Charging inspection 2020 (854 kB)

This inspection assesses how much confidence the public can have in the CPS to deliver high quality, effective, fair and timely charging decisions.

It has been five years since an inspection looked at charging in depth. Since then, there have been significant changes to the way the CPS charges cases. In particular, CPS Areas are now responsible for charging bail cases during daytime working hours, which used to be mainly the responsibility of CPS Direct.

Several CPS Areas have also piloted, or are piloting, a new charging model designed by the Joint (CPS/Police) National Charging Review Working Group.

The inspection involved one of the largest file samples we have ever examined. We also conducted interviews and focus groups with CPS staff. We carried out the entire inspection remotely, owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

This report compares our findings from this latest file examination with data from the 2015 charging inspection and from our Area Assurance Programme of inspections, to assess the CPS’s performance before, during and after the changes to charging.

Supporting documents

Charging file data – 1,400 cases  Charging-file-data-1400-cases (535 kB)

This document shows the results of our file examination for all the cases in our sample, whoever they were charged by.

Charging file data – 1,400 cases – Area-charged cases only  Charging-file-data-1400-cases-Area-charged-cases (534 kB)

This document shows the results of our file examination for only those cases that were charged by Area prosecutors. This enabled us to evaluate separately the contribution of CPS Direct and CPS Areas.

Raw data  Raw-data-publication (2 MB)