Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I inform members that providing oral evidence today are Gary McDonald, chief superintendent, PSNI; Martin Reid, superintendent, PSNI; Michael Agnew, deputy director of the Public Prosecution Service (PPS); and Peter Luney, senior assistant director of resources and change in the Public Prosecution Service. You are all very welcome to the Committee. Thank you very much for your presence. Do you have an opening statement?

Mr Michael Agnew (Public Prosecution Service): We do; we have two for good measure. We initially thought that we were going to appear separately, but the Committee decided to have a joint session. We have shared our opening remarks, so, hopefully, there will not be too much duplication. My remarks will focus a bit more on the wider systemic issues, and Gary will focus on some of the PSNI initiatives and some of the joint initiatives that we are working on together.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): If you have already sent it verbatim, you should assume that members have read it. If it is different from what you have sent, go ahead.

Mr Agnew: These remarks have not been shared in advance.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): OK.

Mr Agnew: Thank you for the introductions, Chair and members. I have indicated the running order that we are going to adopt: I will start, and Gary will then make his opening comments. After that, obviously, we are here to answer your questions. In my opening remarks, I will provide an overview of the scale of delay and demand in the Crown Court, provide our perspective on the main causes and offer some observations on how we might all act collaboratively in order to address the situation. I will focus my comments on cases in the Crown Court, as that is where the delay that gives rise to the greatest public concern arises, albeit I recognise that the issue is not confined solely to the Crown Court.

I will set the context with some important and illustrative figures. The median number of days for a Crown Court case to complete is approximately 750. That is the time that it takes from the date on which the offence is detected or reported to the police to the conclusion of the case in the Crown Court. Unfortunately, that figure is approximately 200 days higher than it was five years ago in early 2020. The second important figure is the number of live cases in the Crown Court, which currently sits at approximately 1,280. The number in early 2020, prior to the pandemic, was 670. That is an increase of 91%. The number of cases in the Crown Court increased to over 1,200 within 18 months of the pandemic. It was brought back to below 1,000 in April 2023, but the general trend since then has been upwards, which is obviously concerning. In my view, those two trends — the increased numbers of cases in the court system and the increased delay — are obviously linked. A system that becomes more and more stretched becomes less and less efficient as a limited number of practitioners spin multiple plates and are unable to focus sufficiently on individual cases to progress them meaningfully towards a conclusion. Cases that require trial have to join a longer queue of other cases also awaiting trial, with a set number of judges, courts and practitioners available to deal with them.

A third figure of some significance is the number of cases that enter the Crown Court each year. In 2024, 1,505 cases entered the Crown Court, which was the highest number since 2007 — that is as far back as my figures go — save for 2021, which was an anomaly as we recalibrated after the sharp pandemic-related reduction in 2020. In the current year, 2025-26, we can see from our own PPS data that there is an increase in PPS output of indictable decisions, which means decisions to prosecute in the Crown Court, of 13%. We assess that that is due mainly to efforts that we have made to address some long-standing backlogs, which, hopefully, will not recur, and, to a lesser extent, to an increase in the number of certain types of cases, including those with a charge of non-fatal strangulation, that are being brought in the Crown Court that are likely to be recurring. Therefore, the short-term pressures on the Crown Court from increased levels of demand are likely to rise further.

A further consideration, of course, is the withdrawal of services by the criminal Bar. The impact of that is a very low disposal rate, which is driving caseloads and delay up further. When the withdrawal of services ceases, as we all hope it soon will, the demand from dealing with the increased volume of cases before the court will make it more difficult to give timely attention to new cases received from the police that require a decision from the PPS. It is also worth noting that the withdrawal of services in relation to homicides and multi-complainant sex offence cases, which commenced towards the end of 2024 and has continued since, means that the current caseload sitting in the Crown Court is likely to have a large volume of those serious and complex cases.

Finally, looking forward, direct committal will be going live in November 2026. That will result in a significant portion of the Crown Court's future caseload being fast-tracked into the Crown Court after a single appearance in the Magistrates' Court, with an increased need for early engagement between police and prosecutors, and between prosecutors and the defence, and greater levels of active judicial case management from the early stages of certain cases. There is no doubt, therefore, that the pressures in the Crown Court are very significant. We need to understand and be realistic about the current situation and the challenges that lie ahead.

I will quickly highlight six factors that have caused the increase in demand and delay. The first factor is the dramatic increase in the Crown Court backlog that, as the data shows, can be traced back to the period after April 2020 and is obviously related to the pandemic. The caseload in the Crown Court rose from 670 to over 1,200 cases by October 2021, and we have never been able to get it back to pre-pandemic levels. The system, and everyone working in it, is spread very thinly, and, as I said, that undermines efficiency.

The second factor is funding. The Justice Minister has stated that her Department has experienced significant levels of underinvestment since its formation in 2010, and the proportional budget strength of the Department of Justice has declined while demand on the justice system as a whole has risen. Since 2015-16, we have seen inflationary pressure of 40%, but the PPS budget has increased by only 22%.

The third factor is the complexity and profile of the caseload. We are living in an increasingly digital world that is undoubtedly complicating investigations and subsequent prosecutions in terms of the evidence to be used in trials and the material to be considered for disclosure. The number of cases involving sexual offences that are dealt with in the Crown Court has increased significantly. These rarely resolve early, and, indeed, many go to trial, with all the resource that that entails.

The fourth factor is the inefficiencies that exist across the system. No doubt this arises, in part, because the system is made up of a number of independent organisations, with different pressures, demands and priorities. We accept that there is more that we can do to increase efficiency in the PPS and in our interface with the police, which is a key focus of the work that everybody on this panel is involved in. That is to be distinguished from the immense effort that we see our staff putting in every day in pursuit of a role that they undertake with pride and commitment. However, issues with the quality of police files and supervision lead to investigators and prosecutors going back and forth in order to get things right. The late service of defence statements and disclosure applications can cause further delay and lead to ineffective trials. Lots of administrative work is involved in copying and serving hard copy papers in a system that needs a joined-up digital transformation.

The fifth factor is that there are too many adjournments in the courts, for a variety of reasons. More detailed work is being undertaken in that regard, but the most recent data suggests that approximately 11% of adjournments are at the request of the prosecution, 51% are at the request of the defence and 38% are at the behest of the court.

Last but not least, the sixth factor is the culture of the system. We have an adversarial system where delay will often work in favour of a defendant. Dragging a case out can, in certain types of cases, lead to a victim withdrawing their evidence or generally being so keen to move on with their life that they are content for the case to be resolved by way of a plea to a lesser offence. Submissions to have the sentence reduced on the basis of delay will be made, and discount on account of delay is sometimes afforded to defendants. The main disincentive for delaying any guilty plea — the reduction of credit — is not particularly strong in this jurisdiction, as considerable flexibility is left with judges to award high levels of reduction even when the pleas come late in the day. That culture is reinforced by financial incentives built into the legal aid structures that result in significantly enhanced fees being payable where guilty pleas are not entered at the earliest opportunity.

I will come briefly to some solutions. The Committee may be aware of the work undertaken by a team in England and Wales, led by Lord Leveson, that has been looking at how to address the backlogs that have arisen in their courts. His firm view, with which I respectfully agree, is that tackling the problem requires a combination of resources, structural reform and improved efficiency. I have already mentioned resources and the fiscal challenges that the justice system faces, particularly in dealing effectively with the growth in the most serious and complex prosecutions. We recognise the importance of delivering reform but need to be supported to do so. The introduction of fundamental and essential reforms such as direct committal is likely to result in transitional increased costs but should deliver the required timeliness and cost savings in the longer term.

However, when it comes to structural reform and efficiencies, I believe that we have the right priorities, as set out in the Department's plan for speeding up justice. I will briefly summarise them. Structural reform involves implementing direct committal and increasing the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court. The former, which is due to go live in November this year, involves cases in which an indictable-only offence transfers directly to the Crown Court after the first appearance. As I stated to the Committee back in 2021 in my evidence on direct committal, the concept is sound, but we must have in place arrangements to manage such cases differently, and we need collectively to drive a change of culture that allows for the service of proportionate evidence, fewer and more effective hearings, and the earlier resolution of cases that result in a guilty plea.

The increase in the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court will potentially be a matter for the next mandate. The idea is that we allow the Magistrates' Court to deal with some of the lower-end Crown Court cases and allow Crown Court judges to focus on the remaining, more complex cases. That is unlikely to be straightforward or uncontroversial, as demonstrated by the recent debates in England and Wales on the potential restriction of the right to trial by jury, but it has the potential to make a significant contribution to reducing the delay and creating a more sustainable longer-term criminal justice model.

Linked to structural reform but also a key efficiency initiative is the increased use of out-of-court disposals. As the Committee knows, this involves dealing with lower-level offending in a more proportionate and efficient way. I know that there will be a session next week to deal with the recent consultation, so I will not say more about that now, but, in general terms, it is not only an important efficiency initiative but a facilitator for any change to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court, as it will need freed-up capacity. There is also an initiative on "No file" decisions that Gary will mention, so I will not say anything about it now.

Finally, I will say that each part of the criminal justice system must strive to become more efficient in the work that it does. For the PPS, that includes continuing efforts to work collaboratively with the police through the Working Together programme board to improve file quality and charging practices; to maximise the value of earlier involvement of senior prosecutors in cases that are likely to go to the Crown Court; and to develop improved lines and means of communication when it comes to advice and interactions more generally. It also includes greater digitisation and use of technology. From a technology perspective, the criminal justice system and its component organisations are digitally enabled and interconnected through the Causeway solution, but there are significant benefits to be gained from investing in modern paperless solutions that directly engage legal representatives, leverage the benefits of AI and provide real-time performance management information.

Thank you for bearing with me while I went through those detailed introductory remarks. Obviously, it is a large topic with quite a span, and I have covered it as best I can. I will now pass to Gary, who will take you through the PSNI's opening remarks.

Chief Superintendent Gary McDonald (Police Service of Northern Ireland): Thank you, Michael.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Thank you again for the welcome and the opportunity to speak to you regarding delay in the criminal justice system. As a police service, we recognise the impact that that has on victims, families, the wider community and, indeed, confidence in the criminal justice system as a whole. We are fully committed to playing our part in reducing delay across the system, in line with our key priorities of being victim-, community- and workforce-focused.

First, it is important to briefly set the broader context in which policing finds itself in 2026. While we very much welcome the reduction in overall crime levels, it is clear to see that the complexity of crime today has increased, as Michael outlined. That includes increases in sexual offences, increased reports of non-recent offences and, with over 97% of our population having access to a smartphone, significant increases in digital material and associated lines of enquiry.

In fact, the vast majority of our investigations — over 95% — now have a digital footprint. That is against the backdrop of a reduction, in real terms, in the policing budget and decreasing police officer numbers in recent years.

Clearly, as a police service we do not operate in isolation. In the broadest sense, the PSNI is responsible for the first two stages of the criminal justice system. Stage 1 is where the offence is reported to police and when the suspect is either charged or informed that they will be reported. Essentially, it is the investigation aspect of reported crime. Stage 2 is from when the suspect is charged or informed that they will be reported to the point when a file is submitted to the PPS: the file preparation aspect. Other stages include PPS decision-making time, the first hearing in court and ultimate disposal.

It is recognised that the quality of police investigations, including file build standards, impacts the ability of our PPS colleagues to make prosecutorial decisions. We are working hard to improve overall file quality in order to help address any needless delay at the PPS decision-making stage. The PSNI has actively sought to address delay by focusing on the following three key areas: technology and innovation, people and performance, and partnership. It may be helpful for the Committee if I take a couple of moments to provide a broad overview of the key initiatives that we have taken so far to speed up the investigative process across those thematic areas.

In respect of technology and innovation, we have delivered a number of technical solutions to enhance service delivery and accessibility to victims and reduce the bureaucratic burden on our very busy front-line officers. Such examples include a new process for file submission that sees that completed electronically, ensuring that files arrive with our case management teams instantly, rather than the standard seven- to 10-day turnaround time. We have also introduced digital electronic statements, which modernise the way in which digital evidence is captured. These statements can be completed remotely at a time and date of the victim or witness's choosing, ensuring maximum convenience for the public. The ability to capture statements in that format and upload documents instantly reduces the need for scanning and reduces the burden on front-line officers and staff. We have recorded over 100,000 statements in this way over the past year.

We have also developed a new voice-to-text capability that automatically transcribes interviews with suspects and achieving best evidence (ABE) interviews, which, historically, took front-line police officers several hours or even days to manually transcribe. Over 9,000 hours have now been saved using that software since it was launched in late 2024. We are now scoping further enhancements to the technology, such as self-service, whereby officers can access that directly, rather than through case management teams, and automatic summarisation of interviews, further reducing the administrative burden and speeding up the process. Work is ongoing to further speed up the file submission process by repurposing that freed-up capacity in typing resources as a direct result of that initiative.

As you know, we have had an online reporting function for reporting crime for some time. We have seen a doubling of online reports in the past year, with almost 900 reports each week. To complement our online reporting offer, we now have a victim portal where a victim can log in to their account, obtain the latest status of their investigation, and communicate with the investigating officer at a date and time of their choosing. That works alongside our evidence submission portal, where members of the public can instantly upload digital evidence such as CCTV, Ring doorbell and dashcam footage directly to us, without the need for a police officer to physically attend and collect that, increasing convenience and reducing delay. Seventy per cent of our digital evidence is now received via the portal.

In respect of people and performance, we have created a number of officer posts to facilitate a gatekeeper function. Amongst other duties, these officers, who are of inspector rank, undertake the role of ensuring appropriate file and investigative quality prior to investigation files being submitted to the PPS in specific case types. The officers act as a quality assurance function, ensuring relevant lines of enquiry have been pursued and the file has been built to the correct standard and quality. That is in addition to first-line supervision checks. In order to enhance file quality, a range of training takes place, from student officer training and crime training to ongoing continuous professional development (CPD) in file quality and standards, with gatekeepers being aligned to specific geographical areas. We have also developed a comprehensive performance framework from a strategic, tactical and operational level, where file quality, timeliness and victim updates are measured and assessed against key performance indicators. There is still work to do in that area. Now that our timeliness regarding file submission has improved, we are redoubling our efforts to focus on file build and quality.

In respect of partnership, the PSNI works collaboratively with other justice organisations. We are members of the Criminal Justice Board, which is chaired by the Justice Minister, and are key partners in the DOJ speeding up justice programme. That programme has a number of working groups, including one on out-of-court disposals, which is chaired by the PSNI. That group is scoping a number of initiatives to deal with lower-level offences in appropriate cases outside the court setting, including an expansion in the use of community resolution notices (CRNs) and penalty notices, as well as the "No file" decision project, which has reduced the overall "No prosecution" process from 101 days to 43 days, saving approximately 4,000 hours. All of those seek to deliver a speedier resolution for victims and appropriate and proportionate outcomes for offenders, freeing up capacity to allow courts to deal with other matters. The PSNI also works closely with the PPS in a bilateral arrangement through the Working Together programme board. Through that arrangement, we have agreed to deliver appropriate and proportionate file builds, ensure joint working and training in respect of file quality, and seek to modernise processes, such as those for service of summonses and early engagement. A bilateral operational efficiency group also meets to discuss operational matters in an attempt to resolve any issues at the earliest opportunity.

Challenges remain that contribute to delay: for example, obtaining evidence from third parties, such as medical evidence from medical practitioners — A&E notes, for example — and reports from social services. There can be delays within cybercrime, given the substantial increase in exhibits with a digital footprint and the processing of such material, as I previously outlined. It will also take time to recover and increase police officer numbers through ongoing recruitment to recover the service to sufficient levels, which will assist in driving file quality and investigative standards.

Despite the challenges and further work required, positive outcomes can be seen. The PSNI issues around 800 community resolution notices each month, diverting appropriate cases away from the court system; we have taken approximately 4,000 "No prosecution" files out of the system, freeing up capacity for investigators and PPS prosecutors; and there are proposals to expand penalty notices, as we will discuss next week. Overall organisational file timeliness has improved, with files being submitted on target 81% of the time and median investigation timeliness at 22 days. We have seen a reduction in the overall number of files that require further information for the PPS, but further work is required on more complex file types, such as indictable report files. Overall, crime is down by 2% on this period last year, and our crime outcome rate is 21·4% for charge and summons and 8·2% for out-of-court disposals. That compares with the average in England and Wales of 7·3% and 3·8% respectively. However, we are not complacent and continue to scope opportunities to reduce delay through the investigative and file submission process, engaging with partners and investing in technology.

That was a quick whistle-stop tour of everything. I will stop there. I hope that that has provided a broad overview of where we are as an organisation and just some of the initiatives that we have taken so far. We are happy to take your questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Thank you very much, Michael and Gary. We appreciate the whistle-stop nature of it, because we are struggling for time. We will go straight into questions.

Mr Kingston: Michael and Gary, those were two very good, practical presentations. I will pick up on some of the points. I will start with your last point, Gary. Michael, do you agree that the number of cases that require additional information for the PPS has decreased? I do not mean to put you on the spot in front of him.

Mr Agnew: Gary and I talk about that, as you can imagine. I think Gary is referring to data that relates to all the file types across the criminal justice system, which will include a lot of low-level motoring offences where the file quality is fine but the complexity of the investigation is quite low. The point that Gary was making was that, when we see investigative complexity increase, we tend to see the rate of prosecutors needing further information from the defence increase. We have more detailed analysis of that in relation to domestic violence cases, where we are running particular pilots, but at a broad level, when it comes to our case weight categories 1 to 4 , which comprise the more serious half of our casework, we tend to see requests for information sitting at about 58% or 59%.

Mr Kingston: You mean that 58% or 59% of cases are —.

Mr Agnew: About 58% or 59% of cases of that level of gravity require further information from the police before a decision can be taken.

Mr Kingston: So around 60% are being sent back, in effect.

Mr Agnew: There can be many reasons why a request for further information is issued. It may be because the police investigation has missed something, or it may be because the police have not been able to obtain the material that is required within that time. As a file quality measure, it is a bit rough and ready. Some cases that require a request for further information may have good files that are missing one or two pieces; in other cases, there may be more fundamental problems that need to be fixed.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Just to come back on that, in my comments I said —. Overall, the requests for further information are sitting at around 14% of the 38,000 files that we submit to the PPS.

Mr Kingston: Fourteen per cent are sent back?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: It is not that they are sent back; it is that there are requests for further information. In more complex indictable report file types, as Michael said, the percentage will increase proportionately, and that is to be expected. I outlined some of the difficulties with third-party material in cyber investigations. Sometimes, we have to decide whether to hold up a file because we are waiting on, for example, A&E notes or push it forward, if everything else is ready to go, in order to enable the investigation to progress through the system, with follow-up evidence then to be presented. We sometimes have to make that decision. Overall, it is around 14%.

Mr Kingston: Out of all cases?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Out of all cases.

Mr Kingston: That is helpful. You both highlighted that as an important area for speeding up the process.

I am interested in what you said, Gary — you have mentioned it again — about other statutory services, whose primary purpose is not justice, supplying information. Health is about keeping people well and helping them get better. Will you say more about that? It is about working against what we call siloed thinking — different Departments, from an Assembly point of view, working together for an overall positive outcome.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: There are data protection processes that need to be complied with. We need to get victim and witness consent for some of that, which takes time. We just find that, having made the request —. For example, it might be GP notes or A&E notes, as I said. There may be other cases, particularly those involving vulnerability, such as child abuse cases, that usually have a huge amount of third-party material, such as notes from social services, that can take time to gather up and be presented. Of course, those need to be redacted in the appropriate places. We work well with other agencies. It is just that the very nature of it means that it takes time. As I say, we do not necessarily want to delay an overall investigation by waiting for absolutely everything to come in.

The other piece around delay is probably an internal piece from a PSNI perspective in terms of the sheer amount of cyber-related enquires and phones and laptops that need to be examined. Given the sheer amount of information and data that can now be retained on people's smartphones, it takes a long time to analyse and create reports, and, again, there are a lot of redaction issues, and those take some time.

Is there anything more that you want to say, Marty?

Superintendent Martin Reid (Police Service of Northern Ireland): I can add some helpful information on the medical aspect. Our working relationships with the trusts and GPs are really good. We have dedicated staff in one of our case management teams who are in constant contact to get, for instance, A&E notes that may allow our PPS colleagues to make an early decision about the level of the offending. I suspect that a lot of the delay is in trying to find the actual doctor or consultant concerned, who then needs to find their own time to sit down and make a statement and provide that to us. The interoperability between the two sides — us and the health service — is good. The delays are more around whether the consultant can find the time to sit down and put pen to paper in order to provide that material to us.

Mr Kingston: The need to ensure that that cooperation is there is something that we can highlight at a senior level.

I am interested in what you said, Michael, about what can be seen as incentives to slow down the system: you said that sometimes it is seen as helping a defendant and mentioned legal aid payments. How do we work against those incentives?

Mr Agnew: I will take the legal aid situation first. It is a difficult problem, but it is pretty well recognised. In a lot of conversations that we have had with practitioners and members of the judiciary, particularly in the context of a pilot that we tried to work up and go live with, we got some fairly open feedback about legal aid being an issue that needed to be addressed if we wanted the pilot, which was about getting guilty pleas as early as possible, to work. It is not unique to Northern Ireland. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, has spoken about it. I think that they have similar structural issues. What it really means is that, if a case arrives in the Crown Court and there is a guilty plea to all the charges at the arraignment, there is a fee called a Guilty Plea 1 (GP1). However, if the defendant pleads not guilty to any of the charges at that point, they can mark a different type of fee.

In the average type of case, that would see the fee rise quite substantially. I cannot remember the exact amount, but we are talking about something like 60% to 70%. It is enough to make a very significant difference. Realistically, we see evidence of that happening day in, day out. I had a case where we were being encouraged to return it for trial because there were full admissions. We got the preliminary enquiry (PE) papers out extremely quickly, and the case went to the Crown Court. There were two counts, and there was a plea of guilty to one and a plea of not guilty to the other. A week later, there was a plea of guilty to the second one. It seems strange that that is happening.

Getting the right balance is difficult. I understand that, if one is designing a fee scheme, one wants to reflect any additional work. If a case involves a plea of not guilty and is prepared to a further extent, there should be additional remuneration. I am concerned about that the balance is not quite right at the minute and that a not guilty plea is very much encouraged. It is incentivised by the legal aid structure to the point that we are seeing more not guilty pleas than I believe we would see if we did not have that incentive in the system.

Linked to that is the other point about the reduction in credit. At the minute, in Northern Ireland, if a guilty plea is entered at the earliest possible opportunity, the maximum credit that is generally afforded is a third of the sentence. The longer that a case goes on, one will generally see that reduce. Even where a case goes on for a long time and hangs over the victim, if there is a plea very late in the day — say, just before the trial, which can be, as we know, years rather than months after the arraignment, with that enduring anxiety for the victim — the reduction in sentence can still be 20% to 25%. That guidance is set by our Court of Appeal. The guidance is that it should usually be 20% to 25% but that the judge can grant more or less, depending on the circumstances. My personal view is that that does not act as a very strong incentive to encourage the type of behaviours that we want, which would see as many people as possible pleading —.

Mr Kingston: It should reduce more sharply.

Mr Agnew: There needs to be a clear differential. We can contrast our model with the one in England and Wales, which has clear sentencing guidelines to which the judges are generally bound. I think that they can depart from them if there are exceptional circumstances and if they explain why they are doing so. Really, it is a reduction of a third, but, if a case gets to the door of the court, it goes down to 10%.

We did a study visit to Leeds Crown Court, and that was quite striking. We saw the judge address the defendant in the dock, saying, "Do you understand that this is your last opportunity to get maximum credit and that, if you do not do that, your credit will fall off a cliff?". That was the wording that was used. We saw a very striking example in which a defendant asked for some further time to consult their counsel, and they entered a guilty plea half an hour later.

Those are some of the incentives that are at play and that, I believe, contribute to some of the delay that we see in the Crown Court.

Mr Kingston: That is very helpful. Thank you.

Ms Egan: Thank you for coming in today. I want to ask for a bit more information on your initiative on "No file" decisions, which, I understand, was a pilot. I am really keen to hear about the kinds of cases in which you see "No file" decisions being made and how that is communicated to victims especially. Some, I imagine, might feel disappointed that that has been done. I am interested in hearing a bit more information about that.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: The main driver for the "No file" decision initiative was the fact that we were sending around 8,000 files a year to the Public Prosecution Service with a "No prosecution" recommendation. The PPS was agreeing with us in something like 96% or 97% of those. In the past, the Police Service was able to deal with those cases internally by, essentially, writing a report to say that the investigation was complete and all lines of inquiry had been pursued but that the evidential test had not been met. We used to be able to do that, and then we got into a space of having to send everything to the PPS. That created an administrative burden on our front-line officers, our case-management teams and also the PPS, and we felt that there was potentially room to return that decision-making to the police.

We have a number of safeguards in there. It is not about the investigative quality. Investigations need to be pursued robustly, and we have a very clear decision-making process in policing: at the end of the investigation, where it is felt that the evidential test is simply not met and there is no likelihood of a conviction, that finding can be recommended by a sergeant, and the case will go to an inspector for a decision, rather than creating a whole file to go to the Public Prosecution Service.

We have also built in a victim's right to review, which we did not previously have for other police outcomes. In a similar process to that of the PPS around the right to review "No prosecution" decisions, victims have an opportunity to request that the case be looked at by an independent inspector to check the decision-making on a "No prosecution" or "No file" decision.

We also have some quality assurance mechanisms. The PPS will take a dip sample of our decision-making to make sure that it is consistent, and we are pleased to see that it continues to be consistent. We write to victims and keep them updated, and the view of the victim is taken into account. We devised the process in partnership with Victim Support and the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime. We conducted an interim and final evaluation, and the benefits were clear to both organisations. That has been adopted as business as usual through the Working Together programme board, and it is one of the key initiatives from the speeding up justice programme.

Superintendent Reid: I will add one thing on victim feedback. In addition to the right to review, we are actively looking at the best ways to get active victim feedback and make sure that that is collated so that we get an almost live-time feedback system. That piece of work is ongoing under the Working Together programme board.

Mr Agnew: I have a couple of small points to add. It is about moving to the position that exists in England and Wales. Northern Ireland has been an anomaly in that we took a very risk-averse approach post-2000 that involved submitting files to the PPS. The move has been a cultural change, but that is the space that we are all in. We are very much focused on efficiency, and the delivery of efficiency has been compelling. In his opening remarks, Gary mentioned timeliness. We are getting the same outcomes much more quickly. Timeliness has improved by 57%, and the quality remains high. Having quality assurance processes in place remains key to that.

You asked about the file types. I mentioned case weight categories 1 to 4. The PPS also has case weight categories of 5 to 8, which are the lower levels of offending. I am not saying that those are not serious cases, but we thought it was appropriate to start the process with the lower-level files that we get from the police. In England, that applies to all offences, including serious sexual offences, and if the police do not believe that a file meets the evidential thresholds for a decision, it will not be submitted to the CPS. We certainly did not want to go that far at this stage. We wanted to take a more cautious approach and test the system with the lower-level files. We have a number of criteria that exempt files from the process, such as anything that might give rise to public concern, issues of police independence and certain types of domestic violence offences with high-risk victims.

The process design was heavily influenced by our engagement with stakeholders. We had a number of intensive engagements with them, including a full briefing on the final evaluation before Christmas. Initially, the stakeholders may have had some concern about whether a victim would feel that they had not got the same service if there were a police decision-maker rather than a prosecutorial decision-maker, but they appreciate the care that has been taken with the safeguards, such as the victim's right to review, which Gary referred to. The stakeholders were broadly supportive. I do not want to speak for them, but we did not receive any particular concerns from them about rolling it out as business as usual.

Ms Egan: Thank you. It is important to have a victim-centred approach, and it is positive to hear that you engaged with those stakeholders.

I am also concerned about the attrition rate of victims throughout the justice system. I do a lot of work on violence against women and girls and domestic and sexual abuse, and I hear from victims who find the process traumatising, whether that is after they have contacted the police or after a file has gone to the PPS, and that is due to delays in the justice system and the anxieties that they feel around the process. They just feel that withdrawing and dealing with it in another way suits them best. Do you see cases like that? Are there a lot of domestic and sexual abuse cases? Are there other types of cases in which you have concerns about victim attrition rates? Are there any ways that you feel we could tackle those issues?

Mr Agnew: We probably lack reliable data on witness attrition. The Department shared a report quite recently, albeit it looked at cases from between 2018 and 2019, and the PSNI may have some data on attrition at the investigation stage. Some of the figures quoted are very high and very concerning. When you look into them to understand them a little bit better, you see that, in sexual violence cases, quite a lot of cases that might be identified as victim attrition cases are ones in which the report did not come from the victims themselves. There is a duty on us all to report a relevant offence to police. When certain disclosures are made, that can result in a healthcare professional or somebody else reporting it to the police. Therefore, a lot of cases that involve attrition occur in that context. You also have a lot of cases that may not be of that nature but concern a complainant who was never really intent on seeing it through from a criminal justice point of view. A lot of cases drop out. The report that I saw indicated that a lot of cases drop out even before a statement is made or before an ABE interview is conducted.

The next stage is that the case will come to us. The report also looked at what happens at that point. Again, some more victims drop out at that point. The types of issues that are raised are the deterioration of mental health, a desire to move on and the fact that it is causing too much stress. The report did not find any particular links to delay, but it recognised that delay is very much built in. Stress, anxiety or deteriorating mental health can occur because of the length of time that an investigation or prosecution takes to proceed.

In domestic violence cases, the police will do their best to secure cooperation from a complainant. In the PPS, we recognise that it is sometimes understandable that the victim will not want to support a prosecution, but it may nevertheless be in the public interest to proceed with the prosecution. That is where the term "evidence-led prosecution" comes from, which is a big focus in the PPS. It is about building a case without a complainant's evidence, and we do that regularly. We have a lot of training for our prosecutors on that, and I am personally involved in revising that training at the moment to try to make sure that we do that as best we can.

It is a factor. It is difficult to give you hard data on it, but it is about early engagement with victims, assessing their needs and putting in place whatever support we can. Those are the types of steps that the police and the PPS undertake to try to minimise the impact of attrition.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: I will echo some of Michael's comments, particularly those about third-party reports. In those instances, it is challenging to keep victims on board when they are not necessarily engaged from the outset. We have some very brief operational data that shows a slight reduction in evidential difficulties where the victim does not support the case. So far this year, it is sitting at around 22·9%, and, last year, it was 27%. That is operational data. It is all about trying to address delay, speed things up and ensure that victims are kept updated as the investigation progresses and that there is early support through referrals to Victim Support, sexual offence legal advisers and domestic abuse advocates. It is also about the adoption of special measures, such as ABE interviews etc, and supporting that through the criminal justice system to try to reduce attrition across all victim types. We are very much alive to that.

We have undertaken a whole range of initiatives over the past number of years to try to reduce victim attrition, particularly when it comes to the point that Michael talked about. We talk about taking a evidence-led approach to prosecution in domestic violence cases. That can mean using the 999 call recording, police officer body cam footage and corroborating evidence, which might be evidence from neighbours or other evidence that is available, to try to continue that prosecution when it is in the public interest to do so. Martin, do you want to make other points?

Superintendent Reid: I will outline some wider ongoing pieces of work. The Department will launch its victims and witnesses of crime strategy next month. That will bring in a whole raft of measures to make sure that we minimise attrition and support victims and witnesses throughout the totality of the system. Some of my team and I will be directly involved in that specific piece of work. There are ongoing discussions at Justice Department level about a victim needs assessment service. Again, that will focus on the same thing and ensure that victims are supported and that attrition is minimised. Regardless of any funding opportunities in that space, the key partners are already in active discussion about we can do to make sure that we support victims and minimise attrition.

The Chief Superintendent talked about our links with Victim Support NI. We have bespoke, automated referrals to Victim Support NI, and we have been working really hard to make sure that those are as good as possible. There is some debate about what should and should not be shared, but we have worked really hard to make sure that the referrals that should be made are being made. We are actively working on that technological piece. The whole victims space is clearly very much on the radar of the Assistant Chief Constable (ACC), who is the PSNI's victims champion. Just a few days ago, I received an invitation to join the strategic community engagement group, where I will feed in specifically on victims' issues. That will mean that, across the service, a bespoke victims element will be included in our work to ensure that all parts of the organisation link in where they need to.

Ms Egan: That is great. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): I remind members and witnesses to be concise in their questions and answers.

Mr McGlone: Thank you for your presentation. I have two or three wee questions. You mentioned active victims feedback, Superintendent Reid. May I suggest that a good part of that would be constables or sergeants lifting the phone and updating people? That is one of the most common complaints that I get from people. Doing that does not require a computer; all it needs is for somebody to pick up the phone and engage with people. I am not saying that that happens in all cases, but basic human contact can help to ease people's minds and let them know that at least somebody cares. That is vital.

I will move on to issues to do with facilitation and accumulation. Let us take evidence gathering. Chief Superintendent, you were very quick to establish that the 14% or so of cases that were sent back were about looking for further information. On the flip side, you could argue that that information should have been there in the first place. That brings me to the role that you have outlined for quality assurance inspectors concerning enhanced file quality. They will have a pretty pivotal role, will they not? The question is this: how are they going to do that?

I read a fascinating article yesterday by a Matt Shumer on the role and function of AI. I followed that up last night, because I knew that we would be commenting on it at Committee, and I read that AI is being used by some police services in the United States to gather and compile evidence from body cams. Have you looked at the role of AI in quickly and accurately gathering and collating evidence? I raised that matter with the Lady Chief Justice when we met her. We know that that can be done. I have spoken to businesspeople who have found AI to be really efficient in doing what they need it to do. That is the first thing.

I will come to you on my second point, Mr Agnew. Matt Shumer's article referred to legal services as being an area that could very quickly find itself being overtaken by AI. Have you looked at that and the possibilities of dealing with that? From what I am reading and what I have learned from my very basic experience of it, it will make things faster and more efficient and could get us to the point where, I hope, it can enhance collation, quality control and, ultimately, the decision-making on your part in the cases where that can be done. There will be other cases where it simply cannot be done because they still require human intervention. Are you able to give me a flavour of your thinking and direction around that, please?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: I will kick off. We understand how important victim updates are. We measure that at an organisational level. We get that feedback fairly consistently, and we continually try to address that. I accept that the victim portal does not necessarily mean that somebody picks up the phone, but using it could result in an officer picking up the phone. For example, if a victim logs on to their portal account at 11.00 pm to request an update, that could happen —.

Mr McGlone: If they can use the portal.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Of course. It is about having a suite of options. We closely monitor the compliance of victim updates.

You are right that the gatekeeper is a critical function. That is why we have pitched it at inspector rank. We bid for additional funding through the DOJ from the transformation fund to secure additional posts. We have prioritised those in the area of domestic abuse. Summary and indictable domestic violence files will all be assessed by a gatekeeper before they go to the PPS. They work under that Working Together programme, and there is a very clear list of what is required in respect of file build and quality. That is starting to drive up file quality in that area, which is great to see.

Turning to AI, we have an AI steering group in the organisation that is chaired by the ACC for the Justice Department, Anthony McNally. The group is about scoping out potential opportunities for the use of AI across a number of different policing functions in an ethical way that is explainable and accountable. It is about making sure that we have the appropriate parameters around it and that we always have a human in the loop.

We are alive to the different opportunities that AI would bring. I outlined some of the key innovation and technology that we have used over the past number of years to speed things up in respect of our digital evidence and digital statements. I talked about the use of voice-to-text technology, for example, and the summarisation of interviews. No doubt, there will be opportunities in the future for us to use technology to assist with file build and file quality to speed things up. We are not quite there yet, but we have spoken about a number of opportunities around that.

Is that it from my perspective?

Mr Agnew: I think so, unless you want to comment on whether prosecutors will be replaced.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: I will let you take that one.

Mr Agnew: I will try to deal with that one.

I endorse what has been said. Your second and third questions are absolutely linked. You talked about the gatekeepers and checking the file quality. That is a really important role and a very welcome investment, and we have seen improvements. For the next year of our plan, we are looking to refine and streamline the process a bit, but that will very much be with an eye to what technology can do to help us with that in the future, because it is a more sustainable model. Having a gatekeeper at inspector level is a significant resource. If some of that work can be done with the use of artificial intelligence, that is great. ACC McNally is co-chair of the Working Together programme board, and, in fact, at our last board meeting, we had a very similar conversation to that which you are inviting here.

Mr McGlone: I am sorry for interrupting, but are you working on AI on that board?

Mr Agnew: No. We are working on file quality and other issues. There is modernisation and transformation.

Mr McGlone: Just to get it clear in my mind, are you using AI?

Mr Agnew: No. As Gary said, we are at the early stages of scoping. It is quite new to everybody, and everybody cannot go racing off doing uncontrolled behaviour in that space. I can definitely see the potential for AI to help, but we have to be quite responsible around it. Particularly when you are in the public service, you cannot afford to get it wrong. The police and the PPS are dealing with very sensitive information.

In fact, at our planning day a couple of weeks ago, we had a presentation from an external provider on artificial intelligence and what it can do in the criminal justice system for prosecutors. We had a trip over to the CPS to see what it is doing on AI. It has a big, well-resourced team, as you can imagine. Some of the uses that have been presented to us include document review and analysis. If you have complex material, the scope for AI to help with that and get through it a lot quicker is great. Automated redaction is another one, along with client or victim communication. The CPS has a pilot where first drafts of letters to victims might be done by AI. That is a good idea, but it needs to be approached with some care, and there needs to be transparency around that.

Mr McGlone: Totally.

Mr Agnew: You could see how it could produce a draft, but there definitely needs to be a human involved in it. Anybody who receives such communication needs to be aware of the process by which it was presented. I agree.

It is early days when it comes to the scope for AI to help with file quality work, as Gary said. When we were outside in the corridor, Marty told us about a meeting that he had yesterday with one of our modernisation leads, and they discussed the PSNI's work in the AI space. What is really important is that we are right beside the police. Some bits of it will not impact on us at all, but, for the bits that impact on the PPS, we need to be right beside the police so that we understand what is happening and helping them with that, because it is exactly the type of area where one organisation could work in a bit of a silo. The police and PPS have come a long way, and we know to consult on those issues, but this is one area in which we really need to work closely.

Mr McGlone: Thank you for that.

With your forbearance, Chair —.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): Quickly, Patsy.

Mr McGlone: The private sector is often way ahead of what the public sector is doing. Have you had any advice from some of the big legal firms, whatever they are — some of them are located in Belfast — or any talks with them to ask, "What are you guys doing?"?

Mr Agnew: Not yet. I will let Peter come in here in a minute. The nature of the work that they do is different from prosecutorial decision-making.

Mr McGlone: I know, but it is legal work —

Mr Agnew: Yes, it is, but —.

Mr McGlone: — even though they are on the other side of the bench at times. I get how that works.

Mr Agnew: Yes, but a lot of it is document review. I will pass to Peter.

Mr Peter Luney (Public Prosecution Service): We have not had any direct engagement with large private-sector legal firms. As we mentioned, we have talked to the Crown Office in Scotland and the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales to see how their learning is coming along. You may be aware from previous presentations that the Causeway system, which is the IT system that joins up all the criminal justice organisations, is in the process of being retendered. As part of the procurement exercise, a number of the suppliers have brought in partner companies specifically on AI and how it can support the justice system to improve. It would be really useful to engage with some of them and bring them in to ask, "What can you do for PPS?", because some of the examples that they gave were from the CPS field. We obviously need to do that in a way that does not cut across the procurement process, because procurement can be litigious, but there are two or three companies that could help us make progress quite quickly if we were to engage with them.

Mr McGlone: That is grand. Thanks very much indeed.

Ms Sheerin: Both of you referred to an uplift in budget specifically around access to justice and tackling delays. For both organisations, are those programmes bearing fruit yet?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: From a policing perspective, I can mention a number of initiatives. The "No file" decision initiative is a key outcome of the speeding up justice work. That takes around 4,500 files out of the system and delivers the same outcome in about half the time. That is a key tangible outcome.

We have expanded the community resolution notice criteria over the past number of years. We are seeking to expand the penalty notices as well, which we will talk about next week. We are at an advanced stage with that, which, again, will allow for a proportionate disposal of offences at a much earlier stage.

On file quality, I talked about the additional gatekeeper resources. Working alongside our partners in the PPS, we are now seeing those being embedded and an increase in file quality.

Ms Sheerin: What about out-of-court disposals?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: I do not know the scale of the increase. We issue around 800 community resolution notices a month, and we are working on expanding penalty notices at the minute. The "No file" decision initiative is the other key outcome of out-of-court disposals; as I said, there are around 4,000 of those. That has pushed our timeliness up as an organisation to around 81%, whereas it was sitting at around 72% or 73% before. Taking out those files has allowed officers to concentrate on the other file builds and allowed the case management teams the additional capacity to focus on and process the other file types that are going to court. That is probably the key outcome so far. We are about a year or 18 months in. We will see a huge benefit with the expansion of penalty notices, if we get that over the line and operationalised. That will be the next stage.

We are doing other work around restorative justice. We are stepping into that space, and we will see that as a key outcome. As a criminal justice system, we have not really leaned into that for some time in a formalised way. That will also bear fruit in due course.

Ms Sheerin: OK.

Mr Agnew: The file quality work is very much what we are spending our transformation money on, if you like. As Gary said, that has seen good increases in file quality in domestic violence cases, and we have aligned it to those cases to make sure that we are aligned with government priorities.

We are only a year into that process, and now we are looking to build on it, refine it and lean more into the technology side to make sure that it is as sustainable as possible. We have just started. We have extended that into the more serious, indictable cases, and, again, we will see file quality improvements there.

The other thing that we are doing in that space is seeking to have senior public prosecutors looking at — I do not want to get too technical — 28-day charge files immediately, and have case ownership the whole way through a case from the start. We have already seen some really positive results. Only a small number of cases have gone through it, but, of the cases that have gone through that process, which have been prosecuted on indictment, we have seen decisions issued within 39 days compared with a baseline figure of 123 days. That is a 68% reduction, and I would love to say that it is scalable and will be long term, but it will be more challenging than that. However, we are testing a model that we have not really tested before, and the early indications are really good. I am quite excited about being able to roll that out over the next year and, hopefully, come back with some very positive reports on it.

Ms Sheerin: Thank you. Chair, I have just one more question. You referred to the PSNI's internal filing systems and updates to victims. I preface this by saying that we are rarely, if ever, contacted with good news stories. However, I think of a number of cases, in the past six months, where I have dealt with people involved in really sensitive, traumatic incidents. In one example, a family was told that a family liaison officer (FLO) would be appointed, then they were told that, no, that was not the case, and a constable was dealing with it. Then they had logged over 50 calls in the space of a month, and they were told that the constable who was dealing with their case was off on leave and that it had not been assigned to anyone else. There was zero communication. Then they were told that an FLO had not been an appropriate suggestion in their case and should never have been referred to.

I have serious concerns. In that particular family's case, they feel that the incident that occurred has been covered up. I think of other examples in which two families are going through similar incidents: one is told that it is a specific offence that will be dealt with in a particular way, and the other is told that it is not a policing matter at all. There are instances of police officers going into a home and not identifying themselves, not leaving a card or any contact information.

We have the broader issue here of access to justice and how long it has taken to receive results, but, even in the interim, there are massive communication problems, and that feeds into serious anxiety in our communities as to how effective policing is. People do not feel that they can get any feedback, let alone a result.

Mr McGlone: as well as efficient.

Ms Sheerin: Yes.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: It is really disappointing to hear that. I am more than happy to look at that particular case, if we can have a chat, and seek to find out what has gone on and put it right if we possibly can. It is not nice to hear of circumstances like that.

Victim updates are a priority for us, and, as I say, we have compliance and monitoring processes in place. We can look across different departments and districts in compliance. We have built the portal to try to enhance communication with victims so that they can get their updates and communicate with the officers. However, there is always work to do on that. In part of the work that Marty has referred to — victim needs assessments and the whole journey from the point of referral right through — we do a lot of work with partners to enhance that at every point.

Marty, is there anything that you want to say?

Superintendent Reid: It is really concerning and sad to hear that. It is the exact opposite of everything that we try to do. We have been really pushing the quality of victim updates, as well as the quantity. The updates need to be really good. We have been trying to engage. I say again that we are happy to review individual cases. If anybody comes across an individual case that is concerning, they can come in directly for independent review at my branch level. We have really good working relationships with the likes of Victim Support and the Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime. We have said that if you come across cases in which things are clearly wrong and not working, you can come to me and we can pick them up, review them and make sure that those individual failings and flaws can be addressed as quickly as possible. Everything that you have spoken about is exactly what we are trying to fix in the system.

Ms Ferguson: It has been a detailed presentation, so thank you all. There has been a lot of discussion on file standards and quality. When will the gatekeepers be implemented? I am slightly concerned. I declare in interest: I am supporting someone who went to the Public Prosecution Service, agreed not to go forward but have not been happy. I have been assisting them with the lack of evidence and the work that the police did.

I get anxious when we are speeding up the system, and you have a lot of things going on to try to improve it. I am conscious of the resources that you have on the ground and the digital aspect of cases. How is it going with the resources that you have and all the digital information, which is involved in 97% of cases, when it comes to scribing, writing, presenting, filing and doing everything that you possibly can? I am conscious that there are barriers to evidence in some cases. You have identified some areas, which I am concerned about, because one is a specific area in the case that I am working on, where there was no engagement or follow-up with the likes of social services, or there was and they could not get any information, despite the fact that it was key information that they could

their case. I just want to get a feel for what you think. Where is it all at regarding the IT, the quality and how things are moving, and how you are dealing with that, based on the resources that currently exist, to ensure that you have top quality? It is really good to hear that you have that gatekeeping and are looking at quality all the time, but I am conscious that, behind the scenes, you are trying to gather evidence.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: When we talk about speeding up justice, we are not talking about compromising quality. It really is about looking at the appropriate mechanisms to speed up justice. For example, we looked at the "No file" decision. That was about taking out the lower-level crime, on which the PPS agreed with us about 97% of the time. We were able to create capacity to focus on the cases that were going to go to court and to build on that. It is not speeding up at any cost. We are very much of the mind that we cannot compromise on investigative quality and victim care. Likewise with the CRN expansion and penalty notice expansion, it is about disposing of lower-level cases appropriately, proportionately and in a speedy way so that, again, we can focus on the other cases.

Clearly, it is challenging because we have the lowest police officer numbers that we had have for a long time, and the demand on us is significant. I talked a little bit about some of the technology that we have been trying to use to make matters a bit more efficient. There is still a lot more work to do in the technology field. We talked about AI and the AI steering group. We are really only starting our AI journey and looking at the opportunities from that, but we are continually benchmarking across other police services and private industry and talking to companies about where the learning opportunities are to help us in that tech space, and we have made progress on that.

We are continually reviewing our policy and processes to make things more efficient. You asked about the gatekeepers. They are now in place. The additional gatekeepers as a result of the transformation funding have been in place for the past couple of months.

Superintendent Reid: For the past three or four months.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: That additional capacity has just landed. That is an example of looking at policy and process, and providing little bit of additional resource and repurposing some resource to try to get it right first time. It is a challenge to push through files and investigations and to continue the front-line work. Our front-line detectives are under a huge amount of pressure —.

Ms Ferguson: I will give you just a simple example, Gary. I know of a domestic violence case where someone gave a statement through a camera, and then, six months later, was told, "Aw no, you have to come down to the station and make a statement". A few months later, they were told, "You have to come down again; we've lost your written statement". That person had to go to the police on three occasions. I know that that is a one-off example, but is that the type of thing that is being looked at?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: Absolutely. You are talking about CCTV, for example. We can now capture CCTV on body-worn video, and we have agreed that with the PPS and the presiding district judge in order to speed things up in, for example, the cyber area, as it can take a while to process CCTV. We are looking for ways to circumvent in an appropriate way the processes that we are able to circumvent.

Ms Ferguson: Does that happen when someone knows that there is information on a phone, and nobody goes to check and analyse the phone, and nothing is done with it? What relationship and control do you have to access someone's phone?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: A phone can be taken as part of the investigation. There is a lot of work through our cyber colleagues in the crime department, who are trying to speed up the triage of phones for examination. There is work under way on the examination of phones through kiosks, so we do not have a single point of entry. We are pushing that out to the appropriate local teams to do the initial triage to avoid a single point of entry that can be a choke point. We are looking at the structure, systems and processes for cyber investigations, and some of the examples given today have delivered real efficiencies. For example, I mentioned the digital ingest of digital evidence, where people can submit their CCTV or Ring doorbell footage over the portal, which means that a police officer does not have to travel for an hour to collect the evidence, bag it and bring it back, and that is an efficiency. It enhances the service for victims, because they do not necessarily want a police car sitting outside their home address to pick up the Ring doorbell footage. We can take a remote statement from a witness from the comfort of their home, and the police officer will record it digitally in the station. We are starting to see real efficiencies from that.

Ms Ferguson: That is good. I have one last question, and I have brought up this issue before. I visited a court and sat in it for 15 minutes, and about 20 cases were adjourned in that time. You mentioned that 11% of adjournments are at the request of the prosecution, 51% are at the request of the defence and 38% are at the request of the court. What is happening in that field? Out of everything that you have mentioned today, what could make the biggest difference?

Mr Agnew: It depends on which court you visited when you saw the cases being adjourned. The figures that I mentioned are for the Crown Court, and they do not tell us very much. It is high-level information, but there is more beneath that gives the reasons for the adjournments in the Crown Court. The Lady Chief Justice may have referred to the fact that she is seeking to do more detailed work to understand the reasons for that. If you had been sitting in the Magistrates' Court, which you may have been, and the case in question was a charge case, it may have been adjourned because the investigation was continuing, the case was at an early stage or the investigation had resulted in a file being submitted that was under consideration. It is difficult for me to comment on your example of cases being adjourned without a bit more context.

Ms Ferguson: The conversation indicated that not enough evidence had been brought forward.

Mr Agnew: I can only imagine that the cases were at the early stages of investigation, and it depends on the nature of the cases. Gary mentioned some of the problems with cybercrime: the backlogs in that area have been turned around, and some very good work has been done to enable that to happen. We are definitely in a better space.

Superintendent Reid: I will comment because it is a recent issue. Mr McDonald generally sits on the speeding up justice programme board. At our last meeting, the issue of adjournments came up specifically, and there were various high-level statistics about why there are so many adjournments. Again, there will be an additional piece of work to identify the reasons for adjournments. As Mr Agnew has said, there are a range of reasons, including waiting for a pre-sitting report. It is an active topic that is being looked at.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you. It has been great to hear that so much work is happening, and you seem to be on your game. You are juggling a lot, but it is great. Likewise, I emphasise that the concerted effort that you have put into the work for victims is very good. Gary mentioned exploring restorative justice, and that could be of assistance because it is an all-partnership approach to building cohesion across the justice system, and I also welcome that. Thank you.

Mr Bradley: I will be brief because most of my questions have been answered. I will pick up on what Connie said about sexual and domestic violence. From my point of view, the assaults, intimidation and threats from drug suppliers wear people down because the cases do not go to court quickly enough, and then the victims pack it in. I am concerned that people who genuinely deserve justice do not get it because of the time that it takes to get a case to court.

You talked about digitisation to empower, train, support and improve quality. Are there any plans to utilise back-office staff to free up PSNI officers for the front line? A lot of this stuff can be done by back-office PSNI staff. Can that be looked into?

AI has a learning process; it is a beast that learns. It collates, collects, disseminates and cross-references information. How will you ensure that the AI that you use will be contained in your digital system, given that, if AI gets into another system, you do not know what it will tell that system? How do you plan to make sure that everything is secured on your servers?

Chief Superintendent McDonald: I will kick off on the AI aspect, and Marty can talk about the back-office support function. He has some good examples of progress on that.

We are alive to the concerns around everything that you have just said, which is why we are taking a slow and methodical approach to our work on AI. How we do that is, as you said, a technical question that I will probably leave to my colleagues in our information and communication services department. To reassure you, I will say that all these things are being looked at through the lens of information security and data protection: our ethical and proportionate use of AI; the extent to which we use the cloud; and our guidance and risk assessment. We are alive to and progressing all that. We are benchmarking that work against UK Government guidelines on the use of AI and the National Police Chiefs' Council guidelines, so we are also well plugged in to all that in our development of AI.

We are taking a slow, methodical approach. I have no doubt that there are lots of benefits and opportunities with AI in all the work that we have talked about, from the contact centre — the initial contact from members of the public through our 101 system — to how we investigate crime and how we build files, check their quality and submit them to the PPS.

Superintendent Reid: An awful lot of what we are doing that Mr McDonald has spoken about is very much designed to free up additional hours at the front end to allow officers to do their victim updates, do better investigations and prepare better files. A simple example of what we are doing is our recently introduced collision report form app that allows officers to submit material electronically. That has saved about 70% of the time that the process previously took for officers and back-office functions.

I am actively involved in my branch review — my branch has a significant number of back-office administrative functions — which is very much designed to free up additional capacity and find additional resource, with the plan being to help the front end in any way we can. Again, it will be about file quality and timeliness, perhaps, and about making sure that we provide evidential checks. Those have not traditionally been done within administrative functions, but we are confident that we can do them and that that will give officers more time and help provide better investigations, better victim updates and higher-quality files for the PPS. That is an active, ongoing piece of work.

Mr Bradley: Very good.

Mr Luney: Gary is right: slow and methodical is definitely the right approach to AI. We have a number of constraints. Causeway sits on a confidential network that AI is not allowed on to, which is an inhibitor that will need to be tackled as we move forward. The other challenge is that AI is normally powered by a large language model that sits somewhere else, possibly in the UK or in Europe or further afield. That is why we are always told that there are real risks in using it with any sensitive material. However — I am not a techie either — you can build an AI solution with guard rails so that you can feed in confidential information but that will not go beyond those guard rails. The processing will still be done elsewhere, but the information is protected. There are ways of overcoming that challenge, but it will take time to get there.

Mr Bradley: One thing, Chair. When I use sensitive files, I take them out of the system, put them on the desktop, where I amend them, and put them back in the system. In that way, the file cannot go out accidentally.

Mr Beattie: Michael, I will pick up on your answer to one of Brian's questions. We are incentivising not guilty pleas, and that is creating some of the delays in our justice system. Connie raised the issue of sexual crimes. The drop-off rate in sexual crime cases seems to be so much higher. The delay is causing that. If any perpetrator who is guilty just says, "I'm not guilty", he knows that, during a period of nearly two and a half years, the victim's desire to pursue the case might fall off, in which case he will get away with it. Alternatively, he knows that, right up to the day on which the trial starts, he can change his plea and get up to 25% off his sentence. Do you have a proposal to try to cut out that incentivisation? My proposal would be to take it away completely: you either plead guilty at arraignment or you do not. There is no more incentivisation. Do you have anything that you think would be useful?

Mr Agnew: There is a consultation on that, and we have provided a response to the Department. I mentioned the model used in England and Wales, our closest comparator. It is a more structured and transparent arrangement: all the practitioners, including the defendants and their legal advisers, know exactly where they stand if they do not enter their guilty plea at the earliest opportunity. They can see the differential that I talked about, which is required in order to drive behaviour. I mentioned my trip to Leeds as well. It was very impactful when the judge confronted the defendant directly with the reality. Some judges raise the issue of reductions in sentence. I would like to see that done more consistently.

The final issue is about whether we are prepared to go beyond a third for certain types of cases or in certain circumstances. Again, that is being considered in England and Wales. Leveson recommended that we look at that. Technically, in Northern Ireland, the maximum credit is supposed to be reserved for those who make their admission in the police station, not, for example, a year or two later, when a sexual offence case first arrives in court. For those who make those early admissions, vindicate a victim's complaint and remove the anxiety of what lies ahead at that very early stage, I think that there is a conversation to be had about whether more than a third might be appropriate. Again, I think that that is something that Gillen talked about in 2019.

Mr Beattie: You are right, Michael. The problem is that late guilty plea. The victim could go through two years of hardship and getting ready for a trial, only for the perpetrator, on the day on which the trial starts, to plead guilty and get up to 25% off their sentence. That is a real issue. You raise a really good point.

Mr Agnew: I understand the concern about such a change. Part of the difficulty is that, with the law as it is, it would probably require an intervention to move the dial in relation to how we deal with those issues. We have a lot of cases in the system that are past the first point — past arraignment. I understand the concern of many who want to keep that carrot available in order to clear some of those cases. The counterargument that is made to me sometimes is that you will have defendants who will just not be ready to plead guilty at the start, and you need to keep that incentive, even at a later stage. However, I feel that we need to turn that around: the incentive needs to be there at the early stage, not at the late stage. It will be a bit of a hard transition, particularly when you have cases that are in the system. If it were going to be changed, it may be that it needs to be prospective, so that people are entering the system with that new framework that can inform their decision-making, as opposed to those who are already in the system and may have reached a point where they want to plead guilty but need some sort of incentive to do so.

Mr Beattie: We are talking about the delays in the justice system. I am always solution-focused in that regard. We all need to be. I am looking at solutions. One of the discussions that I had with the director was about whether we should increase the mandate of our Magistrates' Courts. You have already talked about non-fatal strangulation, which has now moved from the Magistrates' Court to the Crown Court. I believe that that is because of case law that said that animates that the sentence should be three years, or that is a sentencing line. However, that is outside the remit of the Magistrates' Court, and that is why it has gone to the Crown Court. Should we increase the powers of the Magistrates' Court? Would that alleviate a lot of the problems in the Crown Court?

Mr Agnew: Yes, that is definitely a fundamental part of the speeding up justice plan. We are at the early stages with that. There has been some scoping to determine what an increase in the jurisdiction — maybe to two years or three years — would do. It would actually take quite a lot of the volume of the Crown Court work out of the Crown Court and into the Magistrates' Court. If we want to deal with the increasing demand, increasing complexity and increasing delays in the Crown Court, we need to free up some resource. In my opening comments, I mentioned the fact that it is not straightforward. There are all sorts of related issues about removing rights to elect for a Crown Court trial in certain types of cases as well as simply increasing the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court. However, absolutely, there will be a detailed consultation, I hope, at some point, and that will set out all the advantages and disadvantages and all the nuances. Everybody can then take an informed position.

Mr Luney: Michael mentioned earlier that the Leveson proposals had created some pushback in England and Wales. There are differences between England and Northern Ireland. Although England and Wales have some professional magistrates, a lot of the courts still use the bench of three lay magistrates. The district judges here are all professionals, so it is a different proposition in Northern Ireland. The argument for making the change is probably more positive.

Mr Beattie: It will still take quite a long time to put in place. It will not alleviate the problem that we have now. If we decide to move that way, it will happen years down the road. Is that fair?

Mr Agnew: That is fair.

Superintendent Reid: I will make a comment to be helpful. There is an active working group to look at the remit of the Magistrates' Court. I sit on that. It is one of the workstreams under the speeding up justice programme board. We are at that scoping stage, looking at some of the strange anomalies between sentencing powers and length of sentences in the Magistrates' Court and the Crown Court. That is an active piece of work, and we suspect that, at some stage, we will go out to public consultation on that.

Mr Beattie: This is my last, brief question, Michael. Gary, you can jump in if you so wish. I have a real concern about the haphazard manner of support and care for victims. I do not mean that in a negative way, but we have so many different groups that are dealing with victims' care that it means that many victims and their families are falling through the cracks. I see that all the time. One of the issues is that the victim information scheme is an opt-in scheme, but I believe that it should be an opt-out scheme. In other words, everybody should be involved in the victim information scheme unless they make an obvious choice to come out of it. What do you think about that idea?

Mr Agnew: The victim information scheme is a post-conviction, post-release scheme, is it not?

Mr Luney: It is run by the Prison Service and is about early releases.

Mr Beattie: No, the victim information scheme is run by the Department of Justice, and it is so that people get information about those who have been convicted and are possibly coming up for parole or are close to having served their time and are moving into licence. Different people are dealing with it. The problem that we have is that people are completing their time behind bars and are being released back into the community, but victims' families are not being told that. Likewise, we have victims' families who suddenly notice — they find out from a newspaper — that the guy who murdered their loved one has been arrested in Portugal and is now facing extradition. How do we close that gap? Is it by having an opt-out scheme as opposed to an opt-in scheme?

Mr Luney: I do not know. Given the nature of the scheme that you are talking about, it is probably not for either the PPS or the PSNI to talk about. It really is for the Department. However, I can see some challenges with the opt-out scheme. When some people get to the end of their trial, they just want to put it behind them and close it. Giving them information unsolicited could, potentially, be problematic. It would certainly go some way towards addressing the issue that you raised, but it is maybe more about how we share information about the scheme and how we make sure that they know the benefits of opting in and how to keep in touch with us. Some people will move on, and we — the royal "we" — might lose their contact details.

However, I am not sure that I would go for reversal of the opt-in solution as the first choice.

Chief Superintendent McDonald: You are talking about the prison release stage, but, at the early stages of the investigation, victim referral to Victim Support is an opt-out scheme. That will automatically be completed unless the victim opts out. That is different from what you are talking about, but I say that to give you some reassurance that we look at opt-in versus opt-out, and we have taken the decision that the initial referral to Victim Support will be automatic.

Mr Beattie: Good enough. Thank you.

Ms Finnegan: I will go back slightly. You spoke about the PSNI being trauma-informed, and I acknowledge that commitment. However, I want to raise a concern around the practical application of the approach and officers not being properly trauma-informed. We see situations where victims are subject to repeated questioning, unnecessary credibility challenges or what can seem like speculative or dubious counter-allegations. I have heard about that from constituents who come my direction. That not only causes further harm to the victim but consumes significant police time and resources.

I have two questions that I will ask together. Are you looking at whether poor early decision-making leads to unnecessary investigative work and delay, and are you tackling that, if it is? Do you accept that failure to recognise those dynamics not only re-traumatises victims but diverts valuable PSNI resources?

Superintendent Reid: I will start with your last question. It is a tragedy for us and, more important, for victims if we are in any way overly intrusive or investigate in a way that we do not need to. That would be a concern. As with earlier comments, if any individual cases need to be highlighted, we are happy to look into those.

Part of the difficulty is that we need to take allegations at face value. There is an onus on us to do a certain amount of investigation up to the point where we are happy that there is no offence or that the counter-allegation is not substantiated. It is about trying to ensure that officers have a victim-focused mindset, do their investigations in a timely manner and, equally, close those investigations off at an appropriate stage before they press on. We are trying to instil the trauma-informed approach in officers. It has been discussed at various conferences. It is part of our training module that, when officers go out, they must be victim-focused. If they are and if they can progress and close off investigations, they will have more time — I agree completely — to concentrate on other investigations and other aspects of victim support.

Ms Finnegan: Thank you. That was perfectly answered. Front-facing police who go into the homes of victims need to be trauma-informed. There is an emphasis on that, in fairness, but there is still a lack of understanding of patterns of behaviour. I talk about it a lot, because there is such a lack of understanding.

Time and again, a system that is there to protect victims is used against them and as a form of control. Victims come forward and say that there is or was coercive control in their relationship, and that is not being recognised. Police try to identify sexual assaults and all those things, because they are easily identified, but they do not recognise patterns of behaviour. That causes massive delays in a recommendation being made to the PPS in order for it to make a decision on whether to take the case on. I want victims to be supported in that. If we identify that early, we will create a system where there are no delays further down the road.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): That is a point well made, Aoife.

Superintendent Reid: I agree 100% with all of that.

The Chairperson (Mr Frew): OK, folks. We are really struggling for time. That was a bumper session. Thank you very much for your attendance and for the quality of the information that you provided.