With the agreement of the Chairman of Customs and Excise Commissioners, His Honour John Gower QC, assisted by Sir Anthony Hymenoid KCB QC, has agreed to carry out an immediate review of the role of Customs as a prosecuting authority. The Attorney-General anticipates receiving this report by the end of October this year. To ask the Solicitor-General what targets he has set the Crown Prosecution Service in respect of the number and duration of adjournments in magistrates courts proceedings. Adjournments may be caused by a combination of factors not necessarily within the control of any one agency, and it would not be appropriate to target the prosecution alone. The breakdown by reference to gender and ethnic origin is set out in the table.
None comes from an ethnic minority.
The Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate at present constitutes a unit within the CPS, but will become an independent statutory body subject to enactment and implementation of the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate Bill now before Parliament. It is intended that the Inspectorate should in future be staffed by a combination of inspectors who have served in the CPS and others who have not and will therefore bring an external perspective to its work. Most inspectors are now recruited by open competition. Both business management inspectors were recruited by one competition from outside the civil service. The casework inspectors all joined the Inspectorate from the CPS itself.