Select committee: Justice Committee
Recommendation 28
Seventh Report - The role of adult custodial remand in the criminal justice system
Published 17 Jan 2023
Paragraph 155
Addressed to Ministry of Justice
Justice Committee The role of adult custodial remand in the criminal justice system All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
It is only on the basis of good quality data in respect of the use of custodial remand that there can be effective policy-making. More data needs to be collected and published on remanded defendants, particularly in relation to the reasons for refusing bail, the length of time people are spending on remand as well as demographic information, including vulnerabilities and protected characteristics amongst the remand population, to increase transparency and improve the information available to decision-makers. We recommend that the Ministry of Justice begins to collate, where it does not do so already, and publish data on the remanded population in a dedicated quarterly publication, as it does for the current Offender Management Statistics. We also welcome the current work being conducted by the Centre for Public Data on data gaps in the justice system. The issue of data is one that we routinely raise in our reports, and so we call on the Government to give urgent consideration to the Centre’s recommendations and conclusions when they are published later this year.
From: Justice Committee, Seventh Report - The role of adult custodial remand in the criminal justice system (HC 264), paragraph 155, 17 January 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 31 March 2023 (deadline 17 March 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the report, says it is "already undertaking work on the majority" of the recommendations, and that some are accepted partially or in principle while others are "not within the Government's gift to accept".
- It rejects a rapid review of Crown Court case levels, saying that the potential effect on the remand population "has been modelled within our published prison population projections".
- On magistrates' training and pronouncement templates, it rejects the recommendations, saying that as the judiciary is independent it is "not appropriate for the Government" to direct training or review materials.
- It rejects a review of the legal framework for custody time limits, stating that the framework "is clear and effective" and that "There is no intention to review" it "at this time".
- On a Bail Information Service roll-out, it partially accepts, anticipating a dedicated and proactive service "could be rolled out to all courts and prisons from Summer 2023, subject to funding", with robust data published in early 2024 as its aim.