The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has launched a national recruitment drive aimed at combating staff shortages by enticing 200 new lawyers into the service, with the main aim of staffing its charging programme.

It will take the number of lawyers working at the CPS to around 2,500, by far the largest single employer of lawyers outside of private practice.

The campaign will focus on finding more ways to spread the word about the benefits of working in the service; a key element is a new Web site, which is geared towards speeding up recruitment and reducing paperwork (www.cps-careers.org.uk).

Candidates will be able to assess their eligibility from the site before filling out an application form.

A CPS spokeswoman said: 'We need more lawyers in general but we are also doing this because of the charging programme - we need a backfill to meet the demands of the new charging centres.'

Following a successful pilot, responsibility for charging suspects has moved from the police to the CPS.

CPS national business support manager Janet Birch said it hoped to attract new talent by 'presenting a professional and modern image to the market place and showing that it is moving with the ever-changing recruitment process'.

The CPS has already received a boost with one recruitment campaign aimed at lawyers in London by scooping a prize last week for its 'caped crusader' campaign at Personnel Today magazine's recruitment advertising awards.

The advertisement led to the CPS snapping up eight directors and senior managers.

Meanwhile, Gwent CPS has set up a one-year project looking into the best ways of dealing with domestic violence cases through employing a part-time co-ordinator, streamlining court procedures and using lay advocates.

It is one of two pilots that will inform best practice nationally.

Launching the scheme this week, Solicitor-General Harriet Harman QC said: 'I am confident that the work planned under the Gwent pilot project will have a significant impact in working to stamp out domestic violence, which has no place in modern society.'

By Paula Rohan