The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has announced plans to strengthen its casework. The move follows the first independent inspection of the body in its history.
The CCRC investigates possible miscarriages of justice. It invited HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) to examine how its staff do their jobs. The inspectorate published its report on 2 July.
Inspectors described the quality assurance of casework as inconsistent and lacking structure. They made 34 recommendations for improvement.
Right decisions, slow route
The inspection team examined 60 sample cases. Each involved a person who had asked the CCRC to overturn a conviction or sentence. In every one, inspectors judged that the commission had reached the correct decision.
The CCRC has rejected 97 per cent of applications in the 29 years since it began work.
Anthony Rogers, HM Chief Inspector of the CPS, wrote the foreword to the report. He said: “Our findings do not highlight a failing organisation.” The decisions in the cases his team examined were ultimately sound, he added.
He also identified several key issues that needed urgent attention. Tackling them, he said, would help the CCRC make better decisions more quickly. It would also make the body more efficient and give it greater assurance in the quality of its casework.
The report said the Case Review Managers had made the right recommendations in all 60 cases. However, it described their route to those recommendations as “often convoluted”. It said: “The organisation lacks the qualitative casework assurance measures at all levels to drive consistent and sustained improvements in casework quality across the CCRC.”
Interim chair responds
Dame Vera Baird KC became Interim Chair of the CCRC last year. Her term now runs for a further 12 months, until December 2027.
She described the commission as the place of last resort for about 1,800 applicants a year. These are people who have exhausted their appeals but say a court wrongly convicted or sentenced them.
She noted that nobody had inspected the CCRC’s processes since its creation in 1997. Most other parts of the criminal justice system receive regular inspections, she said.
Dame Vera said HMCPSI had scrutinised every aspect of the commission’s process. She pointed to six recommendations for the next twelve months among the 34 in total. She thanked the inspectors for their focus on casework quality assurance.
In the last year, she said, the commission had referred 45 cases to the appeal courts. That is almost as high as its previous best. “All casework will be better planned and independently scrutinised from now on,” she said.
Dame Vera has worked on a plan for change with the new Chief Executive, Tracey Calleia. The pair met casework staff and managers to respond to the recommendations. Some changes have already taken effect, she said.
She called the CCRC the last resort for anyone wrongly convicted. Such a person has nowhere else to turn, she said. “We need to be able to set out for that person exactly what we’ve done, show them how well we’ve investigated, and say to them, look, that’s where we’ve ended up.”
