Sentencing Council launches five-year strategy

Producing and revising guidelines will remain the Sentencing Council’s core focus, according to its new five-year strategy.

A consultation seeking views on where its future priorities should lie found support for continued analysis and research, ensuring sentencing guidelines are evidence based. The council will be reviewing how it measures and interprets the impact of guidelines and, where possible, sourcing more and better data, as it places more focus on building up the underpinning evidence.

The Council has a statutory duty to have regard to the relative effectiveness of different sentences in preventing reoffending.

An earlier consultation recognised “the significant challenges of defining effectiveness in this context”, so the council will be making the evidence on effectiveness it considers when developing guidelines more transparent and “will consider undertaking qualitative research with offenders to explore which elements of a sentence may influence rehabilitation”.

There was support for the council’s work to improve public confidence in sentencing and it is set to improve partnerships with other organisations in order to reach a wider public and encourage broader participation in its consultations. It will also continue to work in partnership with the Judicial Office to launch a new version of the online sentencing tool, ‘You be the judge’.

The new strategy also includes consideration of equality and diversity, and how this applies to the guidelines in development and other areas of its work. This will include “a project to examine the language, concepts, factors and structure of guidelines for any potential, unintended impact that could lead to disparities in sentencing”.

Lord Justice Holroyde, chairman of the Sentencing Council, said: “The council is seen as an important and integral part of the criminal justice system. There was broad support for our own view that producing and revising guidelines should remain our primary focus but some respondents felt we could add more value by placing more emphasis on other aspects of our work.

“The strategic objectives we have set ourselves for the next five years reflect the statutory duties of the council, responses to the consultation and the resources we have at our disposal.

“The council remains committed to fulfilling the duties set out for us in legislation: producing guidelines that provide the courts with a clear, fair and consistent approach to sentencing and promoting awareness and understanding of sentencing among victims, witnesses, offenders and the public.”