Spending Review
This year's cross-departmental review of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) built on the work begun in 1998 to integrate the operation of the system and set objectives designed to improve the overall performance. The cross-departmental review took stock of what has been achieved and what more needs to be done to ensure that the CJS departments tackle crime and deliver justice effectively.
27.1 Policy responsibility for the agencies and services which form the Criminal Justice System is shared by three Ministers: the Home Secretary, the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General. In the 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), the Government undertook the first ever review of the performance and management of the CJS as a whole. The CSR improved the performance of the CJS by setting clear objectives and targets for the system and initiated new arrangements for joint strategic planning and performance management across the system.
27.2 The Government is pledged to halve the time taken to deal with persistent young offenders from 142 days to 71 days by 2002. As a result of more effective inter-agency working in the CJS, the average time taken had fallen to 96 days by the first quarter of this year. Over the next three years the Government will achieve its target of 71 days and will then maintain that level thereafter.
27.3 Effective local partnerships among the criminal justice agencies are also being forged through 42 Area Criminal Justice Strategy Committees working with other local groups such as Trial Issues Groups and Crime and Disorder Partnerships. Together, these will transform performance at the local level. Progress is already being made in bearing down on vehicle crime, domestic burglary and robbery.
27.4 This year's cross-departmental review concluded that further measures were required to boost the CJS departments' contribution to reducing crime, delivering justice and securing public confidence in the system. For the first time, the CJS departments looked at resource needs of the system as a whole, and the interconnections between the three CJS programmes, to establish where funds could best be allocated.
27.5 To this end, the Review provides extra funding to tackle crime and improve performance. This extra investment will be linked to the achievement of designated targets in the CJS Public Service Agreement. Key targets for the CJS over the next three years are set out in Box 27.1.
27.7 To promote further joint working between the three CJS departments, there will be a joint unallocated reserve which the three CJS Ministers will manage collectively. This reserve will give the CJS ministers the flexibility to allocate funds to those parts of the system where returns will be the greatest and to respond effectively to new pressures on the system as they arise over the next three years.
27.8 The initiatives instigated by the cross-departmental review will continue the process of bringing together the various elements of the CJS; will improve upon the advances that have been made in tackling crime and dispensing justice fairly; and will ensure the best return on the money invested in the CJS.
27.9 Spending plans for the CJS over the next three years are summarised in Table 27.1. Details of CJS spending within each of the three departments are set out in the relevant departmental chapters.
| £ million | ||||
| 2000-01 | 2001-02 | 2002-03 | 2003-04 | |
| Total Criminal Justice System | 12,545 | 13,969 | 14,840 | 15,263 |
| Of which joint unallocated reserve | - | 100 | 200 | 225 |
