Prosecution Data for 2021, 2022, 2023, broken down by defendant self-defined ethnicity (SDE)

Request

Please provide, for the years 2021, 2022, 2023, the following information - broken down by defendant self- defined ethnicity:

1. Individuals against whom at least one charge was made, whether or not discontinued.
2. Individuals against whom a case was taken to an initial hearing.
3. Individuals against whom the CPS pursued a prosecution to completion, regardless of verdict.
4. Individuals against whom the CPS pursued a successful prosecution.

If, for whatever reason, you still estimate that this would exceed rules around time allocation, then please continue to answer number 4 at the very minimum.

Response

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds information within the scope of your request which is publicly available on our website and is therefore exempt and withheld from disclosure under section 21 – ‘Information accessible to the applicant by other means’ of the FOI Act. 

Please see the attached section 17 Refusal Notice which explains this exemption in further detail.

Under section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act we have an obligation to advise what, if any information may assist you with your request.

Information is published on the CPS website each quarter showing defendant prosecution outcomes, by convictions and non-convictions and demographic.

The data can be downloaded by viewing the CPS quarterly data summaries: CPS quarterly data summaries | The Crown Prosecution Service

• For 2021 data you will need to access the link for Q3 2021/22
• For 2022 data you will need to access the link for Q3 2022/23
• For 2023 data (to date) you will need to access the link for Q1 2023/24

The file labelled ‘CPS Prosecutions Demographics Tables’ worksheet 1.3 shows prosecutions by Ethnicity.

You may find it helpful to read the information under ‘About CPS data’ and ‘Understanding CPS data’, which explains what the data does, and does not, show.

Section 17 Notice under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 
WITHHOLDING INFORMATION

Section 21 states Information accessible to applicant by other means.

1. Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 21 is exempt information.
2. For the purposes of subsection 1 —
   a) Information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessible only on payment, and
   b) Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) to members of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.
3. For the purposes of subsection 1, information which is held by a public authority and does not fall within subsection 2(b) is not to be regarded as reasonably accessible to the applicant merely because the information is available from the public authority itself on request, unless the information is made available in accordance with the authority’s publication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined in accordance with, the scheme.

Section 21 is an absolute exemption which means there is no requirement to carry out a public interest test if the requested information is exempt.