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CPS needs to radically overhaul custody time limits procedures, says HMCPSI 

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The CPS needs to implement a radical overhaul of how they manage casework involving custody time limits across England and Wales to improve case progression, help reduce court backlog, and ensure freedoms are protected, says HMCPSI. 

Following inspections in 2021 and 2023, HMCPSI today has published a new inspection of CPS’s management and assurance of custody time limit cases across England and Wales. The inspection was conducted given an increase in custody time limit failures (where those on remand are released early from custody which occur when the court refuse an application to extend the custody time limit), unsurprising given that custody time limit caseload has significantly increased due to  court backlogs and increasing case complexity. 

Custody time limits are set in statute to protect the rights of defendants remanded in custody by limiting the period they can be lawfully detained before trial. Responsibility for custody time limits is shared between the courts and CPS.

In this latest inspection, HMCPSI found that across England Wales CPS staff were committed to preventing custody time limit failures, knowledgeable of their responsibilities, and understood the consequences if cases failed and not progressed in the right timeframes. 

In some places inspectors identified positive working practices, including early reviews and structured engagement with police partners.

However, HMCPSI identified significant variation across the 14 CPS Areas in how custody time limits procedures are understood and applied to cases with many Areas developing more complex systems to manage custody cases as they react to custody time limit failures. These systems are often burdensome and there is little evidence that this additional work makes a difference. The inspection highlights that resources are being wasted managing custody cases. 

Inspectors found that the significant variations were exacerbated by limited national oversight, outdated guidance documents, and locally developed systems which create different ways of working. The absence of a national forum to ensure better consistency and shared best practice around custody time limit processes across the CPS was a concern, although the CPS have recently addressed this gap. 

HMCPSI Chief Inspector Anthony Rogers said: 

“Custody time limits are essential safeguards, ensuring people remanded in jail are not kept there for too long and deprived of their fundamental freedoms.

“While we found many positive examples of CPS effectively managing custody time limits delivered by dedicated staff, the inspection found processes that are outdated, burdensome, vary from Area to Area, and do not meet current challenges in a post-Covid world.

“Custody time limits remain one of the most demanding aspects of CPS casework. That is why we are calling on CPS to ensure processes are simpler, risk-led and applied consistently across England and Wales. CPS needs to prioritise early grip of Crown Court cases, implement clearer national tools, and adopt stronger governance, especially on high-risk cases. 

“Fundamentally, the CPS needs to introduce a different approach to custody time limits so they can deliver high-quality case work, increase public trust and ensure they are upholding the fair administration of justice.”

To fundamentally change how CPS assures custody time limit cases, HMCPSI has made several recommendations to help CPS improve performance, including three to address issues in the short term and a longer term recommendation to develop a new approach:

  • By 31 July 2026, the national custody time limit working group should review CPS Area reports on Level 1 monthly assurance checks and custody time limit assurance app completion to identify performance issues, and scrutinise Area performance and share best practice through Level 1 and Level 2 assurance processes. 
  • By 31 July 2026 CPS to clarify the responsibilities of Area custody time limit Champions as referenced in the national standards, including a clear definition of the Area Strategic Champion role at Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor (DCCP) level, focused on improving custody time limit performance; and a clear definition of the Area Operational Champion role, including the required legal management level and the expectation to provide coaching and mentoring to support risk assessment and assurance.
  • By 31 July 2026, CPS to revise and publish the custody time limit Level D aide memoire, including the custody time limit Casework Quality Monitoring version, to add detailed questions for threshold test cases. 
  • The CPS should use the findings from this inspection of assurance systems to develop and implement a new approach to how it assesses and manages custody time limit assurance.