Public-private 'policy lab' to investigate ways to stop reoffending

The Ministry of Justice is to work with government and third-sector partners to look into opportunities for private investment and philanthropy to help the criminal justice sector. The announcement was made by the Sheriff of London this week at the final Justice for All event organised by the City of London. 

Speaking at the Old Bailey, Alderman Robert Hughes-Penney said the new 'policy lab' involves the Ministry of Justice, the Impact Economy Collective - an organisation which matches philanthropists and investors with government bodies to work on 'shared social' issues -  and the Cabinet Office's Office for the Impact Economy. ‘This is a significant development,' he said. ‘The lab will bring government and impact economy together to design practical models.’

Earlier, the event heard former head of the King's Bench Division Sir Brian Leveson call for more funding for the justice system. A ‘major factor’ behind the court backlogs and delays was ‘prolonged resource restraint coupled with growing inefficiency’, Leveson said. In 2025/26 day-to-day spending by the Ministry of Justice was 14% lower in real terms than in 2007/08, he noted. 

‘No area of justice is more overlooked than criminal justice,’ he added. ‘The consequences are clear: fewer available courts, a considerable maintenance backlog in the court estate, and a small and less experienced workforce.’ Each individual system – from the police to the CPS to the defence committee, the courts, the judiciary and prison and probation – ‘is facing their own complex individual challenges and too often not working as cohesively as they should’.

Leveson said that when his career began in 1971, judges would conduct two trials in a day. 'This was a time when there were few, if any, solicitors present in police stations, no PACE framework, no disclosure requirements, no special measures, no interpreters…and none of today’s technology. Over the past four decades reforms gave significantly improved fairness and safeguards but they have also added layers of complexity,’ he said.