What’s new at the Ministry of Justice?
This is a blog by our Communications and Campaigns Officer, Isabelle Gius. Updated on 15th April 2024.
Parliament may be in recess, but Restorative Justice remains a strong political priority with momentum at a national level. Two recent developments from the Ministry of Justice have the potential to improve access and accountability, but only if Restorative Justice experts and the public put pressure on the Government to honour their commitments.
The first update comes from Lord Bellamy, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, who wrote a letter at the end of March to a group of peers who had tabled amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill about Restorative Justice. In this letter, Lord Bellamy sets out the actions that the Government will take in order to improve access and awareness of RJ.
While he assures Lord Hodgson, Baroness Brinton, Lord Harries and Baroness Bennet that “this government remains committed to the effective use of restorative justice,” Lord Bellamy also explains that “we remain firmly of the view that singling out the provision of restorative justice in the Bill is not necessary, or appropriate.”
The Government’s opposition to a legislative right to Restorative Justice comes from the fact that RJ is already included in the Victims’ Code. Therefore, according to the Government, there is no need to strengthen this right or take any additional steps. Lord Bellamy explains: “The Victims’ Code already sets out what restorative justice is and includes an entitlement for victims to receive information about restorative justice. This ensures that victims are aware of the choice and opportunity to access restorative justice if they wish to do so.”
Lord Bellamy’s response is extremely disheartening, because we know that this is not the case. Current provisions for Restorative Justice in the Victims’ Code of Practice are inadequate. In reality, the vast majority of victims are not receiving the information about Restorative Justice that they are entitled to. In 2020, the last year that the Crime Survey for England and Wales collected data on Restorative Justice, only 5.5% of victims with a known offender recalled being told about it. The Victims’ Code on its own is clearly not sufficient.
In our Restorative Justice Manifesto, released earlier this year, we outlined the importance of introducing the right to a referral in primary legislation, like in the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Establishing the legal right to be referred to a Restorative Justice service would put Restorative Justice on a stronger footing.
Although we are frustrated with the Government’s reluctance to adopt this approach, we were nevertheless glad to see several non-legislative measures proposed by Lord Bellamy in this letter. These measures include: consulting on an addition to the Victims’ Code so that victims will be told about Restorative Justice both when they report an offence and when the offender has been convicted; new guidance to commissioners of support services about Restorative Justice; and a willingness to convene a roundtable with PCCs and the Probation Service to encourage co-commissioning of Restorative Justice services.
If the Victims’ Code of Practice isn’t working, and victims are not receiving their Code entitlements, there are two options – first, introduce the right to Restorative Justice on the face of the Victims Bill, or second, ensure better compliance with the existing Victims’ Code. The bad news is that we’ve just had written confirmation that the Government isn’t going ahead with the former. The good news is that the Ministry of Justice is taking steps towards the latter.
This brings us to the second MoJ update: at the end of January, the Ministry of Justice released a Victims’ Code compliance factsheet. This document lays out their ongoing efforts to address widespread non-compliance with the Victims’ Code, including new requirements for criminal justice bodies to collect data on compliance and a new proposed system of local and national oversight of compliance. Interestingly, this factsheet would enable a Ministerial Taskforce to issue public “Non-Compliance Notifications” in cases where there is “severe and persistent non-compliance.” This means that if an agency does not perform their duties under the Code, or if victims are not receiving their entitlements, the Taskforce can issue public notifications summarising the issue and requiring the agency to respond.
This policy paper is an important step towards addressing the gap in enforcement that currently makes the Victims’ Code of Practice well-intentioned but ineffective. But much like the Code itself, there is the risk that this recent guidance will not be strong enough to create change in the Criminal Justice System unless it appears on the face of the Victims and Prisoners Bill and is made into law.
Our partners at Victim Support have been working with the Government on this front, urging them to commit to better compliance and enforcement in legislation, not just guidance.
At Why me?, we have been focusing our efforts on ensuring that the data collected about Restorative Justice is as clear and comprehensive as possible. We have proposed to the MoJ that quantitative metrics for Restorative Justice need to assess whether, when, and by whom victims are provided with information about Restorative Justice and how to access it.
It is clear that the political momentum around Restorative Justice is building, as policymakers from both Houses of Parliament make the issue impossible to ignore. Recent updates from the Ministry of Justice suggest that a new and strengthened era of Restorative Justice is on the horizon – but not without strong engagement from the RJ sector and people with lived experience to ensure that any new steps taken by the Government put the people and communities most affected at the centre.
Keep an eye on the newsletter for our upcoming policy campaigns and how you can get involved in the near future!
Update
On Tuesday, 9th April, the Government tabled a series of amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Several of these amendments focus on improving compliance and accountability with the Victims’ Code of Practice. These include: a requirement on Ministers to review Code compliance nationally; a requirement on Ministers to publish an annual review of Code compliance; a requirement for criminal justice agencies to have procedures in place for dealing with complaints about non-compliance; and a new statutory duty for these agencies to provide services in accordance with the Code, unless there is a good reason not to do so. While we remain convinced that including Restorative Justice on the face of the bill would be the best way forward, we welcome these promising steps and hope that they will help to ensure that people affected by crime can access the support they need.