With the end of 2015 in sight, we asked Whitehall's top officials to review the year, set out their priorities for 2016 – and shed some light on their festive plans. Alison Saunders, director of public prosecutions, takes part in our biggest-ever perm secs round-up series...
How did you tackle the biggest challenges facing your organisation in 2015?
Our caseload across all areas is increasing, and we have seen a significant increase in terrorism and sexual offences cases, which by their very nature are complex and sensitive. However, as an organisation our record speaks for itself and the overall conviction rate has been maintained at over 80%. Last year we secured the highest number of convictions against sex offenders ever and our caseload of terrorism cases, which peaked last December, is expected to be even higher this year so we are in the process of creating a new team of specialist counter-terrorism staff to handle this growth. This, and everything else we have achieved, is a credit to the brilliant, hardworking and dedicated staff right through the CPS.
A real focus has also been on improving our service to victims and witnesses. Our Victims and Witnesses Survey, introduced for the first time this year, showed that two thirds of victims and three quarters of witnesses were satisfied or very satisfied with the service they received from us. However, the survey also showed that more support is required during the life of a prosecution and especially ahead of giving evidence at a live criminal trial. I hope that the introduction of dedicated paralegal staff at Crown Courts, who are on-hand to answer questions that victims may have about the court process, will help provide this added support.
What are your department’s top priorities in the year ahead?
Looking ahead, I am prioritising work to tackle hate crime. These are toxic crimes that create fear and humiliation and can also carry intimidation and fear into the heart of a community. The crimes also often go unreported for various reasons such as fear of retaliation, lack of confidence in the criminal justice system and fear of “outing” in homophobic cases.
We have made progress in tackling hate crime, including mandatory training on the prosecution of disability hate crime for all prosecutors, and introducing area scrutiny panels which look at the decisions made in such cases and allow community members to provide feedback on our decisions. We are also learning from our successful work in handling rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) by introducing a similar governance structure for hate crime. This includes a steering board which I am leading, as well as a joint delivery group with the police. These actions reflect the fact that hate crime is a key priority for the year ahead as I recognise that there is a lot more we can do on the issue.
What film do you hope to watch over the festive period – and what’s the best game to play with the family on Christmas Day?
I am hoping to watch the film Suffragette soon, as the fight for women’s votes in the not-too-distant past reminds us all how grateful we should be to those brave women, and that we should continue to eradicate any form of discrimination today. We enjoy quiz games over Christmas but they always end in far too much competitiveness!
Perm secs round-up 2015: Whitehall's top civil servants review the year – and look ahead to 2016