Crown Prosecution Service - Organisational Structure

Organisational Structure

The CPS is divided into 13 geographical Areas across England and Wales. Each Area is led by a Chief Crown Prosecutor (CCP) who is responsible for the provision of a high quality prosecution service in their Area. Each CCP is supported by an Area Business Manager (ABM), and their respective roles mirror, at a local level, the responsibilities of the DPP and Chief Executive. Administrative support to Areas is provided by Area Operations Centres. A 'virtual' 14th Area, CPS Direct, is also headed by a CCP and provides out-of-hours charging decisions to the police.

Each area is headed by a Chief Crown Prosecutor who reports directly to the Director of Public Prosecutions. In London, the Chief Crown Prosecutor is supported by Sector Directors. Although Chief Crown Prosecutors are directly accountable for the prosecutions in each area, most of the responsibility for the business administration of the area is overseen by an Area Business Manager.

The CPS is the largest employer of lawyers in the UK, dealing exclusively with criminal prosecutions. At the end of March 2006, it employed a total of 8,775 people; almost a third of which were qualified prosecutors. They deal with more than 1.3 million cases annually in the Magistrates' court and approximately 115,000 in the Crown Court. Other staff include Associate Prosecutors, who are not qualified lawyers but are specially trained to review and present limited range of cases in magistrates' courts, paralegal staff who carry out work required to implement decisions and progress existing cases, and administrative staff who deal with tasks such as tracking the progress of cases, liaising with other agencies, matching incoming material to case files and copying and sending out documents.

The headquarters in South-East London sets national business strategies; develops and delivers policies, practices and procedures for the prosecution process; delivers IT and other services; deal with issues such as equality and diversity issues for the organisation and provides administrative support to areas.

Complementing the bulk of qualified lawyers prosecuting in-area, the Crown Prosecution Service also has the following two specialist casework groups:

• Central Fraud Group based in London, Manchester in York, concentrating on the country's most serious and complex cases of fraud and associated dishonesty offences
• Serious Crime Group which is further divided into two divisions
  • Organised Crime
  • Special Crime & Counter Terrorism

On 2 March 2004 the Director of Public Prosecutions commented on a rumoured renaming of the service to the 'Public Prosecution Service':

"We are a public prosecution service and for some time I have favoured a change of name to make that clearer. This would reflect the major transformation that we are making in the role of prosecutors within the criminal justice system. I have discussed this with the Attorney General who takes the same view and I am discussing it with my staff. No final conclusion has yet been reached. When this process is complete the Attorney General and I will announce our decision.”

— Ken Macdonald QC

Some suggest that such a change would undermine the constitutional role of the department, nominally at least. It is unclear whether a name change is imminent, or is still being discussed at all. This proposed change was very unpopular within the Service as being pointless and otiose, as well as somehow insulting.