| PSA Target 1 Improve the delivery of justice by increasing the number of crimes for which an offender is brought to justice to 1.2 million by 2005-06; with an improvement in all CJS areas, a greater increase in the worst performing areas and a reduction in the proportion of ineffective trials. TARGET CONTRIBUTING TO CJS PSA |
The Department has announced a target of 5% improvement in the rate of offences brought to justice for each of the 42 Criminal Justice Boards in England and Wales in 2002/03. This will begin the work necessary to bring 1.2 million offences to justice by 2005/06. In subsequent years, the Department will determine which Board areas perform less well than average; these Boards will then be asked to meet more stretching targets.
Crimes are those which have been recorded by the police. These are all indictable cases (those triable only by a judge and jury in the Crown Court and those which may be tried at the Crown Court or by magistrates), and some serious summary cases, triable by magistrates, that come to the attention of the police (i.e. unauthorised taking of a vehicle; public order act harassment; common assault and assaulting a constable).
The number of recorded crimes that result in an offender being brought to justice will be measured as the total number of offences resulting in a caution, a conviction, a penalty notice (PN), or an offence being taken into consideration by the courts. Initially, a PN can only be received in one of the four police force areas taking part in PN pilots.
The Home Office collects this data. They form part of National Statistics.
Penalty notices, which are issued for Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 (for behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress) in the 4 police force areas taking part in the pilot to extend their use, will also be counted as offences brought to justice. Once the pilot is complete, and decisions have been made about whether and how to extend the use of PNs, the Department will review whether they should be counted as offences brought to justice.
Cautions include reprimands and final warnings to juveniles where a caution would previously have been given.
The target will be met if there are 1.2m crimes for which an offender is brought to justice in 2005/6.
All data collected are for England and Wales.
The "improvement" will be measured in terms of offences brought to justice.
"Areas" refers to the 42 Criminal Justice (CJ) Areas in England and Wales.
An "improvement" means that all CJ areas will be required to bring more offences to justice than they did in the baseline year.
The baseline year is 2001/02.
The Department will use two measures to compare CJ area performance in order to determine which areas are 'worse performing':
The recorded crime measure will be calculated by dividing the number of offences brought to justice by the number of recorded crimes in the CJ Area and multiplying by 100. The offences brought to justice per police officer measure will be calculated by dividing the number of offences brought to justice in the CJ Area by the number of police officers in the CJ area police force (excluding any officers in their probationary period).
All those CJ Areas which fall below the England and Wales average will be defined as 'worse performing'.
The Department will decide which baseline period to use when the 2002/03 recorded crime data are available. At this stage, it will be possible to assess the extent to which the impact of the National Crime Recording Standard has worked through, and therefore which is the most appropriate period to use to compare performance between areas.
The worse performing areas will be expected to achieve a greater performance increase than the national average performance improvement required in order to achieve the 2005/06 target as compared with the baseline period.
The target will have been met if the average performance improvement achieved by the worse performing areas is greater than the national average performance improvement by 2005/06, as compared with the baseline period.
An ineffective trial is a trial that on the date expected does not proceed due to action or inaction by one or more of the prosecution, the defence or the court and a further listing for trial is required
It is distinct from a cracked trial and an effective trial.
A cracked trial is a trial where the defendant offers acceptable pleas or the prosecution offers no evidence. A cracked trial requires no further trial time.
An effective trial is a trial that commences on the day it is scheduled, and has an outcome in that a verdict is reached or the case is concluded.
The national level of improvement in the proportion of ineffective trials required for both the Crown and the magistrates' courts is 27% by the end of March 2006.
An 'improvement' means that there will be a decrease in the percentage of ineffective trials against baselines.
The baselines are taken from the most recent available data in 2002/03 where 31% of trials are ineffective in the magistrates' courts and 24% of trials are ineffective in the Crown Court.
Reducing the proportion of ineffective trials by 27% requires, by end March 2006, the percentage of ineffective trials to be:
The 27% national level of improvement will be delivered through two channels (a) CJS national initiatives (for example through the Case Preparation Project, Charging, Criminal Justice IT) and (b) collective action and local initiatives as taken forward by Local Criminal Justice Boards.
Data from the Crown Court, on ineffective trials, is collected every month from Crest (the Crown Court IT support system), with a lag time of around a month - at present it is gathered from the 80 Crown Court centres, around the country, servicing one or more Criminal Justice Areas. At present, three Areas, North Wales, Dyfed Powys and Gwent, do not have ineffective trial data attributed to them because their Crown Court cases are sent to court centres in other Criminal Justice Areas. The possibility of presenting Crown Court data on ineffective trials to their originating Local Criminal Justice Boards is being investigated.
Data from the magistrates' courts, within each of the 42 Criminal Justice Areas, is collected and aggregated quarterly, with a lag time of around 2½ months. To date, only two quarters' worth of information has been recorded. (April 2002 - September 2002). A third quarter will shortly be available.
An Ineffective Trial Delivery Group, chaired by the target owner, will be set up to co-ordinate the gathering of information on achievement of the target. The Delivery Group will report to the Narrowing the Justice Gap Task Force. The group will be the central point of reporting for all initiative heads, and for the Local Criminal Justice Boards.
The information reported will be:
Depending upon the results of the analysis into other possible types of performance indicators (by crime type etc), other types of information may be included in the reporting mechanism.
Progress against the target will be described in departmental Annual Reports.
| PSA Target 2 Improve the level of public confidence in the Criminal Justice System, including increasing that of ethnic minority communities, and increasing year on year the satisfaction of victims and witnesses, whilst respecting the rights of defendants. TARGET CONTRIBUTING TO CJS PSA |
The target relates to performance of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) in England and Wales.
Questions in the British Crime Survey (BCS) will be used to determine the level of public confidence in the effectiveness of the CJS in bringing people who commit crimes to justice.
This element of the target will be met if, by 2005-06, the level of public confidence has increased, compared with in the baseline year (2002-03), by a statistically significant amount. Baseline data are expected to be published in July 2003, whilst outcome data from the BCS survey for the final year of the target, 2005-06, are expected to be published in July 2006.
'Statistically significant': because the BCS estimates are subject to sampling error, changes in estimates between sweeps of the survey may occur by chance. Tests of statistical significance are used to identify which changes are unlikely to have occurred by chance. We will apply tests at the 10% significance levels (the levels at which there is a one in ten chance of incorrectly identifying a difference solely due to chance variation.)
Using the same BCS question as for the wider general public (above), the level of confidence amongst members of black and minority ethnic communities (as classified by the Census 2001) will also be assessed (see also the entry under "whilst respecting the rights of defendants").
This element of the target will be met if, by 2005-06, the level of confidence amongst those in black and minority ethnic communities is statistically significantly higher than that during the baseline year (2002-03). Baseline data are expected to be published in autumn 2003, whilst outcome data from the BCS survey for the final year of the target, 2005-06, are expected to be published in July 2006.
A victim is someone who has been the victim of an alleged offence, however minor, which was reported to the police.
Existing survey questions (in the BCS) will be developed to measure the satisfaction of victims with the way their case was handled by the CJS agencies with which they had recent contact. ("Recent contact" means within the previous twelve months.)
This element of the target will be met if the level of satisfaction of victims increases year on year during the target period (2003-04 to 2005-06) for which comparative data is available, with the final year showing a statistically significant increase over the first year for which comparative data is available. At present the BCS monitors victim satisfaction with the police but not with any other part of the CJS. New questions will be added to the BCS to capture victim satisfaction with the CJS, and the earliest results (for the second half of 2003-04) - expected in July 2004 - will be used to provide a baseline for this element.
Existing performance data from the BCS, concerning victim satisfaction with the police, will not be directly comparable with the more comprehensive data, which will be collected, describing victim satisfaction with CJS agencies.
Outcome data from the BCS survey from the final year of the target, 2005-06, are expected to be available in July 2006.
A witness is someone who has had contact with the police as a witness to an alleged offence, whether or not they reported it themselves or were contacted by the police to provide information about it.
New questions will be introduced into the BCS to measure the level of satisfaction, of witnesses, with the way in which their case was handled by any one of the CJS agencies with which they had recent contact ("recent contact" means within the previous twelve months). The earliest results (for the second half of 2003-04) will be used to provide a baseline for this element of the target.
This element of the target will be met if the level of satisfaction of witnesses increases year on year during the target period (2003-04 to 2005-06; for those years in which comparative data is available), with the final year showing a statistically significant increase over the first year.
Outcome data from the BCS survey from the final year of the target, 2005-06, are expected to be available in July 2006.
Rights of defendants are protected by law. Two methods will be used, during the target period, to inform assessments about how the rights of defendants continue to be safeguarded:
The BCS contains a question which measures public confidence that the CJS respects the rights of people accused of committing a crime and that such people are treated fairly. The level of confidence, measured using this question, will be monitored.
The Department for Constitutional Affairs will continue to monitor, beyond 2004, a range of indicators (see Appendix A) concerned with access to legal advice, and other provisions, which safeguard defendants' rights.
We have committed ourselves to monitoring how the rights of defendants are respected. This will include a particular study of black and minority ethnic confidence in the issue. We will investigate, and take action, if there is any evidence that the rights of defendants were not being respected, or that public confidence in rights being respected was falling. We will review this on an annual basis as new data becomes available.
In order to measure aggregate performance against the target, it is intended to commission work on developing an index for the different elements of CJS performance in this target.
Progress against the target will be published annually in the CJS Annual Report, in Departmental Annual Reports, and on the Public Service Performance website.
The BCS is a Government Statistical Service survey within the scope of National Statistics. Fieldwork is sub-contracted to external survey companies after competitive tendering. The Home Office Research Development & Statistics directorate (RDS) undertakes quality control of the survey, data processing and the reliability of the results. The BCS covers a randomly selected sample of those aged sixteen or over living in private households in England & Wales. (The BCS picks up estimated numbers of victims and witnesses who report to the police of 4000-4500 and 3000 respectively.) From 2001, the BCS has been conducted on an annual basis. Results are published by RDS in Home Office Statistical Bulletins, available from Information and Publications Group, RDS, Communications and Development Unit, Room 201, Home Office, Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1H 9AT. Updates and other information may be accessed via the RDS website
RIGHTS OF DEFENDANTS - "Basket" of measures
This element is measured by performance against a target to improve the standard by which the CJS meets the rights of defendants by 2004, by achieving 100% of targets in a basket of measures set out below. This target was set in SR2000 and we propose to roll it on thereafter.
Basket of measures
By 2004, 90% of people in police stations requesting the service of a duty solicitor receive the service within 45 minutes.
(Supporting data - Legal Services Commission (LSC) audit of General Criminal Contract, collected annually by the LSC, monitored by the LSC.)
By 2004, 98% of prisons have sufficient staff, in accordance with Prison Service standard audit requirements, to ensure that all prisoners receive information about legal services on reception and know who can assist them with applications for public funding.
(Supporting data - Prison Service Standards on Legal Services and Bail, collected annually by Prison Service, monitored by the Prisoner Administrative Group.)
50% of magistrates' courts have full access to a comprehensive courts-based bail information scheme by March 2002, rising to 80% by March 2003.
(Supporting data - National Probation Service Circular, collected annually by National Probation Directorate, monitored by the National Probation Directorate.)
80% of prisons holding remand prisoners have a bail information scheme by March 2002, rising to 90% by March 2003.
(Supporting data - Prison Service Standards on Legal Services and Bail, collected annually by Prison Service, monitored by the Prisoner Administrative Group.)
| PSA Target 3 Reduce the proportion of disputes resolved by resort to the courts |
The purpose behind the target is to ensure that disputes are resolved quickly, effectively and in a manner, and at a cost proportionate to the issue at stake, without compromising access to justice. It is Government policy that the courts should be the dispute resolution method of last resort.
Measures
The principal measures of success for this target will be:
Definitions
"Resolved by resort to the courts" means a case which concludes with a judgment given at a substantive hearing or trial.
A "dispute" is when one individual or body has a potential legal remedy against another individual or body.
There are two strands of activity to achieving this target: encouraging the resolution of claims without the issue of court proceedings (avoidance) and encouraging the settlement of claims before trial where court proceedings have been issued (diversion).
Data and how frequency it will be collected
The sub-targets will be measured mostly using data collected from the Court Service's Caseman and Familyman Computer Systems, which record each administrative task on a case, but supplemented by data collected manually. The collection and collation of the data normally takes 2 -4 weeks from the last working day of the month. The data will be monitored on a monthly basis and reported on at quarterly intervals.
Measurement and time period
This target will be met if each of the sub-targets is met by March 2006.
Avoidance target as a measure of how many cases are commenced in the courts: to reduce the issue of non-family claims in the civil courts by 11.8% from Apr 03 to Mar 06 from a baseline of 1,790k in 2002/03 to 1,580k by Mar 2006.
Diversion target as a measure of how many court disputes are diverted from hearing in proportion to those that have been commenced: to reduce the proportion of non-family cases allocated for hearing that are resolved by a hearing to 47% by March 2006. The baseline in 2002/03 is 48.9%.
Combined avoidance and diversion target as a measure of how many disputes are either avoided or diverted, instead of resorting to a hearing: to reduce non-family hearings by 9.3% from a baseline of 71,300 in 2002/03 to 64,700 by Mar 2006. This will enable us to measure how many disputes are either avoided or diverted, instead of resorting to a hearing.
Diversion target for private law family orders (avoidance cannot be measured in family cases as the process for divorce requires court intervention): to increase the proportion of contact and ancillary relief orders made by consent by 2.8% to 73.4% in Mar 2006, from a baseline of 70.6% in 2002/03.
Territorial Scope
This target applies to the civil courts in England and Wales.
| PSA Target 4 To increase year on year the level of satisfaction of users by taking speedy, high quality decisions and reducing unnecessary delay and cost, and by ensuring that outcomes are enforced effectively. |
This is a new target which brings together 3 earlier targets for SR2002 period [SR2000 PSA targets 1, 7 and 8.]
The headline measure for this PSA target will be the year on year improvement in four key areas of dissatisfaction from the 2002-2003 customer satisfaction survey. We have also set a comprehensive range of supporting targets to measure our performance in terms of reducing delay; reducing costs; and improving enforcement. Our aim is to meet the headline target, and 8 out of 14 of the supporting targets. Management Information for these targets is collected on the CaseMan and FamilyMan IT systems in the County Courts and reported monthly.
These are national targets governing England and Wales. They cover the Civil and Family business of the civil courts - the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), the High Court, the county courts.
Public Satisfation
Headline Target
'Year on Year' improvements in Customer Satisfaction will be measured by the achievement of year on year improvements in four key areas of dissatisfaction from the 2002-03 customer satisfaction survey. These are:
| Headline Target | Benchmark % | Target % | ||
| The percentage level of customer satisfaction for: | March 2003 | '04 | '05 | '06 |
| 1. Knowledge of court staff at public counter | 79 | 80 | 82 | 85 |
| 2. Knowledge of staff on telephone service | 75 | 76 | 78 | 80 |
| 3. Speed of resolution of complaints | 36 | 40 | 50 | 60 |
| 4. Helpfulness of written communication | 70 | 72 | 75 | 80 |
Users of the civil courts and the Supreme Court will be covered by the Court Service customer satisfaction survey. Surveys will be conducted every quarter and will cover county courts and the Supreme Court. Each court will be surveyed annually. Each survey will include professional advisors and members of the public.
The Magistrates' Courts are expected to become part of a new Unified Court Service under the Court's Bill. A baseline and target for customer satisfaction will be established for the Magistrates' Courts when the Unified Administration commences.
Supporting Target 1
All courts will apply for Charter Mark as a customer service improvement tool or re-apply for the award before it is due to expire. Courts that are not awarded will reapply. The target is 95% of courts or units that apply are awarded a Charter Mark.
Supporting Target 2
All complaints will be monitored, measured and analysed to ensure lessons are learnt and improvements are implemented to improve satisfaction. The percentage of complaints answered within target will be:
Information will be provided by Customer Services Directorate
Speedy, Quality Decisions & Reducing Unnecessary Delay
Supporting Target 3
The percentage of administrative transactions completed within 5 days - 94%
Supporting Targets 4 - 6
The percentage of civil cases heard within target from allocation to hearing, by target to end SR2002 period:
From allocation to hearing -
| Target | 03/04 | 04/05 | 05/06 | |
| 4 | % of small claims heard within 15 weeks | 76 | 77 | 78 |
| 5 | % of fast track cases heard within 30 weeks | 76 | 77 | 78 |
| 6 | % of multi track cases heard within 50 weeks | 76 | 77 | 78 |
Supporting Targets 7 - 8
The percentage of public & private law children act cases dealt with within target (from commencement of proceedings to final order)
Supporting Target 7: % heard within 40 weeks - 70%
Supporting Target 8: % of Adoption Cases heard within 20 weeks - 70%
Reducing Unnecessary Cost
Supporting Target 9
At least 30 opportunities for county courts to share accommodation used by magistrates' courts will be realised by April 2006.
Supporting Target 10
A cost indicator will be established by April 2004.
Ensuring Outcomes are Enforced Successfully and Effectively
County Court Bailiffs - a warrant is a court order that authorises a bailiff to attempt to recover payment of money. A warrant is considered enforceable when it has been correctly directed to an address and there is no legal impediment to the carrying out of its enforcement against the debtor.
County Court bailiffs execute enforceable warrants and recover money or remove goods for sale to satisfy the warrant. The target is the amount of money recovered on enforceable warrants as a percentage of the total value of enforceable warrants.
Supporting Target 11
The target for 2002/2003 is 76%, which was exceeded. The target for 2003/2004 is 80%, rising to 85% for 2005/2006.
Other Enforcement Methods
Key Performance Indicator's (KPI's) have been developed under PSA 7 of SR2000 to measure the performance of other enforcement procedures. Court Service collects data, through its IT system, on the time taken for court staff to administer each piece of work. Data is collected and monitored monthly.
These KPI's, which are in place, measure the time taken, in working days, for the court to complete the administrative duties related to each enforcement process.
Supporting Target 12
A Charging Order is a means of securing a debt by placing a charge onto the debtor's immovable property, particularly a house or land, although it can also be used against shares.
From application to interim order: 70% in 2 weeks
From interim order to final order: 70% in 10 weeks
Supporting Target 13
Third Party Debt Orders are a means of securing payment of a debt by freezing and seizing money owed or payable by a third party to the debtor. The debts most frequently targeted are accounts held with banks and building societies.
From application to interim order: 70% in 2 weeks
From interim order to final order: 70% in 10 weeks
Supporting Target 14
Attachment of Earnings Orders from issue to the application to making of the attachment order- target will be set for 2004-05, because baseline data in now being collected.
| PSA Target 5 Focus the asylum system on those genuinely fleeing persecution by taking speedy, high quality decisions and reducing significantly unfounded asylum claims, including by:
JOINT TARGET WITH Home Office |
The target relates to the whole of the United Kingdom.
Speediness in taking decisions is addressed by other elements of the target.
This target relates to the quality of initial decisions taken by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate on substantive asylum applications determined from 1 April 2003. The target relates to initial decisions for the financial year as a whole, not for any single month or quarter.
The two criteria for this element of the target are:
80% of decisions (grants and refusals of asylum), sampled at random over the year 2003/4, are found to be fully effective or better;
80% of decisions, assessed by external assessors over the year 2003/4, are found to be fully effective or better.
Both criteria increase to 85% for the year 2005/06.
A "fully effective" decision takes account of all the relevant available information necessary to assess whether the application meets the criteria of the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or the Human Rights Act 1998 and, if not, sets out clearly and accurately the reasons.
Measurement of the quality of decisions taken will be undertaken by Senior Caseworkers (internal assessors) and Treasury Solicitors (external assessors) in accordance with the criteria set out on the relevant standard assessment form and the detailed marking standards to be applied to each criterion.
Performance data for the year as a whole will be published in the quarterly asylum statistics on the Home Office website as soon as possible after the end of the financial year (once the data is judged sufficiently reliable).
An unfounded asylum claim is one where the applicant and dependants of the applicant have not been granted full refugee status (indefinite leave to remain), under the 1951 UN Convention, either at the initial decision stage or following appeals. This includes:
cases not granted refugee status at the initial decision stage for which no appeal is received
cases not granted refugee status at the initial decision stage, whose appeal, Judicial Review and Human Rights claims are all dismissed.
This target refers to new substantive asylum applications lodged within the UK from 1 April 2003.
The target relates to the year as a whole, not for any single month or quarter.
For the purposes of this target, "manifestly unfounded" means (i) asylum claims certified under the new legislation as "clearly unfounded" and which as a result will attract a "non-suspensive" appeal, or (ii) claims from applicants who have no further right of appeal because they have already had an application refused in the UK and had their appeal against that refusal dismissed.
"Non-suspensive" means that the appellant can be removed from the UK following refusal because they may only exercise their right of appeal from abroad i.e.: the prospect of an appeal does not suspend the operation of removal directions.
"Fast turnaround" means the period beginning with the day on which an application is made in person to IND and ending with the day on which the claimant leaves the UK or, if an application is made for judicial review, the day on which permission to proceed to judicial review is granted. The day on which an application is made in person to IND is day ZERO for the purpose of calculating performance against the target.
Targets for the fast turnaround period, and for the proportion of clearly unfounded claims which will be resolved within that period, require further consideration and will be published no later than March 2003.
Data on the number of cases and turnaround times will be extracted from the Asylum Case Information Database (A-CID).
Substantive applications are those for which the UK has immediate responsibility. The Dublin Convention determines, on the basis of objective criteria, which Member State should be responsible for the consideration of asylum applications made within the EU territory. The two most common criteria are the member state via which the applicant first entered the EU, and the state where asylum is claimed for the first time. Where there is evidence to suggest that the UK may not, under the Dublin Convention, be responsible for an asylum application, IND has no obligation to consider claims substantively while enquiries are being made, with our EU partners, to establish conclusively where responsibility lies. These enquiries can take up to 6 months to complete and, as the timing is often outside IND's control, Dublin Convention cases are excluded from the target.
This target relates to new substantive asylum applications lodged within the UK from 1 April 2003.
"By 2004" refers to the end of the financial year 2003/2004.
The 75% target relates to initial decisions within 2 months for the year as whole, not for any single month or quarter.
Data on the percentage of substantive asylum applications decided are extracted from the Asylum Case Information Database (A-CID). The data relates to new substantive asylum applications lodged within the United Kingdom; the quality of the data is generally good.
"Decided" relates to initial decisions taken in IND, and served on the applicant or his/her representative, or placed on file where no address is known.
2 months is defined as 61 days. The day on which an asylum application is made in person to IND or, in certain cases where a written application is received by post, is day ZERO for the purposes of calculating performance against the target. The end point is the date on which an initial decision on the application is served on the applicant or their representative at an interview, or the date on which notification of the decision is dispatched by IND if being served by post, or the date on which notification of the decision is placed on file if no address is known.
Due to the nature of the target, more than 61 days must elapse before performance can be measured.
The proportion (to be determined) target relates to those with an in-country right of appeal and is taken over the year as whole, not any single month or quarter.
6 months is defined as 26 weeks (= 182 days). The day on which an asylum application is made in person to IND or, in certain cases where a written application is received by post, is day ZERO for the purposes of calculating performance against target.
A case will be defined to have been decided if (a) an initial decision has been taken and served on the applicant or his/her representative, or placed on file where no address is known, and no appeal was received within 15 working days of the dispatch of the initial decision, or (b) the outcome of the final appeal has been dispatched to, or served on, the applicant.
"Final appeal" is defined as the point at which all rights of appeal within the Immigration Appellate Authority are exhausted or, for appellants who apply for statutory review, until the statutory review is determined (either by the Administrative Court or by reference back to the IAT).
The "proportion (to be determined)" requires further consideration and it is planned that this proportion will be published no later than March 2003.
Data on the target will be available from the Home Office A-CID database.
Due to the nature of the target, performance data will not be available until more than 6 months following the relevant financial year. For example (subject to data quality) it is planned that performance against financial year 2003/04 will be reported at the end of November 2004, although provisional figures for applications made between April 2003 and September 2003 will be available earlier.
This target refers to the removal from the United Kingdom of people who have breached immigration laws, with a particular focus on those who have at some stage applied for asylum here but who have been unable to establish an eligibility to remain on that, or any other, basis. This includes the removal of manifestly unfounded cases who meet the criteria for non-suspensive appeals.
The target will be met if the proportion of refused asylum seekers (including dependants) removed in the target year (2005/06) is greater than those removed in the baseline year (2002/03).
A failed asylum seeker is someone whose asylum claim is refused and who has either exhausted all appeal rights, or not appealed, within 15 working days of the despatch of the refusal decision, or who meets the criteria for non-suspensive appeals.
A removal includes the departure from the UK of someone who has no basis on which to enter or remain, either by enforcing that person's removal or by effecting a voluntary departure.
Enforced removal refers to the removal of a person who has no legal basis on which to enter or remain in the United Kingdom and who has not signed a disclaimer notice. Such people are either detained, or detected and removed, through enforcement activities and contact management.
Voluntary departure refers to persons who elect to leave the UK prior to a decision being made on their application or prior to the exhaustion of appeal rights. It includes persons who depart voluntarily on the Assisted Voluntary Returns (AVR) Programme.
Daily data on the number of failed asylum seekers removed is collated by the Immigration Service from returns made by Local Enforcement Offices (LEO) and Ports and is reconciled monthly with data from Asylum Case Information Database (A-CID).
Subject to data quality, performance data for the year will be published in the subsequent quarterly asylum statistics on the Home Office website.
| PSA Target 6 Increase year on year the number of people receiving suitable assistance in priority areas of law involving fundamental rights or social exclusion. |
The National Legal Need Survey (NLNS) will be used to measure the Lord Chancellor's Department's (LCD) success in meeting the PSA. Success will have been demonstrated if the Survey reports a statistically significant increase in the number of people receiving suitable assistance in priority areas of law.
To monitor performance against the target before the next NLNS in 2004, the LSC (Legal Services Commission) will carry out an annual telephone legal need survey in 11 representative geographical areas. To demonstrate movement towards PSA6 there will need to be a statistically significant increase each year from 2003 to 2005 in the number of people receiving suitable assistance in priority areas of law based on the telephone survey.
Definitions
"Suitable assistance" means support from a professional advice provider or Quality Marked organisation, proportionate to the importance of the problem. These include lawyers, solicitors, law centres, trade unions or professional bodies, Citizens Advice Bureaux or other similar organisations, local councils and other public bodies. It does not include advice gained from self-help guides, libraries or the Internet as there is no way to measure self-help. However, self-help guides do include pointers towards suitable assistance providers through the CLS telephone directory service and the CLS website www.justask.org.uk
"Priority areas of law" include cases involving the welfare of children; proceedings where the client is at serious risk of loss of life or liberty; family and relationship difficulties; help with social welfare issues such as welfare benefits; housing & the homeless; debt & money problems; education; community care, diversity issues and employment rights. Of these, cases involving the welfare of children and where the client is at serious risk of loss of life or liberty involve fundamental rights, whilst the other priorities have a direct impact on social exclusion. Included amongst these is personal injury, even though the vast majority of personal injury cases receive no Government support, but are funded through other mechanisms, e.g. Conditional Fee Agreements (CFAs).
The Social Exclusion Unit in the Cabinet Office defines "social exclusion" as:
This target covers England and Wales only.
Performance
Performance in this area is to be measured by the National Legal Need Survey (NLNS) with an indicative measure provided by an annual telephone legal need survey carried out by the LSC. A statistically observable increase in the NLNS will indicate that we have achieved the PSA at the end of the SR2002 period. The telephone legal need survey will indicate how performance against the target is proceeding in the interim years before the next NLNS.
The National Centre for Social Research will conduct the NLNS every three years. The methodology for this survey has been drawn from the approach of Paths to Justice, a survey produced by Professor Hazel Genn and the National Centre for Social Research, which was published by the Nuffield Foundation in November 1999. The results will be weighted against the 2002 Census.
The baseline year is 2001, covering respondents' experience in the period January 1998 - September 2001. The second survey will cover the period January 2001 to September 2004. Data will not be available from the NLNS on an annual basis.
The baseline figure against which our success will be measured is 31 people per thousand receiving suitable assistance in prioirtity areas of law per annum. To demonstrate an increase in those receiving "suitable assistance" a figure of 34 people per thousand will need to be reached by the end of the SR 2002 period.
To monitor performance against the target before the next NLNS in 2004, the LSC will carry out a telephone legal need survey in 11 representative geographical areas. The findings from the telephone survey will not be directly comparable to the NLNS, but will allow comparisons to be made between each year's telephone survey results by a series of snap shots and hence provide an indicator of trends.
The baseline for the telephone survey covers 2000 to 2002. It shows that 31% of problems in priority areas of law received suitable assistance. To demonstrate movement towards PSA6 there will need to be a statistically significant increase in the percentage each year from 2003 to 2005.
Amendment to SR 2002 PSA 6 Technical Note: December 2005
Annual telephone survey
A number of problems have been encountered in the running of the 2004 annual telephone survey. These have been of sufficient magnitude to lead the Legal Service Research Centre (LSRC) to recommend that the telephone survey be discontinued. The main area of concern is that the refusal rate has risen from 39% in 2001 to 65.6% in 2004. Only 34.4% of those now called agree to answer any questions at all. Expert advice is that 40% is the minimum acceptable rate in order for it to be statistically reliable.
On this basis, we will no longer be running the annual telephone survey or using it as an indicative measure.
Annual data from the telephone survey is available for 2001-2003 and has been published in DCA's Departmental Reports.
Future measurement - NLNS
The LSRC will now carry out the triennial periodic survey on a continuous, face-to-face basis: therefore, there is no longer a requirement for the supplementary, annual data previously provided by the telephone survey.
The fieldwork for the face-to-face surveys will begin before the end of 2005 and the first results will be available in April 2006. By February 2007 sufficient data will be available to enable conclusions on 2005-06 to be drawn. The results from the face-to-face surveys will be used to measure final performance against the PSA 6 target, and are comparable with the 2001 and 2004 National Legal Needs Surveys.
The baseline and target remain the same as set out in the Technical Note.
The final outturn figure will be published in April 2007.
| PSA Target 7 Increase value for money from the Criminal Justice System by 3% per year, increasing efficiency by at least 2% a year, including the delivery of legal aid. TARGET CONTRIBUTING TO CJS PSA |
This target consists of two elements:
To increase value for money from the Criminal Justice System
by 3% per year
The department's contribution to the target is outlined in the technical
note for the CJS PSA target 5. As a value for money target, it embraces
both efficiency gains, and the value of increased effectiveness in delivering
outcomes. Approximately £1.9bn of the department's annual budget
relates to CJS spend. The department's contribution to this target will
therefore equate to savings of approximately £57m per annum.
Increasing efficiency by at least 2% a year, including the
delivery of legal aid
This target will be delivered through a mix of initiatives within the
department including individual case contracts (ICC) for legally aided
Very High Cost Criminal Cases (VHCCCs), other civil, criminal and asylum
legal aid savings, and improvements in the handling of Public Law Children's
cases (care and adoption).
This target will be met if, by the end of 2005-06, improvements in efficiency are achieved which, across the whole of the SR 2002 period, equate to an average per year of 2% of total LCD DEL of £3bn (£60m per annum)
The mix of initiatives which will deliver these gains in efficiency will include:
A reduction in the cost of providing a defence in high cost criminal cases will be achieved by expanding the Legal Services Commission's (LSC's) current initiative to introduce individual contracts so that all new eligible cases are on the basis of an individual contract from April 2004. Efficiency savings generated by contracting for VHCCCs will be calculated against benchmarks for case costs under the 'ex post-facto' (epf) assessment method. The base case against which these savings are to be achieved is the anticipated cost in the Spending Review period in the absence of contracting for high cost cases. This estimate is based on the unit costs of providing a defence in serious criminal cases paid in the base year 2002/03 and the current underlying rate of inflation experienced in high cost cases.
To establish the base case cost benchmarks will be set for a number of categories of case based on cost drivers like trial length, number of defendants and an inflation factor. The department estimates that savings in the range of £180-190m can be achieved over the SR2002 period by implementing contracts in high cost criminal contracts.
The data on the volume of cases covered by contracts and an assessment of the reduction in costs generated as a result of contracting will be supplied by the Legal Services Commission on a quarterly basis.
Savings in spending on criminal legal aid will be achieved, subject to various consultations, through measures to curtail the costs chargeable to criminal legal aid for advice and assistance, representation orders where custody is not a likely sentence and through increased recovery of costs. The base case against which these savings will be calculated will be expenditure in the base year (2002/03) incurred in these areas. The savings are expected to be in the range £0-39m but will depend on the scale and timing of the agreed changes in scope. The data on spending on police station advice, advice and assistance in criminal cases, the Court Duty Scheme, advocacy assistance for early hearings, scope of representation orders and recovery of defence costs will be supplied on a quarterly basis by the LSC.
Through introducing a new Public Law Protocol covering cases involving children at risk the Department intends to reduce significantly the time it takes for cases to complete. In 2002-03 55% of cases complete within the target 40 weeks and the new protocol aims for 70% of cases to complete within 40 weeks while containing legal aid costs. The base case is performance and expenditure within DCA in Public Law Children's cases in 2002-03.
Legal aid savings will be achieved through containing the costs per case of legal help and representation, and curbing multiple claims for work duplicated if a person changes legal adviser. The base case against which these savings are to made is the programme costs of providing legal help, Immigration Appeal Asylum appeals, Immigration Appeal Tribunal appeals and other certificated work in the base year 2002-03. The department estimates that savings of the order of approximately £70- 80m can be achieved through these measures over the SR2002 period. The Legal Services Commission will supply data relating to the costs of legal aid relating to Asylum applications on a quarterly basis to be compared to this base case. Spending on programme costs relating to asylum legal aid will be reported on a quarterly basis by DCA.
"Very High Cost Criminal Case (VHCCC)"
Defined as cases which are expected to have a trial length in excess of
25 days in length or where total costs are expected to exceed £150,000.
"The Legal Services Commission (LSC)"
The non-Departmental Public Body responsible for administering legal aid
payments under VHCCC contracts.
"Individual Case Contracts (ICC)"
These are agreed by the LSC with solicitors in advance and cover a case
plan which breaks down the case into stages detailing what work needs to
be done by which fee earner, with agreed hourly rates for each grade of
fee earner (including barristers as well as solicitors) and for the particular
attributes of the case. The contracts also involve improved case management,
assigning work to the correct grade of fee earner and agreeing in advance
the number of hours for each stage of the case.
"Ex-post facto assessment (epf)"
Conventionally lawyers have been free to run cases as they see fit. After
cases finish, they present a bill detailing all the work that has been done
and requesting what they feel are the appropriate fees. The 'epf' assessment
process scrutinises the bill, checking to ensure that all the work claimed
for was necessary and reasonable and that the rates claimed were appropriate.