About the consultation
Amongst other implementation measures, two codes of practice have to be
made before Part 5 of the Act on Disclosure can be implemented. Consultation
on these two codes of practice is a statutory requirement. The consultation
closes on 10 December 2004.
Who are we consulting?
ACPO, the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Institute of Legal Executives
and a number of other criminal justice professionals and interested groups.
This is a technical area but it does impact on trials generally so comments
from anybody with a wider interest in the criminal justice system are
also welcome.
What is the consultation about?
The two codes of practice are quite different. One sets out for the police
how to record, retain and reveal relevant investigative material to the
prosecutor. The current version of this code was issued in 1997 but it
needs updating to take account of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and more
generally. The second code will govern the conduct of investigators’
interviews with defence witnesses. This code is completely new. It is
needed to take account of the new obligation introduced in the Criminal
Justice Act for the defence to disclose in advance all the witnesses it
intends to call at the trial.
What is disclosure?
In this context, we are usually talking about the defence’s rights
to disclosure of certain “unused material”. "Unused material"
means relevant material obtained by the police during a criminal investigation
but not used in court as evidence. But the term, "disclosure",
is used more widely to cover, for example, the length of time for which
the police must retain relevant investigative material.
What changes are we proposing to the current code?
As well as technical amendments needed to reflect the changes to the disclosure
legislation made in the Criminal Justice Act, we are proposing to amend
this code of practice to help the authorities to deal more effectively
with the huge amounts of material generated by some criminal investigations.
In particular, it is proposed to:
- tighten up the definition of “relevance” to control more
effectively the amount of material which the police are required to
record and retain;
- allow more material to be retained by means of a copy than at present;
- create a new role of deputy disclosure officer so that the job of
the disclosure officer can be shared out amongst several people. The
disclosure officer is the person who carries out many of the key disclosure
functions such as listing and revealing relevant unused material to
the prosecutor.
What effect will these changes have in practice?
They will ensure that relevant material is not discarded, whilst at the
same time reducing the burden on the police of recording and retaining
material. There is a fine balance between ensuring that relevant material
is not disposed of which could prevent a miscarriage of justice, whilst
at the same time ensuring that the police are not overwhelmed by ever
increasing volumes of irrelevant material.
For further information see the Disclosure
Codes Of Practice Consultation 
(file size: 172kb)
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| Today we publish 'Next Steps', the Government's
response to the comments received during the public consultations
we recently conducted on the National Offender Management Service
(NOMS).
We have issued two formal written consultations on NOMS since January
2004:
Over 400 responses from groups and individuals, the private and
voluntary sector, business coalitions, respected pressure groups
and members of the public were received to the two written consultation
exercises. These have given very strong support for the vision behind
the establishment of NOMS - the bringing together of prisons and
probation to enable more effective management of offenders.
The Government's response to the two consultations, Next Steps,
is a balanced document drawing out the support for this initiative,
while also including some of the most candid criticisms.
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