speeding up the progression of cases? And overall, what changes do you think could strengthen the nature of the police – CPS relationship in your force/CPS area?	Probe: Probably clarify here on the following: What factors increase likelihood of delays, increase resource demand and potential NFA in cases? How things could be improved – (that is, to make case progression quicker/increase the number of detections?) CPS/police IT interface and interoperability
Conclusion
Is there anything else we haven’t covered that you feel is important in relation to case progression? Do you have any questions about what we have spoken about today?	Probe: Encourage participants to offer any further relevant thoughts. Offer thanks to the respondent for their participation.

Annex D: Topic Guide - Interviews with CPS resourcing and performance managers

Introduction	Notes/comments for researchers
Thank participant for taking part. Introduce self and your role. Outline the purpose of the research (as below) The main focus is case progression to the point of charging decision (pre-charge) in order to understand: - what relationships exist between available police investigation/prosecution resources, the demands they need to manage, and ultimately case progression? - how cases (that are referred to the CPS for charging decision) progress from recording of the offence(s) to charge/NFA decision, reflecting time/resources for initial investigative tasks, police/CPS discussions and reviews, and subsequent investigative actions - the range of reasons that determine time from recording to outcome and what measures, behaviours and contextual factors contribute to more rapid progression	Check that respondents were sent a participation invitation/information sheet and also, a consent form that you will be required to complete. Ensure consent form is signed. Remind respondents that interviews are recorded and the interview will take approximately one hour. Inform respondents of the outcome of the project: to produce a report that will be publicly available. It will report on the findings of the interviews, but these will be presented collectively – individuals will not be identified.
Job role/role in case progression
Please outline your job title/role and how long you have been in this position. Could you briefly talk me through your role in the CPS in relation to charging decisions?	Probe: capabilities within the role, duties, types of cases you dealt with, areas of responsibility, any specialisms? Highlight current and previous specialisms. Previous relevant experience in the CPS? Previous experience outside of the CPS (such as defence or judicial)? Probe for the Area Business Manager: Performance/resourcing/stakeholder management responsibilities.
Resource and demands for case progression
For Area Business Manager: could you please describe your area’s current workload in terms of active cases? In terms of the overall workload how does it split between pre-charge and post-charge activity? For Senior Operational Manager: could you please describe your team’s current admin workload in terms of active cases? In terms of the overall workload how does it split between pre-charge and post-charge activity? For Senior Operational Manager: ow are new pre-charge cases allocated in your team? What tools/processes do you use to allocate sensibly based on case characteristics, workload and specialism? When pre-charge cases are received from the police, how do you prioritise the caseload? Has anything changed in relation to the size of workloads in recent years? Has anything changed in relation to case complexity in recent years? Are there particular types of case that are especially disruptive to resource and planning assumptions? Are there any issues that you’ve experienced around handing over cases to lawyers at the pre-charge stage? Are any types of resources (such as IT) within the CPS more difficult for you to access in order to progress cases? What do you think are the main improvements or other changes that might help increase the number of cases that the CPS charges?	Probe: For any examples. Probe For views on what characteristics make a case resource intensive to build a case for prosecution? Probe Are there any tools or techniques you think may help workload planning? Probe How do you resource based on priorities? How are admin staff managed/deployed? How do you allocate to lawyers (including specialist lawyers)? Any case types prioritised? Probe: On any resourcing issues. Impact of new recruits in the CPS and whether this has had a supervisory detraction (similar to police). Do you have any recruitment issues that contribute to resourcing and allocation of staff, more generally? Probe: Volume of material. Does this vary by crime type? Probe: How would you deal with this if this comes through? Does this manifest itself at the pre or post charge stage? For area business manager, probe at area level. For senior operational manager, probe at admin team level. Probe: On any resourcing issues. Any other burdens/challenges? Probe: IT challenges, initial communication with police, volume of caseload? Probe: Within the CPS and police.
Reviewing case file contents
Can you tell us about the case files that you receive for a charging decision from the police? Which aspects of the case file are typically stronger/weaker in terms of completeness? When preparing police case files for them to be referred to a lawyer for a charging decision, which aspects take up the most time/resource? Has the recent implementation of DG6 impacted upon procedure/case file preparation by the police? How?	Probe: Incomplete files/inaccurate files/does this vary by crime type, by force. Process issues (DG6). Third-party material (such as evidential availability/completeness). Victim willingness to support investigation (such as providing statements). Probe: Using police/CPS systems to progress cases/the use of technology from case file management and loading of digital evidence in cases (the digital case file). Probe: Any challenges here, such as around building a full case file. Adherence to redaction and disclosure guidance. Has this impacted how long it takes to get a case ready for the lawyer/prosecutor?
Perceptions of knowledge, experience and performance measures
Thinking about your role, what do you perceive are the most important experience/skills to execute your role effectively? What do you perceive are the most important experience/skills that the police need to acquire to progress cases to a charging decision? Are there any areas where you feel the police could benefit from having their skills or knowledge enhanced? What role do you feel performance measures play in your area, especially around demand management and case progression? How do performance measures influence case allocation or other areas of your work?	Probe: Does this vary by force within your CPS area? And if so, why? Views on other aspects of the process, such as case file quality and supporting victims. Probe: If timeliness, case outcomes or other demand measures.
CPS/police relationship
Reflecting on your personal experiences working with the police in your role, can you give me your views on the following elements of the working relationship: - communication - roles and personnel - levels of experience and specialism - procedural barriers to progression - other What stages (initial discussion, early advice, case preparation, submitting case to CPS, action plans, charging decision) of the process work most effectively with the police? What do you think works well in your relationship with the police? What is effective? Can you provide any examples? What do you think could be improved? What does not seem to work so well? Why is this negative/a challenge? When did this get worse? What is the main challenge? Can you provide any examples? What feedback do you get from the police in relation to the files you return? What additional information do they ask for, if anything? Anything else we need to cover in terms of each stage of the process?	Probe: Clarity/language of communication/mode of communication. IT interface and tools. Probe: Understanding of respective roles/levels of investigative experience/specialist skills/other experience/consistency of personnel where appropriate.
Timeliness of case progression
From your perspective, what are the main factors that enable cases to quickly progress after submission by police to a lawyer? From your perspective, what are the main causes of delays in allocating cases to lawyers? In your experience, what are the main factors that influence the time it takes to get a charging decision on the police side? In your experience, what are the main factors that influence the time it takes to get a charging decision on the CPS side?	Probe: What makes cases progress rapidly? Probe: Response to action plans.
Reflections and improvements to case progression
Thinking about what the police could do better, in your opinion, what is the most important thing to address in relation to increasing charge volumes/speeding up the progression of cases? Thinking about what the CPS could do better, in your opinion, what is the most important thing to address in relation to increasing charge volumes/speeding up the progression of cases? And overall, what changes do you think could strengthen the nature of the CPS – police relationships in your CPS area?	Probe: How things could be improved – (to make case progression quicker/ increase the number of CPS-charged cases)? Probe: CPS/police IT interface and interoperability/other factors to improve communication or manage resources better, joint training opportunities/events (such as roadshows)?
Conclusion
Is there anything else we haven’t covered that you feel is important in relation to case progression? Do you have any questions about what we have spoken about today?	Probe: Encourage participants to offer any further relevant thoughts. (Training, continuous improvement opportunities.) Offer thanks to the respondent for their participation.

Annex E: Topic Guide – Interviews with CPS prosecutors

Introduction	Notes/comments for researchers
Thank participant for taking part. Introduce self and your role. Outline the purpose of the research (as below) The main focus is case progression to the point of charging in order to understand: - what relationships exist between available police investigation/prosecution resources, the demands they need to manage, and ultimately case progression - how cases (that are referred to the CPS for charging decision) progress from recording of the offence(s) to charge/NFA decision, reflecting time/resources for initial investigative tasks, police/CPS discussions and reviews, and subsequent investigative actions - the range of reasons that determine time from recording to outcome and what measures, behaviours and contextual factors contribute to more rapid progression	Check that respondents were sent a participation invitation/information sheet and also, a consent form that you will be required to complete. Ensure consent form is signed. Remind respondents that interviews are recorded and the interview will take approximately one hour. Inform respondents of the outcome of the project: to produce a report that will be publicly available. It will report on the findings of the interviews, but these will be presented collectively – individuals will not be identified.
Job role/role in case progression
Please outline your job title/role and how long you have been in this position. Could you briefly talk me through your role in the CPS in relation to charging decisions?	Probe: Capabilities within the role, duties, types of cases you dealt with, areas of responsibility, any specialisms? Highlight current and previous specialisms. Previous relevant experience in the CPS? Previous experience outside of the CPS (such as defence or judicial)?
Resource and demands for case progression
Could you please describe your current workload in terms of active cases? In terms of your overall workload how does it split between pre-charge and post-charge activity? [note that CPS direct prosecutors only look at pre-charge cases] How are new cases allocated to you/your team? Once you’ve been allocated a number of cases, how do you prioritise your/team’s caseload? Has anything changed in relation to the size of workloads in recent years? Has anything changed in relation to case complexity in recent years? Are there any issues that you’ve experienced around handing over cases to other lawyers pre-charge? Which case characteristics are the most resource-intensive? [Might need to offer up examples – such as multiple offenders/victims] Are any types of resources within the CPS more difficult for you to access in order to progress cases? Data show that most crime types are taking longer to progress from crime recording to outcome (can refer back to timeliness data) - what factors do you think are contributing most to longer durations? What do you think are the main improvements or other changes that might help increase the number of cases that the CPS charge?	Probe: Which types of cases pre-charge take up most of your time? Probe: For any examples. Probe For views on what characteristics make a case resource intensive to build a case for prosecution? Probe On any resourcing issues. Impact of new recruits in the CPS and whether this has had a supervisory detraction (similar to police). Probe On any resourcing issues. Probe: How supported do you feel by your local Operational Delivery (admin team) pre-charge? Probe: Within the CPS and police.
Reviewing case file contents
Can you tell us about the case files that you receive for a charging decision from the police? Which aspects of the case file are typically stronger/weaker? When reviewing police case files for a charging decision, which aspects take up the most prosecutor time/resource? Has the recent implementation of DG6 impacted upon procedure/case file preparation by the police? How?	Probe: Incomplete files/inaccurate files/does this vary by crime type, by force. Process issues (DG6). Probe: Using police/CPS systems to progress cases/the use of technology from case file management and loading of digital evidence in cases (the digital case file). Probe: Any challenges here, such as around building a full case file. Adherence to redaction and disclosure guidance.
Perceptions of knowledge and experience that are important to this element of the investigation and prosecution process
What do you perceive are the most important experience/skills that prosecutors need to acquire to progress cases to a charging decision? Are there any areas where you feel prosecutors could benefit from having their skills or knowledge enhanced? What do you perceive are the most important experiences/skills that the police need to acquire to progress cases to a charging decision? Are there any areas where you feel the police could benefit from having their skills or knowledge enhanced?	Probe: Does this vary by specialism? Probe: Does this vary by specialism? Access to specialist training? Probe: Does this vary by force within your CPS area? And if so, why? Views on other aspects of the process, such as case file quality and supporting victims. Probe: Does this vary by force within your CPS area?
CPS/police engagement and interaction
Thinking first about your relationship with police investigators in the most serious cases that you deal with: Could you describe the extent and nature of engagement with the police prior to a charging decision? Could you describe the nature of engagement with the police after a case has been charged? And in less serious cases: Could you describe the extent and nature of engagement with the police prior to a charging decision? Could you describe the nature of engagement with the police after a case has been charged?	Probe: What are the stages of police/CPS engagement up until receiving a case file? such as initial contact, early advice. What is shared with the CPS? When/how is it shared? Consistency with different prosecutors? How does one CPS area manage relationships with all forces in its remit? Such as differing processes/relationships/IT systems. Probe: Case action plans where relevant? What are the stages between receiving a case file and charging decision? Probe: Post charge stages, case progression in preparing the case for court such as complying with disclosure duties, assessing victim needs, preparing evidence into a format that can be presented in court. Ask if there are any other stages we have missed?
CPS/police relationship
Reflecting on your personal experiences working with the police in your role, can you give me your views on the following elements of the working relationship: - communication - roles and personnel - levels of experience and specialism - procedural barriers to progression - other What stages (initial discussion, early advice, case preparation, submitting case to CPS, action plans, charging decision) of the process work most effectively with the police? What do you think works well in your relationship with the police? What is effective? Can you provide any examples? What do you think could be improved? What does not seem to work so well? Why is this negative/a challenge? When did this get worse? What is the main challenge? Can you provide any examples? What feedback do you get from the police in relation to the files you return? What additional information do they ask for, if anything? Anything else we need to cover in terms of each stage of the process?	Probe: Clarity/language of communication/mode of communication. IT interface and tools. Probe: Understanding of respective roles/levels of investigative experience/specialist skills/other experience/consistency of personnel where appropriate.
Timeliness of case progression
From your perspective, what are the main factors that enable cases to quickly progress to a charging decision? From your perspective, what are the main causes of delays in reaching a charging decision? In your experience, what are the main factors that influence the time it takes to get a charging decision on the police side? In your experience, what are the main factors that influence the time it takes to get a charging decision on the CPS side?	Probe: What makes cases progress rapidly? Do these differ across crime types? If so, how? What role do joint improvement initiatives play in this (such as case progression commitment, joint redaction principles) – which have been designed to enhance case progression.
Reflections and improvements to case progression
Thinking about what the police could do better, in your opinion, what is the most important thing to address in relation to increasing charge volumes/speeding up the progression of cases? Thinking about what the CPS could do better, in your opinion, what is the most important thing to address in relation to increasing charge volumes/speeding up the progression of cases? And overall, what changes do you think could strengthen the nature of the CPS – police relationships in your CPS area?	Probe: How things could be improved – (to make case progression quicker/ increase the number of CPS-charged cases)? Probe: CPS/police IT interface and interoperability/other factors to improve communication or manage resources better, joint training opportunities/events (such as roadshows)?
Conclusion
Is there anything else we haven’t covered that you feel is important in relation to case progression? Do you have any questions about what we have spoken about today?	Probe: Encourage participants to offer any further relevant thoughts. (Training, continuous improvement opportunities.) Offer thanks to the respondent for their participation.

Annex F: The main themes to emerge from the qualitative interviews

Police interview findings: Commonality of findings by theme and sub-themes (N = 35)

Demand and resourcing pressures	Theme	Number of references	Number of interviewees
	Demand	39	17
	Timeliness of case progression	177	35
	Increase in bureaucracy/increased need for computer skills	217	34
	The pace of change within the system/changes in police culture, roles, and responsibilities	56	22
	Workload	117	27

Investigative and police factors	Theme	Number of references	Number of interviewees
	Case complexity	144	33
	Digital and third-party evidence	150	33
	Victims and witnesses	78	25
	Experience within the current police force	154	30
	Skills and training	52	25
	Supervision and support	117	30
	Police referrals to CPS	15	10
	Downgrading charges	3	3

Working relationship between police and CPS	Theme	Number of references	Number of interviewees
	Recognition of challenges	32	12
	Cultures, systems, language, knowledge and priorities	111	27
	Access	107	32
	Communication and working relationship	56	20
	Local v national CPS (CPS Direct)	51	19
	Major or ‘specialist’ crime v volume crime; seniority issues	63	21
	Rationale for action plans and decisions (in particular NFA)	35	14
	Decision-making, charges, and action plans	88	27
	CPS capacity	62	27
	Post DG6 front-loading of cases pre-charge (case building, redaction and disclosure; risk of subsequent NFA)	86	28
	Pre-charge and early CPS involvement	33	21
	Prosecuting complex crimes	14	9

Improvements to case progression	Theme	Number of references	Number of interviewees
	Decision-making about NFA	53	23
	NFA impact on police morale	31	17
	Improvements of recent changes and/or issues resulting from these changes	86	22
	Officers understanding of the whole CJS – especially courts and impacts	28	18
	Best practice examples	99	27

CPS interview findings: Commonality of findings by theme and sub-themes (N = 20)

 

Delays – sources	Theme	Number of references	Number of interviewees
	Caseload challenges	43	20
	Investigations (police capacity/skills)	15	9
	File quality	79	16
	Police experience	74	16
	Action plans – bounce	30	14
	Disclosure – front loading work	43	10
	Redaction	28	12

 

Working relationship	Theme	Number of references	Number of interviewees
	General – proximity/distance	58	18
	Communication	72	20
	Culture	20	10

 

Resource pressure	Theme	Number of references	Number of interviewees
	Insufficient resources	91	20
	Case complexity	50	18
	Domestic abuse – resource intensive and difficulties of ‘behaviour’ offences	34	12
	Digital complexity/capability	29	13

 

Improvements	Theme	Number of references	Number of interviewees
	Prosecution	28	15
	Communication	21	9
	File preparation	20	16

Annex G1: Factors associated with a suspect charge

Statistically significant associations between independent variables and charges (chi-squared test: all significant at p< 0.05)

Category	Factor	Direction of relationship
Crime contexts	Having more than one victim in the case	71% of cases with more than one victim have a charge compared to 56% with only one victim
	If victim male	65% of cases where the primary victim is male receive a charge, compared to 56% with female victims
	If more than one offence	66% of cases with more than one offence have a charge compared to 51% with only one offence
	If the primary suspect has any vulnerability	63% of cases where the primary victim has a vulnerability have a charge, compared to 52% with no vulnerability
Evidence	If there is a victim statement	60% of cases with a victim statement have a charge, compared to 48% with no victim statement
	If there is a witness statement	62% of cases where there is a witness statement receive a charge, compared to 55% without
	If there is any police statement	61% of cases where there is a police statement receive a charge, compared to 38% without
	If there is any expert witness statement	77% of cases where there is an expert witness statement receive a charge, compared to 58% without
	If there is any photographic evidence	65% of cases where there is photo evidence receive a charge, compared to 56% without
	If there is any body worn camera footage	65% of cases where there is any body worn camera evidence receive a charge, compared to 54% without
	If there is any CCTV footage	68% of cases where there is any CCTV receive a charge, compared to 57% without
Charging decision making cycle	If the case has just one prosecution decision-making cycle	66% of cases where there is only one prosecution decision- making cycle result in a charge compared to 53% with more than one
	If early investigative advice is sought	79% of cases where early investigative advice is sought result in charge, compared to 52% without (but data mainly collected from one area)
	If key evidence is not submitted at prosecution decision-making cycle (less likely to charge)	If key evidence is not submitted at the first prosecution decision-making cycle only 55% charge, compared to 63% where key evidence is submitted
	If more evidence is requested at prosecution decision-making cycle (less likely to charge)	If more evidence is requested at prosecution decision- making cycle 1, then 54% lead to a charge, compared to 66% where such a request is not made
Victim withdrawal	If victims withdraw	Victim withdrawal is most likely in cases with no charge – 25% of cases with no charge see victims withdraw, compared to 8% with a charge

Base: There were 1,002 cases with charges = 593; cases with no charges = 409. All associations are statistically significant at p<0.05 level.

Annex G2: Predictors of charges with Early Investigative Advice included (significant predictors only)

Predictors	B	Sig	Exp(B) (odds ratio)
Number of offences in the case	0.644	<0.001	1.904
More than one action plan	-0.403	0.050	0.668
Did the CPS Action Plan 1 indicate that some known available evidence was not submitted	-0.621	0.002	0.538
If the victim withdrew from the case	-1.926	<0.001	0.146
AREA (area 1 as reference)		<0.001
AREA 2	-1.248	<0.001	0.287
AREA 3	-1.630	<0.001	0.196
AREA 4	-0.779	0.015	0.459

Base: There were 872 cases. Dependent variable is ‘charges’. Block 1 significance = 0.000: Nagelkerke R Square = 0.261. AUROC = 0.759.

Annex G3: Police investigation time

Statistically significant associations between independent variables and police time to investigate cases (chi-squared test: all significant at p<0.05)

Variable groups	Direction of relationship
Crime group	DA flag = quicker investigation: 82% with DA flag close ‘quick’ compared to 37% of all others
Crime contexts	Female victims: cases with female victims close quicker (53% compared to 44%)
	Female suspects: cases with female suspects associated with slower police investigation (53% compared to 40%)
	Age of suspect – younger suspects are associated with slower police investigation (but numbers of under 24 suspects are very small). 52% with suspects over 24 close ‘quick’ compared to 42% with victims under 24
	Victim vulnerabilities – cases where victims have vulnerabilities are associated with faster police investigation – 63% compared to 37%
	Suspect vulnerabilities – cases where suspects have vulnerabilities are associated with a faster police investigation – 58% compared to 38%
Evidence	Police statements lead to quicker investigations: 52% with police statements investigate ‘quicker’ compared to 38% without
	Phone evidence – having phone evidence associated with a faster police investigation (but the number of cases with phone evidence was small) (71% compared to 47%)
	Photo evidence – having photo evidence was associated with a faster police investigation (68% compared to 39%)
	Body worn camera evidence – having body worn camera evidence associated with faster police investigation (70% compared to 34%)
	Taking early investigative advice results in quicker investigations (93% compared to 39%)
National file quality	National file quality – cases where they met the national file quality were associated with slower police investigations (62% compared to 39%)
CPS Decision making	Requests for missing evidence in initial CPS consultation speeds up investigation (63% compared to 38%)

Base: There were 820 cases (percentile split omitting middle 10% of cases).

Annex G4: Time from initial submission to CPS to case outcome (‘initial submission to outcome time’)

Statistically significant associations between independent variables and CPS decision-making time (chi-squared test: all significant at p<0.05)

Variable groups	Variable’s direction of relationship
Crime group	DA flag = slower decision-making time: 53% with DA flag progress ‘slow’ compared to 46% of all others
Crime contexts	Suspect vulnerabilities – cases where suspects have vulnerabilities are associated with slower charging – 53% compared to 46%
Evidence	Witness statements slow down decision-making time: 55% of cases with witness statements are slow, with 45% progressing quickly
	Police statements lead to quicker progression: 51% with police statements progress ‘quicker’ compared to 23% without
	Expert witness statements speed up progression: 61% with expert witness statements progress quicker than those without (with 49% in the without group)
	Photo evidence – having photo evidence is associated with slower progression (46% progress quickly compared to compared to 54% with no photo evidence)
	Taking early investigative advice results in faster progression (72% compared to 28%)
Resources	Having over 3 police in the case slows decision-making. 44% of cases with over 3 OIC progress ‘quickly’ and 56% are slow
National File Standard	National File Standard – cases that met the National File Standard were associated with faster progression (65% compared to 34%)
CPS decision making	Having more than one CPS consultation slows down progress (74% of cases with more than one consultation progress slowly)
	If the CPS request more new evidence, this slows down progress (70% of such cases are slow to progress)
	Requests for missing evidence in initial CPS consultation slows down progression (67% compared to 32%)

Base: There were 811 cases (percentile split omitting middle 10% of cases).

Annex H: Changes in experience levels of newly promoted sergeants: Police Workforce Census data analysis

The Police Productivity Review (Home Office, 2024a) noted that the service had an insufficient number of experienced sergeants to support and supervise newly recruited officers. Data on median length of service for sergeants suggests a broadly flat trend since 2018, with median values steady at around 15 to 20 years, but little is known about the national experience profile of newly promoted sergeants and how this has changed in recent years. In 2024, newly promoted sergeants accounted for around 3% of all sergeants in England and Wales.

This annex summarises the findings from analysis utilising the Police Workforce Census (PWC) to examine the length of service at the point of promotion from constable to sergeant for the years 2018 to 2024. The data for each year represents a snapshot as of 31 March.

The PWC provides record level data on individuals serving at ranks of constable and above.

Finding 1: Promotions from constable to sergeant are occurring earlier in officers’ careers

The distribution of length of service at the point of promotion for individuals promoted from constable to sergeant has changed over time, as illustrated in Figure 1 below. The distributions are overlaid with 3 distinct colours, representing clusters identified using k-means clustering. For every year after 2018, more than one distinct cluster was identified within the data, implying the presence of separate cohorts of promoted sergeants.

In 2020, a distinct group (Group 1, coloured blue) emerged, consisting of individuals with approximately 10 years or less experience at the time of promotion. This group made up approximately one-fifth of all promotions in 2020 and has increased in size each year. By 2024, this group accounted for just over half of all promotions to sergeant. Depending on the precise method used, the estimated proportion ranged between 52% and 55%. This trend suggests that promotions from constable to sergeant are occurring earlier in officers’ careers, with more constables with less experience in the police being promoted compared to earlier years.

Figure 1: K-Means clustering of length of service for newly promoted sergeants by year (performed with 50 iterations and a seed value of 123)

Finding 2: The 2011 recruitment freeze has created an experience ‘gap’ between the less experienced and more experienced cohorts

One factor which has contributed to the emergence of distinct experience cohorts within newly promoted sergeants – and the near absence of promoted sergeants with exactly 10 years of experience in 2022 – is the long-term impact of the 2011 recruitment freeze (Home Office, 2024b). This creates a persistent but gradually shifting ‘gap’ between the less experienced and more experienced cohorts of newly promoted sergeants which can be observed as a steep dip in the number of officers with a length of service of around 10 years in the years around 2021 (see Figure 2). The arrival of the Police Uplift Programme (PUP) in late 2019 and the subsequent need for more supervisors to manage the increasing intake of constables may have put pressure on a limited number of officers with the levels of experience then typically associated with those promoted to sergeant (10 to 15 years). This in turn may have contributed to an increase in earlier-career promotions of constables from the cohort recruited after the 2011 freeze.

For context, Figure 2 depicts the distribution of length of service for all officers, not just that of promoted sergeants. The dip resulting from the 2011 recruitment freeze is evident here, too, shifting by one year over time.

Figure 2: Distribution of length of service for all officers by year

Finding 3: This change in experience levels for newly promoted sergeants is observed across most forces

Breaking down the newly promoted sergeant experience distributions for 10 forces with the most robust data over time suggests the trend of earlier promotion to the sergeant rank is not dominated by a single force. Figure 3 presents a series of box plots for 3 years showing the length of service for newly promoted sergeants in 2018, 2021, and 2024 for the 10 selected forces.

In 2018, all 10 forces had relatively narrow and consistent inter-quartile ranges, implying that, at between 10 and 15 years of service, constables would typically be promoted to sergeant. In 2021, a more varied pattern emerges. Force E shows the most marked change, with a much wider range of time to promotion than it had in 2018. Other forces see less extreme increases in the range of length of service, and the spread in levels of police experience at the point of promotion to sergeant is now more typically 5 to 20 years. By 2024, the range of length of service had grown for most of the 10 forces, and the average length of service had also decreased. Force G is the only force that appears to maintain a relatively narrow experience range across the period.

An equivalent analysis of all forces showed that 32 of the 43 forces saw a decrease in the average length of service at the point of promotion to sergeant between 2020 and 2024 (and 21 of these saw a decrease of over one year).

Figure 3: Distribution of length of service for newly promoted sergeants by year and force

Methodology and caveats

A career history was constructed for each officer in the data set for the years 2018 to 2024 using unique identifiers to link the records across years and identify when individual constables were promoted. The linking comprised of 3 steps. First, records were identified where an individual officer’s rank changes from constable to sergeant. Second, additional records were identified where the rank was ‘sergeant’, and the length of time spent in the rank was recorded as less than one year. The third and final step involved identifying records where the rank is ‘sergeant’, and the promotion flag indicates ‘promotion’. The records from all 3 steps were then combined to produce the final matched data set. This method appears to overestimate the number of promotions when compared to published statistics (Home Office, 2024b). However, alternate methods were tested which generated underestimates that nevertheless produced similar results.

This matching method depended on a high level of completeness and accuracy in the unique ID field, though this was not the case for all forces. Forces with missing unique IDs (2023 is missing 2 forces and 2024 is missing one force) were still included for years with available data (2018 to 2022), but their absence may exaggerate any comparisons made between early and later years. Alternate analysis excluding these forces yielded similar results to the initial approach but may also have resulted in an overgeneralisation.

In some cases, unique IDs can be shared by different individuals in different years. To improve accuracy, a composite key combining unique IDs and force was used, but this approach could not account for individuals who moved between forces and were therefore excluded from longitudinal tracking. Additional safeguards, such as incorporating age as a factor and limiting matches to consecutive years, were implemented as an alternate method which returned similar results.

Fewer records were identified as promotions in 2018 because there were no prior records available to compare ranks. For 2018, only 2 of the 3 filtering methods were used to identify promotions, so promotion numbers in this year are likely to be underestimates. Additionally, some first instances of a unique ID within the PWC were indicated as promotion to sergeant, which have been assumed to be transfers on promotion.

Hartigan’s Dip test was used to determine if the distribution of length of service of promoted sergeants in any force in a year clustered into one or more groups. It does so by identifying the maximum vertical distance between the provided distribution and the closest fitting unimodal distribution, before testing for significance. If significant, the inference is that the distribution is multimodal. A k-means clustering approach was then applied to visualise clusters in the data.

In 2019, k-means clustering struggled to identify a distinct group of less experienced officers. This is likely to do with how k-means aims to balance cluster sizes and minimise distances to centroids, rather than strictly following natural breaks in the data. In later years, as this less experienced group grows, the numbers are sufficient for k-means to identify distinct clusters.

From 2018, the Home Office started collecting police personnel data via the record-level PWC. To ensure accuracy and comparability, the data continued to be collected via aggregate data returns. Published ‘Police Workforce’ figures between 2018 and 2021 used a mixture of data from the PWC (for forces which were ‘live’ on the PWC) and aggregate data returns for forces which were not ‘live’ on the PWC. All forces were ‘live’ on the PWC from 2022.

The data presented in this note and accompanying tables is based on PWC returns for all forces for all years. The data does not match the more accurate published totals.

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