No Branch of the civil service has had to endure the kind of abuse which has been heaped upon the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

The organisation's leadership now fervently hopes that the CPS can shake off the poor image which is the legacy of its first decade.

One source of its optimism is the number of lawyers applying for CPS posts.

Where once there was a chronic shortage of applicants, there is now a huge surplus.

Formed in 1986 as an independent alternative to the old system of police-initiated prosecutions, the CPS has come under fire from many quarters: as much from within its own ranks as from outsiders.

The police reportedly dubbed it the Criminal Protection Service because of the number of cases it dropped.

The proportion of discontinuances almost doubled between 1987 and 1994, with a corresponding decline in convictions in the same period.

Jack Straw, the shadow home secretary, wrote in the recently published Law Reform For All that 'the structure and administration' of the CPS should be changed.

He has hinted that a Labour government would reverse the centralisation policy of Barbara Mills QC, director of public prosecutions since April 1992, under which the 31 CPS areas were whittled down to just 13.

This policy exacerbated the mismatch between CPS jurisdictions and police areas, making the CPS less effective, Mr Straw argued.

One of several crises of confidence within the CPS was sparked by a November 1993 attitude survey by the First Division Association (FDA) of senior civil servants.

The union represents some 75% of the total 2200 CPS lawyers, the largest number under one employer in the country.

It found that among its CPS members, morale was at an all-time low and an overwhelming majority had no confidence in the senior management.Jacqui Nicholl, head of the FDA's CPS section, says that industrial relations improved immediately after the survey.

However, in November of last year an FDA poll of its entire membership, undertaken by MORI, found the lowest morale and highest dissatisfaction was within its CPS section.

Members complained that management was poor and that government-imposed efficiency and economy drives had put intolerable pressures upon them.

Ms Nicholl said that budget cuts and new working practices have meant more time in court and less time available for case preparation.

She feared that the quality of decision-making would suffer and mistakes would be made by hard-pressed staff.

'It is now commonplace for prosecutors to prepare cases in their own, unpaid time and I have been particularly concerned by the number of stress-related sick leave cases this is producing,' she said.In the latest FDA survey, disaffection was particularly marked among the senior CPS grades, said Ms Nicholl.

Her view was supported by one former senior CPS administrator, who predicted that a rash of top level early retirements would affect branches in the coming months.

He hit out at the 'corporate loyalty' which he claimed managers now demanded from staff.

This had led to a 'terror factor' if staff were caught stepping out of line by speaking out against the CPS, he said.'Team working', the most recent change in the name of efficiency, has provoked particular discontent among prosecutors.

This involves working together in 'units', usually in an open plan office and side by side with case workers and administrative staff.

Privacy and quiet contemplation were not possible, one prosecutor complained.

However, Fiona King, assistant chief prosecutor, operations, in Victoria, London, thought that matters would improve when things settled down.

One serving senior administrator believed that underlying many complaints by CPS lawyers was the tendency of older staff to hark back to 'the good old days', when conditions were more relaxed.

DPP Mrs Mills dismissed the latest FDA findings as unrepresentative, but acknowledged that there was unhappiness among her staff.

'When an organisation goes through a big period of change internally and externally, people do feel unhappy and unnerved,' she said.

But her own experience, garnered by visiting each of the country's 98 CPS branches at least twice, was that the feeling among most staff was now positive.CPS work may also change qualitatively.

Last week the first pilot scheme to place prosecutors in police stations was set up in Darlington (see [1996] Gazette, 31 January, 3).

Another change the CPS has experienced is a huge demand for jobs from young lawyers -- a far cry from the early days, when the CPS suffered from a chronic shortage of recruits.

There is now a huge surplus in the number of applicants for every post and the CPS has almost ceased recruiting.

The last national recruitment drive for qualified lawyers yielded 500 applications for just 60 posts and in 1994 a massive 1300 applicants battled for just 20 legal trainee posts.

The annual resignation rate is running at about 3%.

The quality of CPS recruits, much derided in the past, is widely thought to have improved in the last few years.

Yet no one disputes that much of the new demand can be credited to a lack of alternative jobs currently available in private practice.

Indeed, some believe it is entirely due to the job climate.

'There's nowhere else to go.

If the job market in crime ever improves -- which it will -- I think there will be an exodus,' said one former senior administrator.Yet even disgruntled serving prosecutors agree that as a training ground for young criminal lawyers, the CPS is hard to beat.

'It's the best possible introduction to crime,' said one senior Crown prosecutor (SCP), who intends to resign from the CPS soon.

'It's a secure professional job and it's comparatively well paid,' said Margaret Bankole, a 30-year-old SCP at Havering and Redbridge Branch, who joined the CPS seven-and-a-half years ago.

Trainee beginners outside London earn about £13,000, rising sharply to about £20,000 for Crown prosecutors and on to a minimum of £24,000 for SCPs.