I'd like to thank the Audit Commission for inviting me here today. Victims and witnesses are central to the Criminal Justice System. As is clear from this report there needs to be a new attitude towards victims and witnesses - the Government has accepted this but there is a long way to go. The Criminal Justice Ministers share the aim to improve confidence in the system, and that means victim and witness satisfaction.
We welcome the Audit Commission's report as a valuable contribution to developing knowledge and the growing amount of good practice in this field. Importantly, though, the report also reflects how much there is for us still to do.
For too long the needs of victims and witnesses have not been fully recognised or addressed. We want to increase the satisfaction and confidence of victims and witnesses: to ensure that they have the confidence to report and are treated with respect; to meet the range of their individual needs; and provide support and protection both within the criminal justice system and beyond, from report, during trial and following sentence. If victims and witnesses don't have confidence, then the crimes won't be reported and we won't get the right results. This brings the Criminal Justice System into disrepute.
National Strategy for Victims and Witnesses
This overarching aim is reflected in our National Strategy for Victims and Witnesses, published in July 2003 and overseen by Patricia Scotland, the Minister of State at the Home Office, working in partnership with colleague Ministers. This sets out a vision for a co-ordinated approach to improving provision and support to both victims and witnesses. It envisages much closer targeting of individual need, in partnership with public and voluntary organisations, not just the criminal justice agencies, but others such as the health service, housing authorities, education and social security systems. You will hear more detail about the practical implementation of the strategy from Frances Flaxington, head of the Home Office Victims Unit, later.
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill
Last session's Criminal Justice Bill, now the Criminal Justice Act, which received Royal Assent two weeks ago, was a major step towards re-balancing the criminal justice system in favour of victims and witnesses. This week, we have taken the next important step by publishing the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill. This introduces a range of measures to enshrine in legislation the rights of victims, to strengthen the voice of victims and witnesses, and to afford greater protection to victims of domestic violence. The greatest indicator of those likely to be victims of domestic violence in the future is those who have been victims of domestic violence in the past. Where victims of domestic violence have not been properly treated and protected in the past, domestic violence victims need confidence that they will be respected and protected now.
In relation to victims and witnesses, the main measures of the Bill are:
The establishment of a commissioner for victims and witnesses, to champion their rights across Government.
The introduction of a statutory code of practice, building significantly on the current victims charter, putting obligations on criminal justice agencies to deliver improved and consistent support, information, advice and protection for all victims.
As the Audit Commission report shows, there are excellent standards of care in some areas, but in others provision is less good. Everyone who is victimised is entitled to be treated with respect and care, no matter where they live. The Code will outline specific and tangible rights, and for the first time will establish a right of redress for poor treatment through the Parliamentary Ombudsman.
We are also using the Bill to ensure that victims' views are properly taken into account in the development of Government policy, by putting the new Victims' Advisory Panel on a statutory footing. The panel, established in March, consists of publicly recruited lay members, the Home Office, the CPS and my Department, working on our policies for victims drawing from their personal experiences. They are a vocal - and for us - challenging group that ask pointed questions on our commitment to deliver and meet the needs of people like them. We see the panel as a key part of our drive to ensure a victim-centred approach to Criminal Justice.
Action on the ground to improve victim and witness care
New legislation is essential to address these important issues. But there is already a lot happening on the ground to help improve victim and witness care.
A wide-ranging programme of initiatives has been launched by both the National and Local Criminal Justice Boards under their "Narrowing the Justice Gap" plans to increase the number of offences brought to justice. Earlier this year twenty-eight of the Local Boards identified the need to improve victim and witness care as a priority in their action plans. And we have just taken delivery of their plans to improve public confidence. These new plans include an assessment of the support and services provided to victims and witnesses in local areas, and an outline of priorities for action to improve victims' and witnesses' satisfaction at all stages. So right across the country, the criminal justice agencies are all being asked to focus efforts on the needs of victims and witnesses, both as part of their work in bringing more offences to justice and also as part of their work on improving confidence.
Through the work on narrowing the justice gap, improving confidence and the street crime initiative, we have learnt that if we want to improve victim and witness satisfaction there needs to be:
first, better communication with, and information for, victims and witnesses - so that they know how to access the Criminal Justice system if a crime is committed and are treated seriously and with respect when they do report a crime;
assessment of victims' and witnesses' individual needs before, during and after trial;
provision of tailored support - look at the individual victim and witness, see what they need, including protection where necessary; and
ways to make it less stressful to give evidence.
The victims legislation will help address some of these aims. But just as important are the local initiatives currently in place to address these needs now. For example, the CPS and the ACPO and the Prime Minister's Office of Public Services Reform are running victim and witness care pilots in five areas. Working together as a team, the CPS and the police in those areas have established dedicated joint units to ensure that:
victim and witness needs are assessed when they give a statement;
there is a single point of contact for victims throughout the case and they are supported throughout to guarantee their attendance;
risk and availability information on victims and witnesses is passed to case progression officers to inform trials listing; and
information about the outcome and 'thanks' are provided to all victims and witnesses.
Another aspect of improving witness care is our plan to devolve funding for the Witness Service to Local Criminal Justice Boards, which will allow a more locally responsive service to develop within the context of national standards. There has been I know, concern about this development, which some see as a threat to the independence of Victim Support, who run the Witness Service. We are working closely with the four areas in which devolved funding will be piloted from April next year. Both the Boards and the local Witness Service partnerships in those areas see this as an exciting opportunity to work in partnership and deliver a more tailored service. I was pleased to see that the Audit Commission Report sees a clear role for Local Criminal Justice Boards in monitoring service provision and value for money, as part of a comprehensive framework for the delivery of services. These are very important.
Combined case management
The victim and witness care pilots form part of our new approach to combined case management, which brings together better support for victims and witnesses; the charging scheme, which puts the CPS and police closer together, and the effective trial management programme. Together these initiatives will ensure that cases are got right from the start and managed robustly through the courts, and that victims and witnesses are provided with individual and targeted support throughout the process. This should result in more early guilty pleas, fewer discontinuances, fewer ineffective trials, fewer occasions when witnesses have to suffer the inconvenience and frustration of coming to court and being sent away because the case is not ready to proceed, and where the defendant has committed the offence. This is very important to victims.
Bringing all these elements together into one combined criminal case management programme will for the first time provide a single focus on getting the whole of the criminal justice process right from arrest to sentence rather than fixing the separate stages of the process in isolation from one another. We are convinced this combined approach is an important means to achieving the end we are all working towards: to bring more offences to justice, and improve victim and witness satisfaction.
Special measures for vulnerable and intimidated witnesses
I should like to turn now to one of the specific issues raised in the report special measures for vulnerable and intimidated witnesses. The report notes that these measures contained in the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, can help vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, but that practitioners have mixed views about their effectiveness, and that implementation of the measures introduced last year has been mixed.
The Home Office is currently conducting an evaluation of the effectiveness of these special measures, most of which have only been implemented in the Crown Court, and the early results from those evaluations are promising. So while there may be some specific practitioner concerns, the vast majority of witnesses who used them found the special measures helpful. Indeed, some said that they would not have been able to give evidence without them. This is encouraging, but there is plainly more to do in terms of training and awareness-raising among practitioners, and also improving equipment, video links for example, makes giving evidence in remote areas easier.
We are now planning further phased roll-out of these measures, and I thought it would be helpful to give advanced notice of our proposed timetable, although I should note that the implementation plan will depend on having the facilities in place.
In the magistrates' courts, we will introduce from May next year the measures which allow screening witnesses from the accused, giving evidence in private and aids to communication. We are currently installing equipment in magistrates' courts up and down the country to enable us in April 2005 to roll out giving evidence by live TV links, currently available in magistrates' courts only to child witnesses in need of special protection. We also plan to make video-recorded evidence in chief available for all vulnerable and intimidated witnesses in magistrates' court from May 2005, and to extend it to intimidated witnesses in the Crown Court, where currently only vulnerable witnesses benefit from this measure.
We are also proposing to start testing two new measures which have not yet been even partially implemented. We will pilot the examination of vulnerable witnesses through an intermediary in six areas from January next year, with a view to national roll-out in 2005. And we aim to start piloting video-recorded cross-examination or re-examination of vulnerable or intimidated witnesses by about March, with a view to national implementation in April 2005. Decisions on roll-out will of course be dependent on the formal evaluation of both pilots.
Wider approach - extending beyond the CJS
So far I have been talking in the main about the Criminal Justice System. I want to end with the broader view, recognising that many victims (and some witnesses) have needs beyond those that can be met by the criminal justice system. Crime can leave victims physically injured, emotionally traumatised, frightened, and with potentially long lasting psychological trauma, all of which can be compounded by severe financial difficulties.
As we made clear in our National Strategy, we will ensure that the criminal justice system is not the only route available to victims of crime - Restorative Justice and Anti-social behaviour measures will also help.
To make further progress and ensure the best use of resources, co-operation and co-ordination is needed between criminal justice and non criminal justice agencies, and cross government action is required in support of national and local developments delivered by both statutory and voluntary organisations. This will take time. It will not be easy. It requires political will for a change of culture towards victims and witnesses - but the commitment is there.
Conclusion
To finish then, I welcome this report. I believe it complements and builds on the Government's National Strategy for Victims and Witnesses and the many imaginative partnership initiatives on the ground, and helps sends out the very clear message - from government, from the voluntary sector, from individual victims and witnesses, and now from the Audit Commission - that, in the words of the report itself, we want
"to champion and deliver a culture change that will enable a truly user-focused approach to victim and witness care to be developed."
Thank you.