Governments cash injection for CPS sparks recruitment campaign.

The government has announced a recruitment campaign for more lawyers and caseworkers for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) following a 30.4 million cash injection.The money is aimed at speeding up CPS reform and comes from the new criminal justice reserve.

It is in addition to the 71.3 million allocation made to the CPS in the spending review settlement last July.The CPS budget will be 416 million in 2001-02.

The criminal justice reserve is worth 100 million in 2001-02 and 525 million in total over the three years to 2003-04.The extra money was agreed by the Attorney-General, Lord Williams of Mostyn QC, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, and Home Secretary Jack Straw, saying that extra resources for the CPS are a priority.The government said the resources available to the CPS in 2001-02 will now be 23% higher in real terms than the current financial year.A national recruitment campaign for lawyers is to begin next week.

The second stage of the campaign will start next month to attract new caseworkers and administrative staff.The money will also be used to meet the targets to reduce the time taken between arrest and sentence, to improve the service the CPS provides to victims and to strengthen its contribution to tackling serious and organised international crime.A confident and successful CPS is a pre-requisite for an effective and efficient criminal justice system, said Lord Williams.