Budget boost for the Ministry of Justice and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are drops in the ocean
Bar Council call for a longer term vision of how public confidence in tackling crime can be restored.
Responding to today's announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Spending Review to increase funding for tackling crime, Malcolm Cree CBE, Chief Executive of the Bar Council, said:
“The Chancellor’s increase in funding to tackle crime and help fix the criminal justice system is a step in the right direction and an acknowledgement that cuts made to the justice budget by previous governments went too far.
"It is encouraging to see the Treasury recognising the need to invest in the entire criminal justice system and not limit additional funding to police recruitment and prison places.
"Increases in funding in one area have effects which ripple across into other areas.
"The budget boost for the Ministry of Justice and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is necessary and overdue. But, although welcome, they are drops in the ocean in budgetary terms and will only go so far in restoring a justice system which is falling apart at the seams.
"We need a longer term vision of how public confidence in tackling crime can be restored."
