§ Mr. Donald AndersonTo ask the Attorney-General what considerations led to the omission of wasted costs orders from the annual reports of the Crown Prosecution Service. [28307]
§ The Attorney-GeneralInformation on costs awarded against the prosecution is published in the departmental report of the Lord Chancellor's and Law Officers' Department, Cm. 3209, March 1996.
§ Mr. AndersonTo ask the Attorney-General how many wasted costs orders have been made by courts against the Crown Prosecution Service in the last accounting year, with the breakdown of each Crown Prosecution Service area and the total sums for such areas and further broken down by the Crown courts and the magistrates courts. [28306]
§ The Attorney-GeneralWasted costs orders are usually so described—that is, orders against the legal or other representatives personally, pursuant to section 19A of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, are extremely rare in relation to representatives of the Crown Prosecution Service.
I have taken the hon. Member's question to refer to orders made under section 19(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 and regulation 3 of the Costs in 385W Criminal Cases (General) Regulations 1986, being orders based on an unnecessary or improper act or omission for which the prosecution is held responsible, which can arise for a variety of reasons. The numbers of such orders recorded against the Crown Prosecution Service, broken down by each Crown Prosecution Service area, and further broken down by Crown court and magistrates courts, are set out in the table. The final column of the table shows the amounts actually paid out by the Crown Prosecution Service in the last accounting year. This information cannot be separated between sums paid in respect of orders made by magistrates courts and those made in the Crown court.
Costs awarded against the Crown Prosecution Service 1995–96 Area Number of costs awards against CPS Amount paid £ Crown courts Magistrates' courts North 2 19 3,102 Yorkshire 11 160 8,215 Mersey/Lancashire 11 6 3,259 Humber 9 6 22,827 North-west 5 14 9,363 East Midlands 20 39 18,347 Wales 10 4 5,108 Midlands 9 7 7,503 Anglia 6 16 12,637 Severn/Thames 16 16 16,798 South-west 4 4 2,227 London 111 95 63,804 South-east 13 26 19,528 Central casework Not available Not available 52,003 Total 227 412 244,721 1. Information is not available to establish the enactment under which the orders were made and awards of costs made otherwise than in accordance with the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 may be included.
2. The information in relation to the number of awards is limited to Crown court and magistrates court cases. It does not include cost awards made in the higher court.
3. The number of awards relates to all cases dealt with by the CPS areas, but does not include any orders made in respect of the specialised work handled by central casework.
4. Information about the amounts actually paid includes payments in respect of orders made in the higher courts and those in respect of the specialised work handled by central casework, but the amounts paid cannot be broken down by type of court.