Criminal justice system initiatives

On this page:

Our work within the Criminal Justice System
About Waterfall
National Offender Management Service (NOMS)
Regional priorities
For more information

Our work within the Criminal Justice System

We have corporate targets focusing on improving the justice system to help it work more effectively for clients, providers and agencies.

Our targets within the criminal justice system for 2008/9 are to:

engage with the police to address identified and agreed operational and policy issues that unnecessarily increase legal aid costs or cause unnecessary operational difficulties to legal aid providers
work effectively with justice system partners to assist to deliver the CJSSS
make transparent the full cost of the criminal defence through input into the Waterfall.

Work to achieve this target includes achieving membership of all 42 Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJBs) and attendance of 95% meetings thereafter.

About Waterfall

Waterfall is an activity model produced by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR).

It highlights the costs of the Criminal Justice System agencies and where the pressures exist.

We are working with the OCJR to determine:

whether and/or where defence costs are appropriate
which should be included
to update the Waterfall accordingly.

We will be working with our justice system partners to:

improve the defence’s experience of magistrates’ court listing practices
police bail-back procedures and delays and discontinuances.

National Offender Management Service (NOMS)

A survey on the efficiency of prison visits was circulated to provider via the 9 October LSC Update email. Responses to this survey will inform further work with the National Offender Management Service and the Prison Service to improve efficiency.

Regional priorities

Priorities for each region have been determined from baseline data and action plans developed.

Every quarter, each region will report on:

progress made against the baseline
best practice they have shared
barriers identified and resolved.

For more information

See the following pages for further information on our criminal justice system initiatives:

Our work with HMCS
Our work with the Police
Criminal Justice Boards

With other questions please contact:

your LSC regional lead under Documents
Head of Whole System Initiatives Liz Long
Stephen McGowan, Criminal Justice System Initiatives Project Manager

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Last updated: 13 November 2008