Elfyn Llwyd – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Elfyn Llwyd on 2014-04-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to ensure that there will not be delays in the delivery of court reports to magistrates’ courts in Wales and England following the introduction of the Transforming Rehabilitation agenda.

Jeremy Wright

We are engaging with the magistracy and sentencers to ensure they are fully informed of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms and associated implications. The new National Probation Service (NPS) will be responsible for advice to courts and, prior to sentence, the NPS will advise courts on sentencing options for cases as part of a pre-sentence report (in accordance with the reserved function of giving assistance to any court in determining the appropriate sentence to pass, under Section 4 of the Offender Management Act 2007).

As now, the three categories of pre-sentence report, Standard Delivery (SDR), Fast Delivery (FDR), and Same Day (or Oral) reports will allow Courts the flexibility to deliver sentencing decisions in the appropriate timeframe, depending on each individual case, reducing the number of adjournments and expediting the criminal justice process. The new Risk of Serious Recidivism (RSR) tool will be used to inform the allocation of cases to new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) or the NPS and complements the pre-sentence report process. The RSR will be straightforward to use and aims to reduce bureaucracy in the report writing process. We will ensure through the contracting process that CRCs work closely with the NPS so that cases where the offender is under CRC supervision are brought before the courts speedily and effectively.