Mr Ruffley: To ask the Attorney-General what the annual running costs of CPS Direct are; how many staff, including duty prosecutors, CPS Direct currently employs; and what the annual expenditure by CPS Direct on staff was in each of the last three years. [131469]
The Solicitor-General: The following tables give the details of CPS Direct budget and staff position for the last three years.
The total budget for each year, total spending in each year, and total staff salary costs is shown in Table A.
| Table A | |||
| £ | |||
| Total budget | Total spend | Total salary costs | |
| Note: Current budget is for ‘out of hours’ workload, although CPS Direct is assisting some CPS areas by dealing with a proportion of their daytime charging workload for which a transfer of funds to CPS Direct from the area will be made. | |||
The number of duty prosecutors, legal managers and central support team staff is shown in Table B. The figures show staff numbers in terms of staff employed on a full-time equivalent basis.
| Table B | |||
| Duty prosecutors | Legal managers | Central support team | |
| Note: Current staffing levels now include for the first time staff employed to provide charging advice to the police during the ordinary working week. This is the first year that CPS Direct has had staff employed from area offices to advise police during the daytime on weekdays. | |||