Letters to victims of rape and other crimes sent by the Crown Prosecution Service explaining legal decisions are of poor quality, lack human empathy and are frequently late, according to an official watchdog.
In a highly critical follow-up report, Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) concludes that two years after making similar findings there has been no improvement.
In fact, it's worse than that. There's actually been a decline...
Inspectors also discovered delays had grown since 2018. Only 65.1% of letters were deemed to be timely, compared with 72% in the inspection two years ago.
Probably because, being a public sector organisation, they threw more 'managers' at it, delaying the whole process.
Often letters did not apologise when decisions were delivered late.
That's inexcusable. And easily overcome with the introduction of standard templates, as with this horror:
The number of spelling mistakes has declined, but the opening line of one letter read: “I am the prosecutor in the case of XXXX and am writing to tell u the decision I have taken in this case.”
If they do use some kind of template, then someone's altered it. What were they thinking?
A CPS spokesperson said: “Communicating clearly and with empathy with victims of crime is vital to ensuring they have confidence in the justice system. We are therefore disappointed that changes we put in place since the last inspection have not delivered the improvements we wanted.”
They don't tell you what the changes were. That, in itself, is telling, isn't it?
And would any private sector organisation be so blase about failings?
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